GoPro for beginners

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Feb 8, 2013
13
0
So I'm thinking of finally taking the GoPro plunge for the fall season. I'm totally new to this. I have a couple of questions...
What is the best camera to buy? Everyone seems to recommend the Hero 4 Silver. Why is this better than the black? I know it's cheaper, and I'm all for saving money, but I want to make sure I get the camera I will be happy with for a while.
What are the most essential accessories? I plan to get the LynkSpyder. I guess I need a good memory card and external battery?
I'm going to be on vacation at the beach for the next two weeks. I'll probably pick up the camera and play around with it here. Then pick up the accessories when I get home. I appreciate any feedback from anyone with experience doing this.
 
Aug 11, 2016
126
28
I have the GoPro Hero 4 Black. A few things that are good about the Silver vs Black:

(1) The main reason is that is cheaper, so if you are not planning on using 4K, this camera is plenty. For games, because of the length of them, it is not recommended to use 4K because you will end up overheating the camera and will start to shutdown on you. You can shoot only short periods of time at 4K before you start having problems. I actually shoot all my games in 1080P with Medium Field of View.
(2) Integrated display, which I recommend. I don't like to use my GoPro app in my smartphone to setup the camera. I like to use the live view of the display, so I had to purchase the display bacpac for mine, which increase the cost (See # 1).

You will need a portable charger, and you have the option of using the battery eliminator or charging directly through the USB port.

In retrospect, I do regret having purchased the Hero 4 Black and not the Silver. It would had saved me a lot of headaches and additional expenses.

As far as mounting options, I personally like the fenceclip for most of my applications because is less intrusive, but I also have the LynkSpyder for the applications I can't use the fenceclip for. If you don't mind being intrusive, the LynkSpyder is more universal (you can use in more applications). See following thread: http://www.discussfastpitch.com/sof...iews/28376-view-thru-fence-mount-cameras.html

In addition, there is a known and universal problem with the Hero 4 Black when using WiFi (if you want to control your camera with the remote control). There is interference and you end up recording that interference, more noticeable when using the waterproof case (sound like a helicopter: https://youtu.be/0cKKLpnLmHg). I sent my original camera to the manufacturer about a month ago for warranty, and they sent a camera that had the exact same problem, which I had to send back about 2 weeks ago. I'm still waiting for my replacement, as I asked them to do a full test and send a sample video before they send to me again. Believe me, you will be better off with the Hero 4 Silver. BTW... I'm not the guy in the youtube video :D

As far as other cameras, after my Hero 4 Black fiasco, I had been exploring the Sony Action Cam series, which seems very good. Better contrast and definition than the GoPro and with a tripod mount adapter, you can make it compatible with a lot of GoPro mounting accessories. The GoPro has more accessories though.

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
May 24, 2013
12,461
113
So Cal
As FP_C_D pointed out, the integrated LCD display on the Silver is a huge benefit, and the things that the Black does better don't make a lot of difference for recording games.

My rig...
GoPro Hero 4 Silver
LynkSpyder (but will be field-testing The Fence Clip soon)
EasyAcc 20000mAh Power Bank
Switronix Battery Eliminator

Good info here, too...LynkSpyder Equipment
 
Jul 17, 2016
81
6
After a lot of lurking I bought a Lynkspyder and an SJCam 4000. No complaints. I also bought a power bank. $70 for the cam, $20 for the power bank and 3 cards at $10 each and I am good to go.

I went with the Xaomi Yi for roughly the same price. Uses the same sensor's as the GoPro's from a couple of years ago, so quality is good. Batteries are dirt cheap ($3 or so on some of the Chinese website), so I've up to now just swapped batteries about 50 minutes into a game), but might start using an external battery. I mount it with a combo of a cheapie selfie stick and some flexible ties made into a hook setup ($5 total) that works surprisingly well to get the camera up overhead. And I have a $20 64GB SD card that will record a whole weekend's worth of games.

The real problem most non-technical people will have with my setup is just dealing with the video. Merging the files, getting a reasonable compression rate if you're going to upload, and doing any editing you might want to do done.

While this has some compression that makes it a bit less than optimal (compressed, then recompressed by youtube), you get an idea of what you can get on the cheap:

 

Josh Greer

DFP Vendor
Jul 31, 2013
934
93
Central Missouri
Thanks for the help. Picked up the Hero Silver tonight. Now I just need to figure out how to use it!

