Go Pro Hero3
 

Rich, I just got "The Frame" for my Hero3 from Amazon.
$40.00 list, and I paid $20.00. It's a genuine GoPro
accessory, and inside the box are TWO frames. One for a
plain Hero3, and one for a Hero3 with a "backpack". I don't have
a backpack yet, but it's nice of GoPro to include both! Also in the box
is a lens cover as the waterproof housing supplies lens protection
when the camera is installed in it, but the lens has no protection
when it's outside of the waterproof cover. Nice item to have as well!
There is also a "quick connect" attached to one of the frames with
an attachment bolt that can also be used for other mounts. One flat
adhesive mount, and one curved adhesive mount complete the
package. All in all, I feel like I really got my moneys worth on this
accessory. I also ran across a video that shows someone using one
of the LCD backpacks, and it looks to be MUCH simpler to manipulate
the camera with that than with the front panel LCD.
More info later as I find out more about the camera.............
Andy (The Budding Videographer............NOT! LOL) :wavey:

Thanks Andy. Any chance you could put a link to that video using the backpack here so I could take a look at it?

The video I saw it in is........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GfZMtfTh_s
but it's mostly about customizing a Pelican case for the Hero3 with just
a little about the LCD backpack as a part of that video.

Here's a better one, and THIS one gets me thinking about getting one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EJtaQ0yOY

So many things to spend my money on, and so little time.........!
Andy :wavey:

Yeah, that looks a lot more useful. But I have to wonder how much damage it will do to battery longevity, since it is apparently drawing power from the GoPro's battery when running.

I'm not sure, but I think you can shut the bacpac off after you set up the
camera and compose the shot. It looks like there is a power button on the
same side as the speaker and headphone jack.
Andy

EDIT INSERT.....
Rich, you might also be interested in this.....
http://gopro.com/cameras/refurbished...-black-edition

I think the Hero3+ version is the latest one available. Supposed to have 30% more battery life.

This might be off the table for a while. Got something else going on that might sink the budget for a while..... :(

I was wondering if you could use the Hero3 as a dashcam and just keep
recording until you manually stop it. I sent a "contact us" request to the
Go Pro people and got a response back telling me that "YES, you can"!
They pointed me to page 35 of the manual which says..........

Looping Video mode allows you to record a continuously looping video that
overwrites itself until you press the Shutter/Select Button button to stop it.
Looping Video is not available if Protune mode is turned ON.
Looping Video options include:

OFF (Default)

Max video - Camera records until memory card is full, then overwrites
with a new video.

5 min video - Camera records for 5 minutes, then begins a new video,
progressively overwriting the previous 5 minute video.

20 min video - Camera records for 20 minutes, then begins a new video,
progressively overwriting the previous 20 minute video.

60 min video - Camera records for 60 minutes, then begins a new video,
progressively overwriting the previous 60 minute video.

120 min video - Camera records for 120 minutes, then begins a new video,
progressively overwriting the previous 120 minute video.

This looks interesting, and I just might have to play with this feature
a little bit.......
Andy :thumbsup:

That could actually be right handy to set it up as a security camera.

I've been playing around with the camera again tonite and decided to try
using the GoPro APP on my iPhone to do the setup with. WHOA! MUCH
EASIER! It feels more "intuitive" when using the iPhone. You can do everything
on the iPhone that you can on that tiny LCD screen, only with less eye strain
and a WHOLE lot easier. Sort of makes having the LCD touch bacpac redundant.
I guess that if you don't have a phone that will run the GoPro APP, the touch
bacpac could be a necessity, but with the APP, you're good to go.
Andy :wavey:

A screenshot of the initial GoPro APP.
http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps55b21402.png




A screenshot of part of the screen that comes up when you select the
"wrench" (setup) .

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...psf6ad8369.png

all of the fields can be selected and values chosen. MUCH better than the
LCD screen

I see that GoPro has come out with a version 4. Black and Silver version. Of course, NEITHER has a perfect (in my opinion) combination of features for me to think THAT is the one I want. :( If they had included an integral LCD back on the black version, it would be a no-brainer. The silver has one, but the quality isn't nearly as good as what the black can produce. Yeah, you can put an add-on LCD back on the black, but I'm sure battery life, which is already short, would take a real nose dive.

