Post by dmx21 on May 9, 2010 14:41:52 GMT -5
So I purchased the Go-Pro HD action camera with the code that Sean gave me for the 25% discount. I've had the camera for a couple of days and used it a bit, including on my trip with gumball 3000. Here are my thoughts on it, as well as some sample video footage.
PRICE:
I purchased the Go-Pro motorsports pack with the optional bike seat/handle bar attatchment. With 2 day shipping the total was $240 after the 25% discount. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me.
Hardware:
Included in the package are:
The case seems very sturdy and is pretty a solid construction. All of the attatchments connect to this case, so you need to use the case if you want to mount the camera anywhere.
I have had a hard time trusting the suction cup, but it has held very firmly at up to 65mph so far. The adhesive mounts are also very sturdy, I put on on my dashboard and used that to film the gumball. The camera snaps into the mount so you can remove the camera quickly without any tools from any of these mounts. I think once it gains my full trust though, the suction cup will be the only way that I mount the camera, it is less permanent than the mounts and seems to hold the camera steadier.
The more "arms" that you use (you can attatch all of them if you wanted to extend the camera several inches from the base) the shakier the camera is. So I would recommend using as few arms as you can when placing the camera.
CAMERA:
The camera is very simple, in some cases too simple. It has 1 small lcd screen (think calculator, not monitor), one light, and two buttons. There is the power button, and the shutter button. These two buttons also navigate all of the settings menus. Changing a setting on the fly is fast, but confusing trying to read all of the abreviations on the screen, and it is easy to press the wrong button which generally results in starting over. I found that when you make a mistake in the settings the quickest way to fix it is to just turn the camera off and start over.
The light is on the front of the camera and is the only indicator that the camera is recording, the camera also beeps when you start and stop a recording, which is very handy. But I found myself wondering if the camera was running or not as I was driving down the road staring at the back of the camera. I would love to have some sort of indicator on the rear of the camera also to take a lot of guess work out of using it.
RECORDING:
There are 5 modes for the camera:
I have only used the 720p 30fps setting because I wanted to be able to take a lot of footage on my 8gb sd card for the gumball. Quality was ok for the gumball because I made a few mistakes while filming. The first was that as mentioned before I mounted the camera to my dashboard. This meant that I was filming through the windshield, which tended to blur the footage. It also would recieve the occasional bug splat, which didn't help filming quality. I also used an arm to lift the camera up off of the dash a little bit. I am not sure if it is my cars fault, the adhesive mount's fault, or the arm's fault. But once I got up over 60 mph there was a definite shake in the camera which really reduces the quality of the video (I have not noticed this shake as much when using the suction cup). Overall the camera doesn't appear to be shooting planet earth quality footage here, but it does a very good job, and is certainly better than any other option I have come up with for strapping a camera to a car.
The footage is also shot with a wide angle lense, so it gets a crazy perspective on everything (crazy in a good way).
SOUND:
I have been very impressed with the mic on this camera. It would not be great for interviews, but does a great job of picking up engine noise, and reducing wind noise as much as possible. It also picks up clicks, there was a rattle that it picked up of a screwdriver in my car. It also recorded this crazy clicking/breathing sound that I do when I am nervous I guess, because every video that I took while walking around the gumballers had this weird noise that I was making in the background... oh well.
THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE CHANGED:
1. You need to have the case on the camera to mount it. The case is water proof. You can charge the battery and record at the same time. Unfortunately since you need the case, and it is waterproof... there is no way to get the power cord plugged into the camera when it is mounted. So you can only record and charge when the camera is not mounted. I would like to see a non waterproof case with holes for the cords so that you can mount and charge at the same time. Battery life is fine (2.5 hours) but for things like NER I'd like to be able to record longer than that. I might buy another waterproof case and put some holes in the side so that I can run the cord.
2. You can put up to a 32 gb card into this. That is 4-9 hours of recording depending on what setting you are using. Which again is fine for most things, but I'd like the ability to record directly to my computer through the USB cable for long road trips.
