Borrowed a GoPro Hero 3 - any tips?

chrisaonabike

My brother has lent me a GoPro Hero 3 for the Ride London 100.

I plan to attach it to the bars, and record as much of the ride as possible.

Any tips for max battery life, settings etc?

Sirius631

Read the manual. That will tell you the expected battery life. Then again, manufacturers hype their products, so record the cat/dog/goldfish for however long it takes for the battery to go flat. That way you'll know how long the battery will last. Just remember to charge it before hand and afterwards.

chrisaonabike

Sirius631 wrote:

Read the manual. That will tell you the expected battery life. Then again, manufacturers hype their products, so record the cat/dog/goldfish for however long it takes for the battery to go flat. That way you'll know how long the battery will last. Just remember to charge it before hand and afterwards.

Er yes, that will be my fallback plan if no one has anything more helpful than "work it out for yourself", thanks.

So far I've figured out that switching wi-fi off will extend the battery life, but I was wondering if there was anything else specific about the settings that will extend a charge.

thegreatdivide

Are you running it over or under the bars – if it’s the latter make sure you have the image flipped.

I can get about 30 mins at full-on 1080p – a lot longer for 720p but it won’t be in wide screen – it’s still fantastic quality though.

Because of the above don’t run it all the time. Learn how to switch it on by feel (a red light come on on the front – bad design IMO).

neal1984

I can get about 2 to 2 and half hour out of a battery at 720p. I've just ran the setting I like to be honest. I'm guessing dropping the resolution further might extend this but as I have a total of 3 batteries its never been a problem. What size memory card are you using? Mine usually takes up about 1.9Gb per 15 mins of video so you need a decent sized card to record hours of footage (I use a 64Gb one).

Pross

Make the most of the loan and do a nice 'POV' movie with the good lady (top tip, clear the footage from the camera before giving it back!).

Seriously though I'd be interested in hearing how you get on with it, I thought of getting one but feel the shape of the Go Pro isn't ideal as a helmet camera on the bike.

chrisaonabike

Pross wrote:

Make the most of the loan and do a nice 'POV' movie with the good lady.

Nice idea. I could mount the cam to my bike helmet, which would free up my hands too.

Seriously though I'd be interested in hearing how you get on with it, I thought of getting one but feel the shape of the Go Pro isn't ideal as a helmet camera on the bike.

Will report back

Mikey41

My first gen unit will record for a bit over 2.5 hrs on one charge using a 16Gb card. I bought a second battery and card to extend that to between 5 and 5.5 hours. Best to switch off any wifi/bluetooth etc with the latest ones to get the best battery life. If you stop and start the unit a lot, it will decrease battery a bit, best to start it and leave it to run. I also switched off the red flashing light (every little helps eh?)

I have mounted mine under the bars since it seemed to interfere with GPS reception on the Garmin when I mounted it above, if you do this, set it to "upside down" mode so the footage comes out the right way up and you don't have to flip it in editing.

The wide angle setting works well on a bike too, you'll get this kind of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JCnckoF8QA

graham.

Mikey41 wrote:

My first gen unit will record for a bit over 2.5 hrs on one charge using a 16Gb card. I bought a second battery and card to extend that to between 5 and 5.5 hours. Best to switch off any wifi/bluetooth etc with the latest ones to get the best battery life. If you stop and start the unit a lot, it will decrease battery a bit, best to start it and leave it to run. I also switched off the red flashing light (every little helps eh?)

I have mounted mine under the bars since it seemed to interfere with GPS reception on the Garmin when I mounted it above, if you do this, set it to "upside down" mode so the footage comes out the right way up and you don't have to flip it in editing.

The wide angle setting works well on a bike too, you'll get this kind of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JCnckoF8QA

Nice video. Recognize a lot of it from my diving days.

chrisaonabike

Ok, so I've had a bit of a play - figured out how to mount under the bars, and flip to upside down. Seems to work well.

However, even on good road surfaces there's a lot of crackle in the audio.

Here's a clip illustrating the effect: http://youtu.be/PrTAaK_W_G8

I've found a link from someone who packs the housing with cotton wool, I'll try that later, but has anyone solved this more elegantly?

Mikey41

There will be some from within the housing, so some padding there should help. I also get some noise from the brake cable outers slapping the camera. It all goes away if you find a freshly surfaced road, that's awesome.

Porkyboy

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

Ok, so I've had a bit of a play - figured out how to mount under the bars, and flip to upside down. Seems to work well.

However, even on good road surfaces there's a lot of crackle in the audio.

Here's a clip illustrating the effect: http://youtu.be/PrTAaK_W_G8

I've found a link from someone who packs the housing with cotton wool, I'll try that later, but has anyone solved this more elegantly?

Just remove the soundtrack when you edit it and add some music or speech instead. The sound from a road bike adds nothing.

Q

StefL

Basically, always use a mount and make sure you experiment in order to pick a nice angle. Here are few tips that you should consider if you're new to using GoPro cams: https://valoso.com/blog/useful-gopro-tips-for-beginners/

ddraver

Try and work out where footage will start to look interesting. For example rolling along on your own will be boring but attacking your mate on box hill will be interesting.

The next thing is that all footage looks rubbish until it's edited and the key to editing is to Cut, Cut, Cut and Cut some more. If in doubt, leave it out. I would suspect that from 30mins footage you'll maybe get a 2 minute video? Not sure it this works but for example this is my recent ski trip - 5 days of skiing resulted in a 4 minute movie (and I bet most of you don't make it to the end...) - https://vimeo.com/152261960

Another thing to think about is that if you upload the video anywhere you'll need to find some free music, any popular song will be flagged. YouTube has a library of stuff you can use but a lot of it can be pretty mickey mouse. I wanted to use an Eels song over that but I couldnt upload it anywhere...(The other thing I can see now is that the auto-tune filter I used in GoPro Studio is far too dark...

Good Luck

Edit - and I ve got some clips the wrong way round...

priory

the final challenge is to try to find someone who actually wants to watch your videos, particularly when , like mine, they are mostly from a bar-mount and consist entirely of road , hedge and sky with an occasional lycra-clad bottom.
sorry to be depressing , I am sure yours will be much better. Bound to be , really.
Actually you should try a hemet mount, at least you can then point at the interesting things. I find the problem then is the film is so wobbly it makes viewers nauseous (not bored , or so they said).

pauldavid

Probably best to just give it back to your brother and save yourself the hassle of faffing around with the camera, and then having a memory card filled with hours of footage of other cyclists backs you don't know that even you can't be arsed to watch back.

HTH