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I think that for $300 to $400 depending on what version you get these are amazing as they are very rugged, durable, waterproof cameras in tiny cases. They have a bunch of mounts that are all interchangeable for quick change to a new view point. I have yet to wonder if the camera can handle the abuse I have handed out to them either on my atv's or mountain bikes. I started with the original GoPro. Then jumped up to the Hero2 and graduated to the Hero 3. Of course when I picked up the 3 within a couple months they came out with the Hero3+. The GoPro I currently have is a hero 3 silver and I have only used it a few times. But it sure does seem to be a lot better video and picture quality than the older models. Here lately I have spent a LOT of time on YouTube searching videos on how to use the GoPro to more of its capacity. Man there is a lot of information out there for these little buggers. A few of the channels I am actually addicted to and check several times a day for updated “How to or DIY” videos. In the past I have made several ATV adventure videos of our rides around the western states. But I had not logged into my YouTube account for about 2 years and I guess they delete accounts after a period of time of none use. I can understand that. But of course my computer that had my videos on crashed and being the good computer person I am. I had no backups so lost everything. Anyhow, Now days I have mostly been using my GoPro to video my mountain bike rides. I thought my videos were not to bad of videos until I have been seeing all of the different things I have been missing and not using the GoPro to its capacity. Now my videos look boring. In the last couple weeks I have built a steady cam which has really helped take the jitter out of my test vids. I made a time lapse device for doing some pretty cool time lapse shots and am in the process of making a cable cam to put up in the trees and run alongside me while doing my downhill runs. I can’t wait until summer and the ski park opens for mountain biking downhill again. I have a Buddy that has built a couple quad copters and even a 6 bladed copter that he mounts his GoPro to for professional aerial video work. We are going to work together and hopefully make some pretty cool mountain bike videos this summer. Heck who knows maybe even a prospecting video or 2.

Some of the things I have learned in the last few weeks of research. I take a lot of pictures with my gopro but it is a pain without the viewer. Now yes I can get out my phone and link it to the camera and see everything on my phone that the camera sees. But that is a pain. One of the tricks I have learned is to use the video mode for everything possible. You can go into the software and grab still pictures out of it. I didn’t even think about that feature. So I played around just seeing what modes and frame rates looked the best and how much space they used. Now keep in mind that I can control the time length of each test video but I cannot control the audio at any given moment in my test environment. I set up 15 second video shots in my office. Positioned the camera and used my phone to run the tests so I didn’t have to move the camera. First I tested 1080p in the wide, medium and narrow modes using 24 fps (frames per second). In all 3 settings the file sizes were about 28mb just a slight bump in the narrow mode file size. But I did notice in the wide mode that my edges had started to fisheye. Then I tested in the 30 fps figuring more frames would equal a bigger file size. This held true for the wide and medium modes. But the narrow mode jumped from about 28mb in size to 38mb. So I ran the test again. I don’t know why the 1080-30-N mode would jump so much but even on my retake it did. So it has to be something in the mode that chews up memory. Also again in wide mode the edges had a slight fisheye effect but not in normal or narrow. The video quality to my naked eye between 24fps and 30fps does not seem to make much of a difference. Then came 960 mode in 30fps. My file size in the 30fps was 22mb but the 48fps file size jumped to 28mb which I would expect from 18 more frames per second. I noticed that in my test the videos appeared to be a little fish eyed. Not much but a little. Next came the 720 mode . In the 30fps the file ran about 16mb in size but I can see the quality of the video is not as nice and crisp as the 1080 mode. Then in the 60fps the file jumped to 28mb which again I would have actually expected a little more as we doubled the fps. Again not a sharp and clean of a video. WVGS, what can I say? The only option is 120fps which for slow motion playback is a fun mode to run but that appears to be about it. The file size was at 27mb and watching the video it was grainy and not very pleasant to watch. So what does all this mean???? Not a heck of a lot. Because when we upload our videos to YouTube they have a compression method that to me makes most videos look bad anyhow LOL. But if you are making a nice video to show on your 60” tv then there is a difference. So as far as shooting videos for upload I think the 1080 in 30fps medium mode will work great. Yes it will use more memory then the 720 mode but then you won’t have the fisheye issue and also if you want to go in and grab a picture from a frame you can blow the picture up and make a nice poster out of it because you used the better video settings. In today’s world memory is cheap. Don’t be afraid to use it.

There are a lot of other things I have learned here recently too about the gopros. Which memory seems to work better, is bigger memory cards better or smaller cards just more of them, how to take a more stable video, how to make your own mounts and gadget’s for the gopro, when is it better to turn your gopro upside down and flip the video mode for some cool more stable vids, and I haven’t even gotten into the GoPro video editing program yet.

So are there any gopro users out there ? what do you use and how does it work for you?