3. The camera also does still shots, and time lapse shots. Both are very good quality, as good as you would get from any normal point and shoot camera. My only problem here, is that if you choose the time lapse setting the camera will give you 10,000 images, instead of one video file. So if you want to put a time lapse video together make sure that you have software that can handle turning images into video (adobe premiere does this very well).
4. I would love to see another button on the camera some where as well as an indicator light on the back.
5. I also would like to mount the camera out side of the car (to avoid the windshield issues), but I would also like to retain the option to start/stop recording without pulling over. It would be great to see a remote, or a cord connected to the camera that I can control the recording from far away from the camera. I think the best solution I have come up with so far is to mount the camera near the moonroof and reach up through that when I want to make changes.
SUMMARY:
Those are my only suggestions/wishes for this product. Other than that I am very pleased with it, it does what it advertises, and is going to make my road trips/rallies/anything that I want to record while moving much more fun. I would definitely recommend this to anyone that is looking for a quality way to record video on the go.
SAMPLE VIDEOS:
The camera produces .mp4 files. I have converted these uploaded files to .avi to decrease the file size. So you these are lower quality than what the camera shot. If you want to see the full uncompressed versions ask and I'll upload the original file. Again some of the issues with the footage are my fault (shooting through the windshield) and this was shot at 720p, not the full 1080p. So here you go:
Good example of microphone picking up engines: www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/mic.avi
Sample shot inside car: www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/sample_shot_in_car.avi
Sample shot outside car: www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/sample_shot_out_car.avi
Fun video from the rally (make sure to look down that road that cops like to sit when I drive by): www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/pullover.avi
If anyone has any questions about the camera or would like to see some specific type of footage from the camera let me know and I'll see what I can do.
SIDENOTE:
I also made this graph of the speed I drove to get to the gumball and while I was driving with the gumball. I was suprised at how slow they were actually driving. Occasionally they would put the pedal down though and.. well my camry just can't accelerate like a ferrari can...
Here's the chart I made: www.jacobswain.com/gumball_speed.jpg
PRICE:
I purchased the Go-Pro motorsports pack with the optional bike seat/handle bar attatchment. With 2 day shipping the total was $240 after the 25% discount. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me.
Hardware:
Included in the package are:
- the camera which is roughly 2.5" w x 1.5" h x 1" d
- 5 adheasive mounts for permenantly attatching to surfaces (bumpers, dashboards, helmets, etc.)
- several "arms" to add flexibility and different positioning options for the camera once it is in a mount.
- 1 suction cup for mounting the camera to flat smooth surfaces (roofs, hoods, trunks, windows, etc.)
- 1 protective/waterproof case
- Two back panels, one for better sound, one for waterproofness.
The case seems very sturdy and is pretty a solid construction. All of the attatchments connect to this case, so you need to use the case if you want to mount the camera anywhere.
I have had a hard time trusting the suction cup, but it has held very firmly at up to 65mph so far. The adhesive mounts are also very sturdy, I put on on my dashboard and used that to film the gumball. The camera snaps into the mount so you can remove the camera quickly without any tools from any of these mounts. I think once it gains my full trust though, the suction cup will be the only way that I mount the camera, it is less permanent than the mounts and seems to hold the camera steadier.
The more "arms" that you use (you can attatch all of them if you wanted to extend the camera several inches from the base) the shakier the camera is. So I would recommend using as few arms as you can when placing the camera.
CAMERA:
The camera is very simple, in some cases too simple. It has 1 small lcd screen (think calculator, not monitor), one light, and two buttons. There is the power button, and the shutter button. These two buttons also navigate all of the settings menus. Changing a setting on the fly is fast, but confusing trying to read all of the abreviations on the screen, and it is easy to press the wrong button which generally results in starting over. I found that when you make a mistake in the settings the quickest way to fix it is to just turn the camera off and start over.
The light is on the front of the camera and is the only indicator that the camera is recording, the camera also beeps when you start and stop a recording, which is very handy. But I found myself wondering if the camera was running or not as I was driving down the road staring at the back of the camera. I would love to have some sort of indicator on the rear of the camera also to take a lot of guess work out of using it.
