wife bought me a GoPro. damn..now what?

[vash]

"the first hit is free"...

damn, i got the camera, a cable, a water proof housing..some useless mounts. the GP3 silver.

i want it to film outdoor fun. archery stuff..and mountain bike stuff. figure the helmet or handlebar mount is an easy decision. what about archery..bow mount the camera? or stick it on my head?

i am downloading the free gopro iphone app right now..

do i need the bluetooth remote? or that back viewer thing? i need a new cable to even view it on a TV? the owner's manual was written for a person with less scotch, and better attention span.

i feel a credit card reaming coming.

[slodave]

The mounts are plenty useful.

Take the flat plastic that the GP was mounted to in the box and keep it as a mount. It can be used for ground level shots, table... Make a nice steady surface.

"do i need the bluetooth remote? or that back viewer thing? i need a new cable to even view it on a TV?"
No. No. Yes.

[vash]

thanks..i packed the owners manual for work tomorrow. figure a cup of coffee, a magifying glass..i can figure something out. they print chit so small now!! bastards.

[slodave]

I didn't want to stick a mount to my mtb bike helmet for fear of ripping the paint/graphics off, so I used zip ties. Been working quite well.

Make sure that you have the right back on before going in the water! Very easy to kill it if not.

Get a battery bac-pac, you'll need it. If you strap it to a kayak or anything where it can go flying, tether it!!! You have been warned.

[vash]

thanks..

tether..check.

i think this thing is going to illustrate how boring my life really is..

[aigel]

Go ride a rocky trail, face plant and post on youtube for us to enjoy!?

G

[snbush67]

Great video quality, fun for about five minutes but ultimately more trouble than it's worth. I think that it really has to be a passion and a hobby to spend the time to record, transfer, preview, edit and publish. I have found that the time it takes to do all of the desk work you could be having fun at another hobby. The iPhone app is pretty cool and is almost a must to be able to tweak the camera settings. The camera two button controlled menu itself is cumbersome.

I have a few friends who are go pro wizards and they make really great videos of the same crap over and over, hours of biking/kayaking/hiking footage to crappy music overlays. I am continuously sent links to videos I never watch, not so much as I am not interested...scratch that, I'm just not interested.

The bottom line is people only want to see videos of crashes or people being stupid. Choose your content carefully.

[aigel]

Originally Posted by snbush67

The bottom line is people only want to see videos of crashes or people being stupid.

That was exactly my point further up.

People take these videos mainly for their own enjoyment. More power to them. I know a lot of people who do the same with photography. 2000 pictures on a Europe trip. Sure - just don't ask me to look at them!

I had a great uncle who was a photographer. He'd go through great lengths taking landscape images. Get up at night, hike in the dark to get that sunrise image at the perfect time ... nobody was interested in his pictures ... but it was his deal, kept him occupied throughout retirement.

A lot of hobbies are self-serving like that. I will be up that mountain this fall at the crack of dawn to look for a buck ... it is the journey ... and the venison steak of course!!!

G

[slodave]

Wow! Tough crowd!

Photography is not self serving... I'm sure a lot of people would have liked and appreciated his pix, if they were available to a broader audience.

I love taking pix and get a lot of great feedback from my peers on Facebook and family. I also love shooting bands. Those guys are really appreciative of the pix and exposure it gives them.

[aigel]

Yes, this was before the interwebs. He may have had quite the audience nowadays? He did have an audience in local nature and hiking clubs etc. that would host his presentations. I am just bitter, because every time we visited him, he'd give us a 2h show. Not your focus when you are a 10 year old boy.

When he died, there was a truck load of negatives and slides and no place for them to go. It was sad ... and the other reason why I think you need to have your hobbies mainly for your own enjoyment. If you can get more out of them, more power to you ...

G

[slodave]

He was passionate about what he did. Can't fault him for that. Life's too short.

I can appreciate that you may not like photography and that's okay. I try and make GP vids that are under 5 minutes, I would prefer 3 minutes or so, since that's about the average attention span, but I do go over. Not the greatest editor/filmographer..

I still think it's a bit harsh to call hobbies "self-serving".

Anyway, all's good. Just hit a nerve with that, G.

[aigel]

Dave,

English isn't my first language. I looked up self-serving, and it is clear I did not use it correctly. I meant that you do something for your own enjoyment. I did not mean that you put your own welfare or interest before others.

