Video from Santa for the Beast (Goprocamera or Hero camera review)

[Beast Rider]

Got this from Santa and thought I would try it out on the Beast..so here is what it looks like in it's waterproof case. It's called a "Goprocamera" or "Hero" and comes with a number of attachments to hook onto the bike...more about that later....With a 2GB card installed it takes 56 minutes of video or if you want just still pics...it takes about 1940 stills with that SD card....easy to use.



Here is what it looks like out of the waterproof case....about the size of a box of wooden matches..



These are the attachments it comes with...bunch of clips that the waterproof case snaps into...Some curved to attach to round surfaces such as your helmet and others for flat surfaces, plus a suction cup mount and cable to hook up to your PC...



So I decided to try it out....I used the suction cup mount on the front of the windshield and went for a ride. This is a road coming off Skyline Drive and it's nice and twisty. You can hear as I go down the road the sound of the rumble strips as I go over them. It was a cool , wet, overcast day so the video is not as great as if it had been sunny out...but not bad. Incidentally, at about 54 seconds into the video, you may notice a sign on the right hand side of the road that says, "Danger, High motorcycle crash area", thats because there is usually one bike crash per weekend on this stretch of road in good weather...as it turns out...at about 4 minutes and 20 seconds into the video.....you will see a bike that has just crashed....the rider is up and OK but probably pretty bruised up. Happens a lot here on this road because I would suspect, target fixation. Anyway here is the Video. As one of the inmates below has pointed out, if you want to see a better Vid, double click on the you tube imbed, which will take you to You Tube, then go to the bottom right of that Vid and click " Watch high Quality"




I don't like the suction cup mount on the Beast so will use it on my Dualsport and have ordered a Ram mount with the 6 inch arm and the flat round base to install on the Beast....which I can mount the camera to and it will be outside the windshield and pointed straight ahead..

And here is how I now have the camera mounted.....with a RAM bar clamp, long bar (5.5inch), and a flat round top plate....put it around the windshield bar. Now it's easy to operate with your left hand, the handlebars do not come near it at full lock, and it's not obstructed by the windshield....works slick.

Here is a front view...



here is a rear view...

[bluepoof]

Hubby and I took our new GoPro camera to the OHV park today.

I did one loop of a trail with the camera mode set to take still photos every 2 seconds. Here are a couple of random pictures from that loop:









Note that these photos are sized down for Flickr. Click here for one at full size.

Here's a video from the same trail. This video is hosted on my own website and not YouTube; i.e. it hasn't been recompressed into the crappy YouTube size.

Clicky clicky for movie as I'm too tired to figure out how to embed it here

Overall, we're really happy with the GoPro. The above photos/video were from the camera mounted on my helmet (as you can see in some of the shadow shots ); I also took some with it mounted to the front numberplate of the CRF80F. Those turned out really well, too. I'll probably upload another video taken from that location tomorrow, though for all practical purposes it looks the same as the one posted above.

[rdwalker]

Not bad: the picture is fairly stable. A bit of disconcerting pixellation, but pasable for casual video. Audio not too overpowered, either - my photo camera's audio was clipped when I tried that.

Impressive. Cheap? What is the storage medium?

[Beast Rider]

RDWalker.....SD card 2 GB max.....whole kit about $170...

[GB]

I've been curious how well it works and what the quality of the video is like..thanks for posting the video and and the detailed review

Moved to Equipment. Thread title amended to make it easier to find it in a Search.

[bluepoof]

Were our two threads merged? Just making sure I didn't screw something up because now it looks like I just wanted to glom onto Beast's report.

[Beast Rider]

Bluepoof.....looks like the mods merged them...no prob....same cam...

[unparagoned316]

I too have recently received a GoPro camera. Here is a vid I took of a trail ride the other day:



It looks much better if you double click on the embeded video and go to youtubes page. Then click on the link "watch in high quality" that is directly underneath and to the right side of the video.

[biggziff]

So which one did you each get? The newer one is 5 MP and has a wider angle lens.

[Beast Rider]

Biggz,
Mine is 5 MP and has the wide angle......Indeed is has a very wide angle that is better than the previous one but not sure that there isn't an even wider one now....but this is great for my use..

[unparagoned316]

I too have the 5megapixel wideangle version. I believe the wideangle is something like 170 degrees.

[rdwalker]

Hey, guys, this is quite impressive.

What are your feelings about helmet vs. handlebar mounts?

My impressions, looking at your videos: the helmet mount allows recording points of interests that are not straight ahead - all that is needed is to look at interesting things. Cons: viewer can get dizzy if the filmmaker moves his head a lot (like the beginning of trail-ride video of Bluepoof's).

Bike mount seemed more stable, but then limited to only looking forward.

Am I correct? Your preferences?

[bluepoof]

Mine's also the 5MP wide angle.

I took a few video from the helmet mount and a few from a mount on the numberplate. Honestly, there wasn't much of a difference -- the sound on the numberplate videos is louder but that's about it. I think they were pretty equally stable.

Here's the same trail with the camera mounted on the numberplate.

[Beast Rider]

I don't think there is a huge difference either. In my case on my dualsport I use the suction cup mount attached tothe the front of the bike just in front of the speedo cluster. I would think that if I was in really narly single track, then maybe the hemet approach would be a little more stable. As far as capturing more on the video with the wide angle of this camera , you get to capture a lot with a static mount....even more than you would see yourself since you are so focused, particularly in off road tight situations.

[munchmeister]

I'm becoming convinced that the 5mp GoPro is the way to go, especially at that price point, as it seems very easy to get it mounted and get some vids shot. I also like the ability to do a still shot every 2 (is it 2 or 5?) seconds.

Where's the best place to buy the 5mp wide angle GoPro?