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GoPro Cameras and attachments for skiing and boarding

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Hello! Hopefully someone here can help me...

I am currently writing my list to Santa and top of it is a Go Pro Camera so I can get some footage without losing the feeling in my thumb for a few weeks (has happened)

There are an array of attachments and I have no idea what I need. I currently ski (helmetless) so does anyone know what the best attachments are?

I am learning to board this winter (will be wearing a lid) so I can get the helmet attachment for that... anyone used any others?

One more thing - I still hire all my equipment - so ideally need attachments that dont leave any "damage"!

Thanks!
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
blakey, they do a chest strap.
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Bode Swiller, oh niiice! that may seriously show me up on technique Smile
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blakey, it certainly will.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The attachments use an adhesive pad - they won't leave damage, but can only really be used once.

TBH I think you'd be better of investing in gloves with a removable liner (so keep the liner on whilst filming) and a decent normal camera. Huge assumption, but I'm guessing if you're hiring kit you're new to the sport (and presumably still learning). The gopro flattens everything out, and makes everything look smaller/easier/less steep than it really is, so you have to be doing something really badass in the first place to get any footage that isn't just boring and disappointing, especially in POV format.

A normal video camera is much more flexible and easy to make interesting films with.
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I think the gopro is the best camera ever & have been using one for a few years now http://www.youtube.com/user/shakeywith?feature=mhee.

I use the chest strap, helmet mount & board mounts for skiing, along with the suction mount for bike & boat use.

The gopro forum has loads of examples http://goprouser.freeforums.org/snow-sports-f18.html

I also think it is a very easy camera that gets all the details in due to its 170 degree capture.

I have had mine underwater, extreme heat & freezing cold with no problems.[/url]
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
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Anyone tried sticking a GoPro on a ski pole in a backpack for that 'pro' angle?! The latest GoPro promo vid I saw seemed to recommend this but something about the idea screams "impalement injury" to me.. am i being perhaps too cautious and insufficiently badass?
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
I disagree with clarky999 about GoPros making things looks easier/less steep. I love GoPros and have used them for years now. I Snowboard, Kitesurf and skate and have a huge array of attachements for all sports. For starters the fish eye lense is crazy. The perspective it gives is better than any other extreme sports cams out there. The ability to have 1080 is also amazing and wont dissapoint. You wont get the crazy juddering you have with a handheld either.
Casing is super strong and the whole thing is light.
For snowboarding I use helmet mount, boardmount (must be the surfboard mount not the others as they are tiny and wont stick.) make sure this is attached the night before you use it. This mount will not damage the board. I also use the pole mount and attach mine to the end of a ski pole for forward and reverse shots (my favourite)
For Ski I use chest mount and all of the above
For Kitesurfing I use a special kiteboard mount, helmet mount, kite line mount and kite mount. All amazing.

Or you could just tie it round your wrist and go back to basics. Take a look at this clip, turn the music up and then tell me Gopro makes things look easier. Make sure you set it to 720 and fullscreen it Toofy Grin


http://youtube.com/v/3MxLZORMymQ
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Quote:

Take a look at this clip, turn the music up and then tell me Gopro makes things look easier.


It does!! As park films go it is pretty good though.

Ok, I wasn't referring to park in my initial comments, as it's not my scene, but even in the small amount of offpiste in that video there is no scale of how steep or difficult the terrain is. I've yet to see a gopro/headcam POV where the terrain looks as gnarly as it really is - the fisheye lens is even worse for this than the usual shrinkavision of nearly all risk sports films. Quite apparent from my own recent kayaking gopro footage too (and many other boating films where you have no idea of the size of the drop/rapid until the paddler turns around at the bottom to look at it). This is fairly well documented.

Not hating on the gopro, I really like mine and you can get some great footage, but a normal camera is much easier to get lots of good footage with
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The GoPro2 has options to reduce the field of view which help to reduce the effect of 'flattenning' the slope. And it is without doubt the most versatile POV style camera out there at the moment. The key with lots of these things is concentrate on the end result. Hours of just motoring down the piste soon become boring, so think more about what you're capturing or trying to capture. What alot of people don't consider is having someone ski/board down (either of piste or on piste) with a camera, mounting it on or near the ground and getting people to go past that reference point and then editing that into the end result.

As for how to mount it.

