GoPro lenses

No snow here but close to 0 deg. and my bike is somewhat apart for maintenance. Maybe I'll take the dogs in the woods and use the headband mount just for some perspective. Not too motivated to ski the manmade ice at Mountain Creek.
 
Using the headband mount for a test, I walked my dogs up a rocky hill that I have hcam footage riding up with the OEM GoPro. It looks great, very natural. No more hiding hills and rocks. A lot of movement from walking over rocks, this is to be expected with the more narrow FOV.
 
My wife got me a GoPro for Christmas.:D
Should just go ahead and get the 3.6 lens?

I need to grab a HD card. Any recommendations?

Couple weeka ago, one of the riders in our group lost his GoPro.:(
A simple fishing line would make a good tether.
 
Girard,

Did you get the Hero2 or the Hero? Hero2 has software selectable FOV.

As far as SD cards, anything with a specified bit rate over the max of the GoPro, which is a little over 15Mbps in 1080p or 720p 60fps. Hero 2 might use higher bit rate as it can do higher frame rates. I have a PNY 16G rated for 20Mbps.

Seriously consider the under visor mount setup. Will not get cleaned off and if it does come loose by chance you will see it.
 
@desertgasser300. There is a Frys close here. The biggest SD card they had was an 16gb.

@Glenn. It's the Hero. I got the Back Pac with it also. I can view the day's footage and delete as needed at the trail head.
 
3.6mm Lens

I rode today and shot a lot of video with the 3.6mm equipped GoPro. The quality and clarity of the picture is excellent. Its a much more natural FOV, with great definition and depth. Now the gnarly trail looks gnarly! What you have to be careful of is the camera mount angle. What worked good with the standard lens was too low with the 3.6, so the view was centered in front of the bike, not down the trail. This is especially true when climbing hills, and somewhat less of a problem when the trail is very tight with short straights between turns. A few more degrees up will be perfect, I have to modify the mount (read file) slightly to achieve this. Also, you will not have the classic view of the bars/front fender. I had hoped to encode and upload a sample tonight but decided to wait until I get it setup right.
 
Now that I got the angle right for the lens, I decided I don't like it. Too much movement, very hard to watch. Not as bad when its aimed wrong in front of the bike but when looking down the trail its rough. The angle has to be wide enough smooth things out a bit. On a road bike, SM, or even smooth trail it would be good, but not hammering rocky stuff. Perhaps the 2.8mm would be good. I'm just going back to the stock lens, no time to screw around with this now.
 
Thats interesting Jake. I'll have to look into a MAC alternative. That view is very close to what mine is now, but I think that video is done with a chest mount judging by the occasional image of the bars. The trail is also a bit smoother and wider, so fewer objects moving rapidly in the view like trees. I didn't even want to bother doing a YouTube encode/upload, but if you want to see in I'll clip out a short section of the raw footage and put in in my Dropbox with a link.
 
I'll leave that up to you if you want to upload or not. I can imagine how busy it must look with the narrow FOV and your rocky single trail. I noticed on that example a few posts back that even after he's run the software you still get good depth perception. Especially on a rocky section so you might be pleased with it. I found I have a filter on my Corel Video X3 so I might have a play later today. I took some video yesterday with my drift HD mounted to the fender brace with the bashplate vibing against the frame and also what sounds like the mount vibing against the camera/bike. Its a horrible noise and the footage is almost just as bouncy too! Should make for a good comparison. I personally find mounting the camera lower and on the bike gives a much different perspective than on the head. I run the chest as an easy middle ground.
 
As I type this I'm running a clip through the iMovie '11 stabilization utility, we'll see what happens. That prodad software is another $150, but there is a Mac version that is supposed to be good. Maybe later.
 
Well, not so good. The iMovie stabilizer marked a lot of frames unable to stabilize. More so in the "heads up" video with the adjusted mount than the original looking down as expected. Perhaps the ProDad software is better, but I've been spending too much $$ on setup parts for the new bike. How these work though is by zooming/centering/cropping each frame, so you get other effects you may not want. Some of the stuff I've seen from the YouTube stabilizer looks terrible. I'll just put the OEM lens back on, and see if I can trade the 3.6 for the 2.8, that should be a good compromise.
 
In my rebuild thread the second video is the result of youtube trying to reduce shaking. Made the whole screen shimmy and the video looks worse than it did before. That'll teach me for blindly clicking yes!
 
The 960 mode, while not wisescreen, looks decent to me. All of Paul's (PEB) video is in 960 and looks good. 1080 has a more narrow FOV as well, I should start experimenting more with that. I'm going to contact Dennis at Ragecams and see If I can return/trade the 3.6 for a 2.8.
 
Dennis at Ragecams just told me to send the 3.6 back for a 2.8, no problem. Very cool, another company with great customer service!
 
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