GoPro HD 1080 « Videomaker Community Forums

Joshua Strazewski
Member

Waiting on my GoPro HD 1080 I ordered to come in. I was wondering if anyone has used this camera before. I got it as a cheaper alternative to the car mount for my HMC150. It says HD but I was wondering if it really gets that kind of quality for the price. I'm looking forward to shooting some footage for my Bike. I'll upload the video as soon as its done.

Posted 9 months ago #
Don
Member

have you watched mythbusters lately? they seem to use go-pros a lot....

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

I have seen that show quite a bit. Didn't realize they used them. I have seen one clip showing the GoPo falling off a car at a pretty high rate of speed and coming out undamaged so it makes sence that those guys would be using them. I'll have to check into some of their footage. Thank you.

Posted 9 months ago #
Don
Member

truthfully I find the footage off my go-pros to be very high quality.

but there are no manual controls, poor low light performance, and no audio input jacks...

but... they are still incredibly useful devices, everybody should buy one or two for thier camera bags.

tip:

keep the box it arrives in. That black plastic baseplate from the packaging material... a friend of mine was smacking himself in the head for throwing that out... it is a great mounting plate and very useful.... a little green painters masking tape and you can mount that sucker anywhere you need to mount the camera. I posted a link to one of my family home movies "Simple things" somewhere here in the forum, and all the scenes where the go-pro was mounted to my chase vehicle used that packaging mount and painters tape to attach the gopro to my Jimmy.... easy to use and peeled of easy too... you won't find a better solution.... but beware this one little detail.. the go pro is a fisheye lens, read up on using fisheyes because everything looks far away or distorted if used improperly....

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Thank you very much for the info. I'll keep all of that in mind. I'm thinking of shooting some downtown night shots from my bike. Would that fall into the low light issues? thanks again for the tips.

Posted 9 months ago #
doublehamm
Member

Night shots even if in a lit downtown area would still be pretty low light and you would probably get a lot of grain.

Posted 9 months ago #
Don
Member

I'm not sure, I should get out and try some night shots... I am 100 percent certain that low is not so hot with these cameras, but... I've done lots of still photography shooting at night with slr's and d-slrs and to be fair, there are times where there is plenty of light in urban environments where you can manage to use f8, iso 100, and shutter speeds well into the hand holdable range...

I think if shooting downtown, in the city, (esp after a rain when the ground is wet and reflecting lots of light) between the streetlights, car lights, city lights and your car headlights, the go-pro might pull off some good shots...

I still doubt it will get the color balance right... and I doubt the shots will work if there is any changing in light levels the exposure will be off as well...

but realistically, I'd grab my d-slr for night shooting, I know how to work with it so I've never even considered the go-pro for night shots... will have to try it...

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

I may have to fashion a mount on the back of my bike for my hmc150 then. I'll try both. Can't ever have too much footage. ;)

Thanks again

Posted 9 months ago #
Don
Member

took mine to a museum yesterday and the low light footage sucked. however the gopro does tend to expose for the highlights, which helps keep the blacks dark and grain down a bit, but the video is very murky and dark, and grainy.. also strong yellow/orange color bias.... bottom line, the go pro is best suited to what it was designed for... outdoors, with fair to good light.

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Yeah, I think I'll stick with the Panasonic for the night shots then. Thank you for all the advice. I'm pretty excited to get started on this project. I'll upload the video and share the link as soon as I'm finished. Is there some kind of trick to posting your videos directly to the forum?

Posted 9 months ago #
djosbun
Member

Make sure you purchase one of the memory cards listed on their website. I know quite a few sports car drivers that purchased a card from NewEgg and it would not work in the GoPro camera. The company seems to have firmware issues (ie- haven't figured out how to get every SDHC card to work problem free).

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

I'm using SanDisk 32GB class ten cards in my Panasonic. I was figuring on just using them in the GoPro. Hopefully they are compatible.

Posted 9 months ago #
chamberlane altatis
Member

This camcorder is surely great! In fact it is the no. 1 bestselling HD camcorder in Amazon. I hope I met you earlier so that you bought it from me :)

Anyway, good luck to your Go Pro HD shooting. That camera is really great for sports shooting and what not. Be sure to check out my website to see more tips and products related to video production.