RECORDING:
There are 5 modes for the camera:
- low res @ 60 fps
- 720p @ 30 fps
- 720p @ 60 fps
- 960p @ 30 fps
- 1080p @ 30 fps
I have only used the 720p 30fps setting because I wanted to be able to take a lot of footage on my 8gb sd card for the gumball. Quality was ok for the gumball because I made a few mistakes while filming. The first was that as mentioned before I mounted the camera to my dashboard. This meant that I was filming through the windshield, which tended to blur the footage. It also would recieve the occasional bug splat, which didn't help filming quality. I also used an arm to lift the camera up off of the dash a little bit. I am not sure if it is my cars fault, the adhesive mount's fault, or the arm's fault. But once I got up over 60 mph there was a definite shake in the camera which really reduces the quality of the video (I have not noticed this shake as much when using the suction cup). Overall the camera doesn't appear to be shooting planet earth quality footage here, but it does a very good job, and is certainly better than any other option I have come up with for strapping a camera to a car.
The footage is also shot with a wide angle lense, so it gets a crazy perspective on everything (crazy in a good way).
SOUND:
I have been very impressed with the mic on this camera. It would not be great for interviews, but does a great job of picking up engine noise, and reducing wind noise as much as possible. It also picks up clicks, there was a rattle that it picked up of a screwdriver in my car. It also recorded this crazy clicking/breathing sound that I do when I am nervous I guess, because every video that I took while walking around the gumballers had this weird noise that I was making in the background... oh well.
THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE CHANGED:
1. You need to have the case on the camera to mount it. The case is water proof. You can charge the battery and record at the same time. Unfortunately since you need the case, and it is waterproof... there is no way to get the power cord plugged into the camera when it is mounted. So you can only record and charge when the camera is not mounted. I would like to see a non waterproof case with holes for the cords so that you can mount and charge at the same time. Battery life is fine (2.5 hours) but for things like NER I'd like to be able to record longer than that. I might buy another waterproof case and put some holes in the side so that I can run the cord.
2. You can put up to a 32 gb card into this. That is 4-9 hours of recording depending on what setting you are using. Which again is fine for most things, but I'd like the ability to record directly to my computer through the USB cable for long road trips.
3. The camera also does still shots, and time lapse shots. Both are very good quality, as good as you would get from any normal point and shoot camera. My only problem here, is that if you choose the time lapse setting the camera will give you 10,000 images, instead of one video file. So if you want to put a time lapse video together make sure that you have software that can handle turning images into video (adobe premiere does this very well).
4. I would love to see another button on the camera some where as well as an indicator light on the back.
5. I also would like to mount the camera out side of the car (to avoid the windshield issues), but I would also like to retain the option to start/stop recording without pulling over. It would be great to see a remote, or a cord connected to the camera that I can control the recording from far away from the camera. I think the best solution I have come up with so far is to mount the camera near the moonroof and reach up through that when I want to make changes.
SUMMARY:
Those are my only suggestions/wishes for this product. Other than that I am very pleased with it, it does what it advertises, and is going to make my road trips/rallies/anything that I want to record while moving much more fun. I would definitely recommend this to anyone that is looking for a quality way to record video on the go.
SAMPLE VIDEOS:
The camera produces .mp4 files. I have converted these uploaded files to .avi to decrease the file size. So you these are lower quality than what the camera shot. If you want to see the full uncompressed versions ask and I'll upload the original file. Again some of the issues with the footage are my fault (shooting through the windshield) and this was shot at 720p, not the full 1080p. So here you go:
Good example of microphone picking up engines: www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/mic.avi
Sample shot inside car: www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/sample_shot_in_car.avi
Sample shot outside car: www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/sample_shot_out_car.avi
Fun video from the rally (make sure to look down that road that cops like to sit when I drive by): www.jacobswain.com/go-pro/pullover.avi
If anyone has any questions about the camera or would like to see some specific type of footage from the camera let me know and I'll see what I can do.
SIDENOTE:
I also made this graph of the speed I drove to get to the gumball and while I was driving with the gumball. I was suprised at how slow they were actually driving. Occasionally they would put the pedal down though and.. well my camry just can't accelerate like a ferrari can...
Here's the chart I made: www.jacobswain.com/gumball_speed.jpg