Thoughts on Action Sports Cameras like GoPro or Countour?

[RaceBoarder]

Wondering if anyone here uses any sort of Action Sports camera like a GoPro or Controur... Through my membership in AASI, I have a chance to get a GoPro at half price or Contour at about 1/3 off... That has me putting this in the "Very Possible" category... Just curious if anyone has any direct input on the cameras themselves...

I was also curious about what additional expenses a camera like this requires... Right off the bat, I know I would need memory cards, mounting hardware, and batteries... Unfortunately, most of that isn't discounted through my pro deal

Would I need to invest in video editing software as well? (Which also begs the question as to whether my laptop is even capable of running that sort of operation...)

Right now, the main uses I can see for this would be fishing, some snowboard use, and probably taping shenanigans at sporting events... While online reviews are great, I was looking for some first hand knowlege... For some reason, my snowboarding forum isn't providing pay dirt on the subject

 

[FiveHole12]

Re: Thoughts on Action Sports Cameras like GoPro or Countour?

Wondering if anyone here uses any sort of Action Sports camera like a GoPro or Controur... Through my membership in AASI, I have a chance to get a GoPro at half price or Contour at about 1/3 off... That has me putting this in the "Very Possible" category... Just curious if anyone has any direct input on the cameras themselves...

I was also curious about what additional expenses a camera like this requires... Right off the bat, I know I would need memory cards, mounting hardware, and batteries... Unfortunately, most of that isn't discounted through my pro deal

Would I need to invest in video editing software as well? (Which also begs the question as to whether my laptop is even capable of running that sort of operation...)

Right now, the main uses I can see for this would be fishing, some snowboard use, and probably taping shenanigans at sporting events... While online reviews are great, I was looking for some first hand knowlege... For some reason, my snowboarding forum isn't providing pay dirt on the subject

My friend had a GoPro for our Montana snowmobile trip this past February. Fantastic camera. He got some great video while motoring along at 70 mph with the helmet mount, and the still-shot photos are excellent as well. We were doing tricks in deep powder and he followed on his machine with the helmet mounted camera and the video is crystal clear. We were able to watch videos each night on the lap top. High definition quality.

I was so impressed, I just bought the GoPro HD Hero2, Outdoor Edition, for myself for our fishing adventures. Got it with the helmet strap hoping it will work with a hat. And... I ordered some extras. I ordered a chest mount harness (in case the helmet strap doesn't get good video over my hat visor), 32 GB memory card, battery pack (comes with an extra lion battery), floaty back door (keeps the camera afloat in case I drop it in the river), an auto charger (I have a plug-in on the boat), a composite cable and an HDMI cable. We fish from dawn to dusk so the extra battery and charger are a necessity for me. The cost of the extra's was around $273. if IRRC.

The software... not sure my Macs will run the software, but my wife's will. That's why I got the composite and HDMI cables. Where we stay on our fishing trip there is no HD so I'll hook the composite cable to the regular TV so we can watch the days action. Two or three of us will catch and release 50-100 fish per day, all top water action, so it'll be fun to capture. Ya, ya... fish stories. Nobody believe us, so I'll show 'em!

When I get this thing figured out, I'll let you know when I post 'em on YouTube.

 

[FiveHole12]

Re: Thoughts on Action Sports Cameras like GoPro or Countour?

One other thing. In Montana, my buddy had the camera on quite a lot in 20º-30º weather and never lost battery power. Guessing he got 2 or more hours of video per day. I'll probably be running 6-8 hours day, getting wildlife video while we're motoring the river and having it on most of the time while we fish. Nothing like a top water hit with pre-spawn smallies! I'll be using it for the first time next weekend (4/27 - 4/29).

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Thoughts on Action Sports Cameras like GoPro or Countour?

We use a GoPro as our in-car camera for racing. If you're interested in seeing the results, I can point you to some YouTube highlight videos.

I was also curious about what additional expenses a camera like this requires... Right off the bat, I know I would need memory cards, mounting hardware, and batteries...

We have mounting hardware, which I think came with the camera, but might have been an extra package.

Would I need to invest in video editing software as well?

Not necessarily. I do my video editing using the Windows Live Movie Maker, which isn't great, but is sufficiently functional for my needs. The GoPro video is in a standard format (mpeg, I think), so you're not going to need anything special, any decent video editing software should be able to handle it.

(Which also begs the question as to whether my laptop is even capable of running that sort of operation...)

I have a Core2 Duo P7350 with 4 GB of memory. Initially reading the video files and writing edited video is slow, but when I'm doing the editing, it's fine.