I recommend the following settings for most game situations:
Resolution: 1080p (non superview)
Frames Per Second (FPS): 60
Field of View (FOV): Medium
Beeps: None
LEDs: None
Wireless: Off

1080p resolution seems to be the great combination of size and quality. You can go larger, but the files become very difficult to work with on the bulk scale. GoPro will "chapter" your files as well. This means as they get to a certain size (around the 4GB), it will start a new file. So if you record a game from start to finish, you will have multiple files. While it may seem tedious to manage at first, it actually is a good decision on GoPro's part. The camera simply does not have the processing power to handle files larger than this. Additionally, if there happened to be a failure, generally your last file will get corrupt. Breaking up the files keeps you from losing a complete game. For more information on Chaptering, see this link: GoPro Chaptering

As for FPS, we used to recommend 30 as this was usable for most situations unless you knew you would be doing much slow motion. It kept the file size down as compared to 60 FPS. However, starting with the Hero 4 cameras, videos recorded with either 30 or 60 FPS are the same size. So there was no longer a file saving benefit to shooting at 30. However, a 60FPS file is harder for your computer to process than a 30. If you happen to have a computer that is low on horsepower, you might have a difficult time playing back 60FPS video. If so, switch to 30. When shooting night and low light games, 60 FPS has to be enabled to take advantage of the low light setting on the GoPro. If you don't like the results of this setting, I recommend shooting at 24 FPS. You will still get a bit of motion blur, but the video will capture more light and 24 is more native FPS for TV playback.

In most cases, Medium FOV will allow capture of the entire field without showing fence in the shot. If you are playing on a deep back stop, you might be able to use narrow FOV. If the backstop is shallow, you might have to use Wide FOV. This, however, will most likely show fence in the shot. Also, I mentioned above to make sure not to use SuperView. SuperView allows for an ultra-wide shot both to the left/right and up/down. This works great for mounting to your body for Point Of View (POV) video, but not for shooting from a fence. If Superview is left on, you will not have all of the FOV options available. Additionally, if you shoot at some of the higher resolutions, Narrow and Medium FOV is not available.

Setting Beeps and LED's to none will reduce the risk of distracting the players and officials; specifically the blinking LEDs at night can really be annoying.

Wireless is usually the big setting people disagree with me on. Wireless is one of the main reasons why people choose these camera. But that being said, GoPro specializes in recording snippets of time. Recording full games is quite demanding on the camera. Wireless adds a tremendous amount of heat and can in even a cool day cause the camera to shut down. This generally leads to losing the last file being recorded as it will usually only partially save and become corrupt. I recommend leaving WiFi off and manually starting and stopping between innings. This will most usually (unless there is a long inning) allow you to have a single file for each half inning. So if you needed to find something in the bottom of the 3rd inning, you could quickly go to the 6th file.

Lastly, as you copy video from your micro SD card to your storage device, I recommend not deleting the videos from the card via a computer. Rather, when you know you have the files copied, reformat the card from the camera. This allows the card to always be on the best state for recording new video and minimizes the risk of file corruption.

Sounds complicated, and of course there is more. But I hope this will get you started.
 

WARRIORMIKE

Pro-Staff Everything
Oct 5, 2009
2,815
48
At the Jewel in San Diego
Thanks for the help. Picked up the Hero Silver tonight. Now I just need to figure out how to use it!



Best thing to do is play around with it. Download the GoPro app on your phone, tablet and desktop. Do not use the GOPRO Software for editing. It sucks. For games I would use just Windows movie maker. The silver is a nice camera to have because of the LCD screen.

Have fun with the new camera .......


Josh mentioned Field of View at Medium. For softball I tend to use a lot of "Narrow" settings. Experiment though. You may like one over the other. Also experiment with different angles of the field too. One last thing, get the moisture pads. LOL They help to prevent getting foggy lens



 
Last edited:
Aug 11, 2016
126
28
I had it with GoPro. I'm returning some stuff I recently bought and I'm selling my Hero 4 Black as well as many of its accessories on eBay... as soon as the factory returns a good working camera to me. It's been more than a month that I had sent the camera to the factory because of the WiFi interference issue causing thumping/helicopter sounds in the recording. They sent me a new one with the same problem. I return back and it's been about 2 weeks since they received the second one and they have not figured out how to send a camera that works.

At least they respond to my emails from time to time, but this is taking too much time.

Since I needed a camera, I just bought the Sony HDRA S200V. After reading the reviews and doing a full assessment, I think this camera is much better than the GoPro Hero 4 series. I also bought a GoPro mounting adapter for it, so I get to keep all of my mounting accessories.

I'll report back when I test it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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