Plus just about all the accessories needed to be functional are optional ($$). With the short battery life, you pretty much need to have three batteries and an external charger. The memory card is optional although it is necessary to use it. :rolleyes: Pricing on the black version is $500, but by the time you add in all the accessories that you really need, the final price is probably going to be more like $1000. Kind of steep for a pocket sized camcorder.

And I'm still not sure how the time lapse works on these things. The documentation states that time lapse is composed of a series of PHOTOS, not an actual video clip. So does the GoPro stitch them together to make a video clip, or do you need to do that with some external program?

Rich, the included software lets me combine all of the pictures into a video.
Actually, it's got a lot of features for "included software", and I really haven't
played around with it all that much. I would suspect that there are better
programs out there, but for an additional expense, that will do a better job
than the included software, but I'm not looking to produce movie quality
videos from the shots I take, so the software that came with the camera
is OK for me. I have no idea what software they are shipping with the newer
cameras, but it's probably similar to what I got with mine. It will get the job
done and that's all I was looking for.........
Andy

I might just get the Hero4 Black sometime soon. I guess it's too much to hope for to find something *perfect* concerning what I would like to have.

Now that the video world seems to be moving rapidly into the 4K format, 1080 is on the road to obsolescence. My home theater screen is a 50 inch 1080i, but it still looks too darn good for me to consider upgrading it. Plus we are still a ways from a 4K standardized world anyway. I have a 27 (or is it 28?) inch 4K screen for my main computer that makes games look really awesome. But it took an upgraded video card to make it work like it should.

Been checking out this new Hero4 via Youtube videos and reviews. Video is really pretty nice looking. But do I understand this correctly that the GoPros only record mono audio? Not even plain stereo? :ack2:

Once again.......niche product. Action oriented with very little emphasis
on audio. Mono recording is all I've been able to find.
Andy
ADDED...... maybe on some future model when the consumers yell for it,
GoPro will incorporate stereo recording, but then they'll probably bump up
the already high cost of ownership.

Story of my life, I guess. I find something that looks interesting, just to find that there is one tiny little thing missing that keeps it from being perfect for what I want. I guess that's why lately I try to spend a LONG time researching something before spending my money and then find that hidden deficiency.

Heck, it must be me. It's awfully rare for me to find something that is absolutely perfect in design and application based on what I would want to use it for.

BTW, how come EVERYONE sells these GoPro units at exactly the same price? I thought price fixing was illegal?

DITTO! And how come you have to go to 2 or 3 Lowe's or Home Depot's to
get everything you need for that weekend project. No wonder why more and
more people are shopping online!
Andy

Heck, normally I will need to go to BOTH Lowe's and Home Depot to find everything I am looking for. But you are right, it is just so much easier to just order most things online these days, rather than running all over town and maybe not even finding what you want anyway.

Well, I finally broke down and bought one of these GoPro Hero 4 Black camcorders. If the weather behaves, I plan on trying it out on the road with the C5Z. Not sure how well it's going to do without image stabilization, though. But we shall see....

Been playing around with the new GoPro. Not too bad for such a small package. Here's the first day I used the camcorder mounted via a suction cup mount to the inside of the windshield of the C5Z on a little trip to St. George Island that a few people participated in recently.



Seems to do the job OK. :thumbsup:

I ran across this video today. Impressive.

https://www.lily.camera/?utm_source=...FYY8gQodnjcAmw

Looks like a cool little gadget if it actually hits the market.

Actually I have seen quite a few "concept" quadcopters being offered for "presale". But honestly, there is a whole lot of salesmanship hype attached to this stuff to consider buying something until it's actually hit the marketplace and actual purchasers post REAL reviews and REAL video from them. I was looking hard at a product from a company called Yuneec that sounded good on paper, but come to find out that their supposed 1080P video was nothing more than 720P upscaled by the quad's processor. So it had some terrible aliasing artifacts. The company has been talking about a 4K version, but I'm betting it will only be upscaled 4K. But at least the 1080P will likely be decent then.

