Saturday, May 19, 2012

GoPro Camera

As soon as I saw my friend Andy's GoPro Hero video camera I knew I wanted one.  For my birthday recently I got enough gift cards to finally make it happen.  A week ago the GoPro hero 2 finally arrived.


The GoPro is an extremely simple solution to something that I've strugged with for years:  how to get quality onboard motorcycle videos.  The GoPro only has 2 buttons, a power and a shutter button.  It took a little time to become used to navigating the menus but it becomes intuitive after a short time.  The Motorsports Edition has a number of possible mounts.  The clips use 3M tape and can be secured to helmets.  There is also a suction cup mount for getting video from all possible angles from your bike.  I had some problems with the suction cup at first.  It won't stick to any graphics and needs a totally flat surface to properly adhere.  I was able to put it on the side of the fairings and the rear fender with good results.

The quality of the video is amazing:  shooting in 1080 or 720p from such a small camera is incredible.  You have other options besides video.  You can shoot a photo burst (10 pictures in 1 second) or do some time lapse or single photo images.

I went out on the KLR a few times playing with the different mounts and video settings.  Here are a couple of youtube videos of the options.



My previous method of shooting videos was with a point and shoot digital camera.  The results were never satisfactory.  Here's one from a few years ago:


The videos are relatively easy to edit using Windows Movie Maker Live.  With unlimited viewing angles and high quality video the GoPro Hero 2 is a winner.

Tomorrow is the Berkshire Big Adventure ride and I'm looking forward to shooting a lot of video.

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