The headstrap works quite well with a beanie and is pretty secure, The chest mount is also good and very secure, you can even wear it under a jacket and just unzip the top half, fire up the camera and grab some footage (though obviously not recommended for the serious knee deep powder that's about to arrive in the Alps (ahem!!!). I have also used the headstrap on my thigh and this works surprisingly well.

The adhesive mounts stick very well to a helmet or to the ski's or even side of the boots and when edited into a sequence can also be very effective, but best to do these in a nice warm room and let them set for 12 hours. The mount come off with a little technique and the area can be easily cleaned up afterwards so not a problem with hire skis as long as you remember to leave some time to clean it up.

In addition I have crafted a ski pole into a hand mount (basically cut the grip off of a pole and araldited a gopro mounting arm into the cut end. This allows you to put the strap on your wrist and hand hold or let it hang as required.

I wouldn't bother too much with the standard GP wrist strap as it's a little bit rubbish in my view.

We have crafted a couple of high level mounts. See one example here :-
http://youtube.com/v/vs0D8JeWaLg and this gives some great footage as I think the example shows, but I haven't tried these on the slopes yet but hope to shortly alongside back to back GP1 and GP2 tests.

Feel free to PM me for more info.
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Yeah infact the boarder in that video makes everything look easy as he is a pro...bad choice on my behalf. wink

Long live GoPro
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
thanks everyone.

I have taken videos on the ski's before with a handycam, held in hand, but it is very shakey at any speed (even moving), with it being stook out on the end of my arm.

It's still good for taking footage, but idealy when the operator (usually me!) isnt moving.

These gopros & all their attachments look the busniess.

anyone tried the suction pad on a ski or board?
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blakey, If Santa will stretch to a GoPro2 that's the one to go with. Not that the Gopro1 isn't good, because it is, but the 2 is much better.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
blakey I can't get my suction pad to fit on my skis as the suction pad requires a flat surface & mine is raised. I use a helmet mount on my skis & the surfboard on snowboard.
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blakey, as mentioned by shakeywith, the standard gp suction mount wont go on most skis as they are not perfecly flat, i have found that they mount on a lot of boards without issue but wherever you mount you should consider using a tether strap just in case as its lot of £'s to lose on in the snow.
.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Just google the Go Pro to clue myself up on it. WOW, expensive!

Anyone know of a cheaper solution to get some POV video. I bought an 'Actioncam' from amazon and it is riddled with bugs, basically just decides to turn off randomly. I'm looking for a reliable piece of kit, video quality doesn't have to be great but GO Pro products are a little expensive for use once of twice per year.

A little off topic I know... Laughing
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I'm pretty much a n00b when it comes to my go-pro but got it from my birthday as a toy to play with on my mountain bike and skiing.

Gopro produce an array of mounts, the most popular being the chest strap. This gives a more stable POV than a helmet cam and gives the viewer a sense of speed as you have fixed points as reference, ie arms etc.

As for the mounts they come of flat surfaces with a little help form a hairdrier, I'm not sure if they are reusable yet but its nothing a few blobs of silicone wont rectify. I'll probably stick a mount onto the front of a ski and leave it there.

Gopro 2's have meant that the HD hero is now available at around £250.

DON'T get one from Simpluy electronics.net, the site is set up to look english (and even has a dispatch address on the isle of wight) but is from Hong Kong. You wont get your camera, you'll struggle to get a refund and if it does turn up it'll be a grey import with no warranty.

I got mine from dog cam sports in cornawall and they are excellent to deal with.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
The existing mounts can be reused by purchasing the adhesive pads from 3M, however they're pretty cheap in themselves so I don't bother, in fact for people who use our cameras they get to use a mount free of charge (obviously that is ultimately factored into the overall costs) I have about 100 of the little bugs sitting in a box at home. If you've got your own board/skis you can even adapt a quiverkiller into a mounting point. Also remember with the head and chest straps you can wear them backwards for some rear facing footage if that floats your boat.

One other option we've played with is a short webbing strap, this goes around your boot and over the top of a slightly modified used adhesive mount. The camera then clips in using the standard QR mount and you've got an instant boot mount which is stable and secure and can be easily transferred to another persons boot quickly.
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Mac22, Google the Go Pro Hero 960, the Drift HD170 stealth, or the Drift X170 if you don't want HD.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Should add that I've been using an HD170 Stealth for a few months now and it's great.
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The main issue is that clarky999 is right. POV footage is dull. A little mixed in with some decent handheld footage of the skier from an interesting perpective is great but otherwise it's all very same-y.
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galpinos wrote:
The main issue is that clarky999 is right. POV footage is dull. A little mixed in with some decent handheld footage of the skier from an interesting perpective is great but otherwise it's all very same-y.


Yup it's mostly an editing problem though, no matter what you do the same shot perspective for any length of time is boring as hell no matter what is going on. The profusion of people sticking POV edits up these days is improving things though as people have started experimenting much more. The other issue is that 90% of skiers are never going to capture anything interesting to anyone but themselves. A case in point (although he does get rad at 5:40):

http://youtube.com/v/L9LLcLk3Cis
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
remember though we dont all use these to post gnarly well produced videos suitable for cinematic greatness, but as memories of our trips to the mountains.
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I have a ContourRoam, GoPros are a bit pricey for my liking, plus look a bit weird as it is that camera shape.
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ansta1 wrote:
remember though we dont all use these to post gnarly well produced videos suitable for cinematic greatness, but as memories of our trips to the mountains.


Of course, that doesn't mean anyone else will be interested in watching it in a similar way to the classic cliche of being horrified at the prospect of an evening of another couples holiday slides. Smile
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That video is as dull as a dull thing turned down to dull setting-1.

Hopefully mine will be a bit more colourfull and sickradgnar.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
meh wrote:
ansta1 wrote:
remember though we dont all use these to post gnarly well produced videos suitable for cinematic greatness, but as memories of our trips to the mountains.


Of course, that doesn't mean anyone else will be interested in watching it in a similar way to the classic cliche of being horrified at the prospect of an evening of another couples holiday slides. Smile



And grandparent like seeing grandkids skiing but I wouldn't dare subject my non skiing mates to a slideshow.
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God damn that video's boring.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I don't think Go Pro makes anything look harder or difficult - if anything it makes it look the way it is, at least more than stills photography does.

With stills, it's all a question of how you shoot it; if you don't know what you're doing you can easily make something steep look trivial. Part of the reason is that things feel faster/ steeper than they really are - witness how many web people will claim outrageous speeds, or have no clue about what 45 degrees really is. With the GoPro, you either frame it or you don't, that's about it.

I think GoPros work much better. For tree riding it's very hard to capture the feel in a still. With a GoPro you can't fail. It's about speed and line - I've never seen any footage from *any* source which came close to capturing that until I saw GoPro stuff.

Watching other-people's videos seems to me to be likely to be boring irrespective of what's in them. I'm disinterested in park riding and tricks, so to me both those videos are pretty equally boring. I'm not the target demographic for either. That doesn't mean they're not good at what they are trying to do. On the other hand show me someone tree-riding and I'll be watching every detail of how they ride. It's all a question of what you're interested in.

Everyone buys POV cameras, and we're all out there shooting something, presumably because "dull" or not, every one of you who's bought a GoPro sees potential there. It's changing rapidly though: the initial "never seen that before" factor is gone now. We've all seen it. People will need to be more creative. GoPro dragged a lot of additional people into video, some of them will get better at it quickly.

That said, it's really, really hard to get good shots of bad riders. If you can't ride, then that's going to be obvious on GoPro. As above, it doesn't make it look easier, it shows what it is.


On the OP - the mounts should not damage anything, if you're doing something which would cause damage, you're doing it wrong. A old ski pole is probably the most flexible approach for snowboarding. Skiers would probably start with something head mounted. You get good stabilisation from a pole, even hand holding. Gloves are irrelevant as you can operate a GoPro with them on; in any case you'd likely turn it on at the start of the run then off at the bottom.
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element, thanks for the suggestion!
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
clarky999, pointing it backwards facing upslope gets a better POV of steepness/general gnar gnar. Certainly works for MTB at least. I agree that front-facing POV takes a lot of steepness away, similar to stills.
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The headstrap my gopro came with fits fine and secure over a helmet, just make sure you loop it through the goggle hook. It also sits at the front above your goggles instead of sticking up on top. The mountain bike bracket set would fit to a ski pole too.

To mix up the POV shots, just get a freind to follow you down the same run wearing it.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Quote:

To mix up the POV shots, just get a freind to follow you down the same run wearing it.


or run with multiple cameras Very Happy
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This many?

http://www.bogley.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=47253&d=1313536739
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Well not on a ski trip but I could just about manage to setup that many cameras, though not presently all Gopro2's

IIRC There's another setup with multiple gopro's where some boarder is jumping and they then cut the footage in so it looks like the camera is tracking him down the jump. Easy to setup, pig to edit.
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