I would have 100 hobbies if I could. But most if not all of them are mainly for myself. I like to share them, but am very sensitive to the fact that many people may not be terribly interested.

That's what's great about the internet. You can have an interest only 10 other people in the US share and you likely will find half of them on a forum.

G

[slodave]

George, we are on the same page... I agree to an extent. An example is with the shift knobs I produce. On FB I have a public page devoted to them and that's primarily where I "pimp" my wares. Of all the friends on my personal page, I really only invited those that were in the Porsche family to "like" the shift knob page. I didn't want those that didn't care, to have to be inundated with updates or car related ads. I do post shift knob stuff on my personal page, but only because I have a good portion of friends that are into the marquee and those posts are really about things I am playing with and really don't want out in the public domain at that time, but want feedback.

I agree, it gets tiring to see two hour slide shows time after time. I remember the magazines full of them.

It's all about moderation. Though, I think you made a few comments in my long running Les Paul thread a few years ago. The beauty of the Internet... You can click the link to see 300 pix and after 4, close it out.

To swing full circle...

Vash, don't bore us too much. The first few goofy vids while learning the GP can be funny. But after that, think the vid out! Or just fall a lot... Maybe show some vid of you screaming like a little girl, peeing yourself... Maybe a vid of that "plume" that shoots out of the toilet and gets all over out toothbrushes...

[PorscheGAL]

Mounting it on your head works really well for lots of things. As a family, we went snow shoeing for the first time. My son had a Go Pro set to take a still shot every 30 seconds. My husband's took video. They switched cameras half way through the day. Made some great video and pictures without us doing a thing.

Lots of tvs have memory card slots now. Instead of a cable you may be able to just plug the memory card in.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by vash

.... a magifying glass..i can figure something out. they print chit so small now!! bastards.

And just what the heck is this new fangled "Fuzzy Font" crap they're using now 'Bout a week ago, for the first time ever, I actually had trouble reading an itsy-bitsy label ..sucks!

Originally Posted by aigel

Go ride a rocky trail, face plant and post on youtube for us to enjoy!?

The "Vash Smash".....it'll make ya famous Cliff

[id10t]

Really means she wants to do some home made porn movies


(dunno if I should do that in green or not....)

[Rusty Heap]

I love my gopro,

Have 2 and will add a third this fall...........great for SO many things.


eye of the videographer and unique angles / ways of viewing things. I love to do timelapse.

one of the best forums out there:



GoPro User Forum • View forum - Creative Use of the GoPro Cameras

[speeder]

Originally Posted by vash

i want it to film outdoor fun. archery stuff..and mountain bike stuff. figure the helmet or handlebar mount is an easy decision. what about archery..bow mount the camera? or stick it on my head?

Strap it to the arrow! No one has done that yet.

WRT the other discussion here, the great thing about the internet is that people can share their photos and videos with all of their friends and family. The bad thing about the internet is that people can share their photos and videos with all of their friends and family.

After nearly 20 years of non-stop web forums, FB, twitter, etc., we've kind of seen it all 10 years ago. I don't even watch news videos of live police shootings or spectacular crashes, etc., anymore. De-sensitized and bored with it, I guess. Not sure that is a bad thing. I still have FB but I'm tired of seeing everyone's current location and today's cool activity, even if it's a photo of them on a boat in Positano with the supermodel they just banged or in the pits at the Monaco GP. It just all becomes overload at some point.

That doesn't mean that the travel/adventure/fun is any less enjoyable than it ever was, just the sharing might be a little played-out. And Aigel, some of my family are avid bird-watchers, traveling the world to catch the right views. One relative also had one of the world's foremost butterfly collections. I recently read an old letter from 1999 where my brother was about to fly from Africa, (where he lived), to Ecuador with Francois to hunt butterflies. Interesting stuff but I'm glad I did not have to view the (hundred or more) photos.

I think that GoPro vids are cool but don't expect a big audience unless you do something amazing. A friend is skydiving for the first time today, (it was a BD present from someone), he's not going to film it even though he has a gp camera. There are just too many thousands of those vids around.

[wildthing]

I bought a GoPro and a DashCam just for kicks. Have not shot anything interesting yet. (You know, crash type stuff. )

Of course that may also mean my life is pretty boring.

I am planning to mount it on the car for an AX run but since I am slow too on AX I don't see the point of posting it for public consumption. (Or maybe they will learn what not to do in an AX.)

[porsche4life]

Vash, they make a mount for using on rifles now... Just saying.