There is a new unit about to hit the market from 3DRobotics called the Solo that looks pretty darn interesting. And DJI just introduced a new model of their Phantom line.

Still hearing rumors that GoPro is developing their own quadcopter, but haven't seen anything concrete about that one yet.

This field is still very young, and the pioneer buyers are pretty apt to have a bunch of arrows sticking out of their backs by buying in too soon. A lot of products are going to be sold way before they are actually ready for prime time. I would have REALLY liked to have had a capable unit in my hands by the first of this month, but that just did not happen.

Oh, and as for that GoPro Hero4 Black I bought, so far I'm pretty impressed with this little critter. Seems to do a real good job with everything I've been trying with it, so far. Time lapse seems to work real well, and right now I'm playing around with something they call "night lapse" to see how that works. Honestly I'm glad I got that touch screen back pac for it, as I can't see that it would be very useful to me without it.

Yeah, I really expected to see a $2000.00 and up price tag on this one when I first saw the video. My brother is supposed to be getting to try one out so we'll see. I'll keep you posted if he does.

I discovered a neat feature of the Hero 4 Black that I didn't realize I would be getting with the package. The camera can be set up as a dash cam that runs in a continual loop, overriding the older "footage" when the ram card runs out of room. These dash cam things seem to be very popular in Europe, and I can see where using one would be well worthwhile considering as helping in case of an accident to show what actually happened. Could save your butt in a case of your word against someone else's to determine liability.

Yeah, and if yours is like mine, you can select (from a list) the amount of
recording time before it "loops". But you have to remember to stop recording
manually if you would like to preserve the recording. Neat little buggers,
though!
Andy

I've heard rumors that a Hero5 will be released sometime soon. Still not seeing prices on the Hero4 dropping very much, though. Still some features I haven't tried out on the one I've got. Took a stab at the night lapse feature but apparently you need zero light to get a good star field to show up. When I tried it the moon came up in the early AM and washed out the view.

Did a lot of time lapse using 4K that seems to work well. We were down at Sanibel for the entire month of June and I had access to the roof, so I had the GoPro and my Panasonics running almost every day. There was a spectacular lightning storm one night but I think I screwed up the settings on the GoPro, and not sure how well that turned out. Haven't had a chance to actually review the videos at full size.

But yeah, I'm pretty impressed with this little camcorder. :thumbsup:

Now if I could just find a decent and reliable quadcopter platform that I don't have to worry about it running back to China with my GoPro or dropping it all into the Gulf of Mexico............

Hey, you're a fisherman..........right?
Take one of your fishing rods and hook the leader up to the quad. If it goes
down, reel it in or follow the monofilament to where the quad is. :lmao:
Seriously, disappearing over the horizon is one of the bigger fears I have
with the quadcopters.............. Lotsa bucks to watch disappear, and you
just KNOW that whoever finds the thing AIN'T gonna waste any time on
trying to find the owner! WHOO-HOO! Finders keepers! The quad might be
unusable without the transmitter, but I'll take a free GoPro any day! :thumbsup:
Andy

Yeah, that sounds like a decent idea. But I think they will get the kinks ironed out sooner or later. The problems sound like programming issues to me, so it's just a matter of debugging the beta test code that is being sent out to the first lines of buyers. These are not the sort of things you want to be the first on your block to own. :nonod:

I can't think of a single solitary item that I would be willing to spend $2,000 or so on that has the potential to just fly away into the sunset, never to be seen again. I don't think I'm particularly a cheap skate, but I would like to think I'm not stone stupid, neither.

And how do you protect against someone else having a transmitter with
more power than yours, and just using that brute force to steal your quad?
I can tell you that I would be more than just a little pizzed off if someone were
to hijack something I owned! That's gotta be an up and coming theft item...
Andy :wavey:

I'm not sure all quads work this way, but I believe that the process of connecting the quad to the controller uses an encrypted handshaking process in order to prevent that sort of thing from happening. That's why multiple people using the same model of quad can fly on the same field without a conflict. I believe this holds true for RC fixed wing and helicopters as well.

Now, that's not to say that someone couldn't purposely hack a controller to be able to do something like that, though. :shrug01: