[bdamschen]

So my brother in law just sent me a spare gopro hd he wasn't using... I think mainly because he got tired of my super pixelated old gopro videos.

I was stoked, so I mounted it up and went for a ride. I get back, download the footage and lo and behold- the fisheye angle is completely different. Here's the best example I can think of to describe it:

If I mounted my old go pro sd to my XC helmet, I could see the top of my visor on the bottom of the screen and nice and far down the trail on the top.
Mounting the HD in the same position- I can't see my visor at all and yet also can't see far enough down the trail to not drive people crazy from watching footage of the trail immediately in front of me.

I have since tried this with my full face on dh runs as well and pretty much the same result. So now I'm having trouble mounting the camera somewhere that I can see far enough down the trail and still have bars or tire as a point of reference.

I know some of you are going to suggest the chest mount, but it seems that on any mildy rough trail the camera starts bouncing all over the place and the picture just becomes a jittery mess.

So has anyone figured out a decent way to film from someone's head? Anyone got pics of their setup to help a brotha out?

 

[IH8Rice]

the only way to get around the super wide angle of the lens and case is to shoot in 1080p (R5) since it is only a 127* AOV vs the 172* of 960p and 720p settings.

 

[bdamschen]

the only way to get around the super wide angle of the lens and case is to shoot in 1080p (R5) since it is only a 127* AOV vs the 172* of 960p and 720p settings.

Hmm... I'm currently shooting in 1080p and too little fisheye seems to be my problem. Maybe it's time to switch to 720?

and wtf is 960? is it a 16:9 ratio or 4:3?

 

[IH8Rice]

sorry, i missed the point there a bit....der.
the SD GoPro is 170*, so youd want to use your HD GoPro in 720p or 960p (its a tall 4:3)...but shooting in a wide angle doesnt really help with seeing farther down the trail

 

[bdamschen]

sorry, i missed the point there a bit....der.
the SD GoPro is 170*, so youd want to use your HD GoPro in 720p or 960p (its a tall 4:3)...but shooting in a wide angle doesnt really help with seeing farther down the trail

ya, I want my cake and eat it too. I want the pretty HD wide screen setup for my hard core HD editing for teh inturnets, but it's no good to me if all you can see is trail and no point of reference.

Sorta playing with the idea of hanging it off the chin bar on my full face... but I bet somehow, some way I'll just end up knocking out another tooth.


It sorta looks like gopro shoots theirs in 720p:

 

[MinorThreat]

Don't know what model it is, but my friend Eric mounts his like this:

. . . which seems to be a common mount point. Since it's eye-level, it gives a pretty good field of view and it stays steady as his head is:

 

[jekyll991]

On my moto I like to shoot in portrait hanging off the side of my helmet. You can see plenty of detail down the trail I still get my front wheel in the shot so it makes the best footage.

I do think shooting in 720p will help you out. I tried 1080p on my bike once and didn't even manage to get my bars in frame yet you couldn't see far down the trail.

Examples:
portrait:

Landscape: (very first time I used the camera so aim was pretty off.

and my ghetto-fabulous under visor attempt that made for a good shot but a nightmare to try and ride with. I pedaled around the driveway and it seemed fine, but actually riding the weight pulled the helmet down and blocked my view. Not to mention my eyes were watering thanks to 40 degree wind and no goggles.

I don't really like mounting on the helmet because of the weight, especially since I mount it to the side so I bought some ram-mounts and a tripod adapter to mount it to my bike. Can't wait until my trails dry up so the camera will stay clean for more than 15 feet down the trail.



Thread derailment: I decided to shoot in 60fps to maybe try out some slow-mo, but the footage looks sped-up. I've noticed this in one of my friend's videos but I thought he just sped it up to make himself look faster. Anyone else have this problem?

EDIT: derp. just realized I've been shooting in R4 (960p) for the most part, it's definitely has the best angle for biking.

 

[IH8Rice]

EDIT: derp. just realized I've been shooting in R4 (960p) for the most part, it's definitely has the best angle for biking.

you get the same angle in the 720p 16:9 setting.

 

[bdamschen]

Just got this message back from a friend who edits lots of supercross for gopro:

use 960