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Well depending on how this one turns out, I plan on getting at least three more. I'll keep you in mind for my future purchases. Thanks for the link to your site, added it to my favorites. Oh, Lets say I wanted to mount one of these to a water tower that the other company I work for is going to explosively demo. Think it would survive the blast and fall as long as its not on the impact side?

Posted 9 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Got the camera, removed it from the box and did some test shots. Great camera. Have to use 720/60 on my bike to eliminate the wave effect but either way i think its going to work out great!

Posted 9 months ago #
chamberlane altatis
Member

Great! Congrats for your purchase and thanks for saving my site. Just contact me if you need more camcorders and other products about video making.

Posted 9 months ago #
master jo
Member

WOW Congrats for your too. I would like.

IPS Monitor is the newest technology for you.

Posted 7 months ago #
grinner
Member

they are great little cameras. Treat is a disposable mount cam. Great for motorsports and such.

http://grinnerhester.com

Posted 7 months ago #
Wayne
Member

This is really a great little camera with amazing HD quality! Being small and waterproof makes it ideal when I take it along on backcountry canoe and kayak trips. What I like about it is the small size and light weight! You can mount this thing in places a "normal" prosumer HD camera could never fit and get some amazing point-of-view perspective shots. On a recent backcountry trip down an old logging road we used it with the suction mount on our vehicle to get some interesting shots. Here's a link if you want to have a look. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOneCanoe?feature=mhee#p/a/u/2/V3P8-9npegc Enjoy -Wayne-

Posted 7 months ago #
Jacob Wayne Bondesen
Member

I just edited this video using the GoPro, in fact we had two at our disposal to film some wakeboarding sessions. This GoPro package came with all kinds of mounts that I'm sure you a couple that were included. We used a chest mount on the rider and we sat someone in a tube behind the boat close to the rider - they held a pole with the GoPro on the tip to get some close ups. I've only been using 720 at 60 fps because 1080 isn't always necessary and I convert the 60 fps to 24 when I upload it through Cinema Tools. Outstanding quality. Here's the wakeboard video:

Get the Flash Video

Posted 7 months ago #
Jacob Wayne Bondesen
Member

P.S. you said "I'm using SanDisk 32GB class ten cards in my Panasonic." and I didn't realize the class is going up so high - I've been using Class 6. It's always looked good but should I upgrade?

Posted 7 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

I've never had any issues with my class ten cards. Fast and reliable data transfer. Those are the only cards I'll use. Hoping that they'll be coming out with some reliable 64GB cards soon.

Posted 7 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

P.S. That is truly an awesome video. GREAT JOB

Posted 7 months ago #
Jacob Wayne Bondesen
Member

Hey thanks a lot Joshua, I'll be making another soon! but dang, 64GB cards will be great.

Posted 7 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Well it's not finished but here is the rough draft of the "Cruisin Amarillo, TX" video I'm working on. Still have a couple shots to go. The video is more or less me messing around with the GoPro with a couple sceens shot with my HMC150 but I had to turn it into some kind of watch worthy video ;). Any thoughts or ideas?

http://youtu.be/sBAuV-MXn84

Posted 7 months ago #
Jacob Wayne Bondesen
Member

That GoPro picks up some high quality stuff haha nice bike - let me know when it's finished

Posted 7 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Will do. Have about seven or so shots left to get. Nothing too exicting. My plan is to use the video to get the company that I work for during the day to start using GoPro's to film our blasting operations. I figure if we accidentally blow one up, who cares. Thier cheap. lol

Posted 7 months ago #
Joshua Strazewski
Member

Forget the 64gb class tens. I'm going with these for now on.. Just found them while searching for the 64gb's.

http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-Media-Flash-Memory-LSD128CRBNA133/dp/B004SAMZW4/ref=pd_cp_e_3

Posted 7 months ago #
Jacob Wayne Bondesen
Member

Holy cow. That's some ridiculous memory my friend.

Posted 7 months ago #
Don
Member

I love the gopro system. I am a little unsure why 4 gig cards (i use 4 gig clas 4 sandisk and lexar) aren't enough.. they last the same amount of time as the battery... so swapping battery and card at the same time is easy enough...

now a 128 gig in my sony hdr sr 12 would be awesome!

Posted 7 months ago #