GoPro settings, tips and accessories for windsurfing

I bought this book on how to use Go Pro hero 6.It was very helpful. I assume he has put out a new one to cover the 7 ?
https://www.amazon.com/GoPro-How-Use-Hero-Black/dp/0999631004

I think best to use a 4:3 format instead of 16:9. there tends to be a lot of missed shots due to camera out of alignment and the 4:3 captures more of the view than 16:9. you can crop to 16:9 in post production but meanwhile - better chance of getting your shot. I use 2.7k 4:3 because my computer cant process the 4k codec. (960 and 1440 are lower res 4:3 resolutions available on my H6)

gopro ftg can look kind of 'different' due to how fast it can expose a frame. I sorta forget some of the more advanced cam settings because i set them and forgot them, but i use protune, image stabilization, and have locked iso at 400, and use a ND32, neutral density filter to slow the exposure down. this results in a soft blur of fast-moving stuff in frame, i.e., the water/spray. in google search terms, this might be referred to as 'cinematic blur' and is what we are accustomed to at the movie theater and part of the reason that gopro ftg can look kinda like 'stop-action' by comparison and is often associated with low quality finished video.

here are some filters that are used in place of the flat lens that is mounted to the outside of the cam hsg. www.polarprofilters.com/products/hero7-hero6-hero5-black-shutter-collection?variant=29268995401&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1ZnItsHC5AIVkorICh3WDQBlEAQYASABEgJ-UPD_BwE

since they create a seal to the cam housing like the original clear lens, there is no additional problems with fogging or waterdrops. otherwise, as far as that goes - best practice is to lick the lens before shooting to avoid spray drops sticking. but if they do, accept it as artistic and be happy.

I use a DIY clew view mount and helmet mount generally. here is a very decent clew view mount - www.chathamwindandtime.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=135

a user hack with the clew view is to extend boom farther than you need during rigging so as to capture more scene by moving gopro away a little bit.

if gopro is level, the horizon is straight. otherwise concave up or down horizon depending on cam's tilt.

I often use the gopro remote on a loop of string that my watchband goes thru. just enough slack in the string that I can swing remo up into my palm and operate with my thumb. I can hold it right in front of my face is the main perc. remo reduces garbage vid to scan thru later and saves battery and memory

I edit using gopro studio. no longer supported by gopro but you can still download from 3rd parties for free. intuitive interface and powerful editor with some nice extras

I found this in a comment a while back. The guy that posted it worked in the GoPro Marketing department for 6 years and was involved in creating their marketing videos:"We shoot pretty much everything (like 99% of everything) on ISO Min AND Max set to 100. Having ISO at 800 is way too high and you will get that unwanted noise; you'll notice our website footage is very clear with black blacks, and white whites. Sharpness Low. We shoot everything with Protune ON but with the GoPro Color profile, not the FLAT profile. Also, we NEVER use linear mode; it crops out way too much data. Shooting in 4K should help with the "action cam" look. Also, use optics comp in post or now premiere just offers "lens correction" for the GoPro lens and that is 90% to 100% as effective as going in and doing optics comp in AE but a bazillion times faster."

Settings In summary:
ISO : 100
Sharpness : Low (sharpen in post if needed)
Colour settings: Protune On / GoPro Color profile
Resolution: 4K/25 and down sample in software if needed
Lens Correction: Can be done in Premiere or FinalCut Pro X

Ironically the GoPro Hero 5 Session (the little cube) creates even better footage in 1080P straight out of camera with the default factory settings. I think that's why they dropped that product. It ate too much into their standard GoPro Hero lineup.

Thanks for that Stehsegler

i'm gonna be that guy and say I don't think gopro works for windsurfing.

the focal length seems to be unable to capture the sense of movement, adrenalin and scale that windsurfing provides. watching gopro footage leaves me feeling a little detached.

i'd start there, forget about settings and find ways to change the perspective. figure out ways to get the camera as far away from your gear as you can. poles, drones, friends etc.

the reality with any type of film and photography is that if the composition is correct then the quality of image is less important..

Don't forget, the Hero 7 Black also has gps. You can add live gps overlays to your video.

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LNC said..
I think best to use a 4:3 format instead of 16:9. there tends to be a lot of missed shots due to camera out of alignment and the 4:3 captures more of the view than 16:9. you can crop to 16:9 in post production but meanwhile - better chance of getting your shot. I use 2.7k 4:3 because my computer cant process the 4k codec. (960 and 1440 are lower res 4:3 resolutions available on my H6)

gopro ftg can look kind of 'different' due to how fast it can expose a frame. I sorta forget some of the more advanced cam settings because i set them and forgot them, but i use protune, image stabilization, and have locked iso at 400, and use a ND32, neutral density filter to slow the exposure down. this results in a soft blur of fast-moving stuff in frame, i.e., the water/spray. in google search terms, this might be referred to as 'cinematic blur' and is what we are accustomed to at the movie theater and part of the reason that gopro ftg can look kinda like 'stop-action' by comparison and is often associated with low quality finished video.

here are some filters that are used in place of the flat lens that is mounted to the outside of the cam hsg. www.polarprofilters.com/products/hero7-hero6-hero5-black-shutter-collection?variant=29268995401&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1ZnItsHC5AIVkorICh3WDQBlEAQYASABEgJ-UPD_BwE

since they create a seal to the cam housing like the original clear lens, there is no additional problems with fogging or waterdrops. otherwise, as far as that goes - best practice is to lick the lens before shooting to avoid spray drops sticking. but if they do, accept it as artistic and be happy.

I use a DIY clew view mount and helmet mount generally. here is a very decent clew view mount - www.chathamwindandtime.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=135

a user hack with the clew view is to extend boom farther than you need during rigging so as to capture more scene by moving gopro away a little bit.

if gopro is level, the horizon is straight. otherwise concave up or down horizon depending on cam's tilt.

I often use the gopro remote on a loop of string that my watchband goes thru. just enough slack in the string that I can swing remo up into my palm and operate with my thumb. I can hold it right in front of my face is the main perc. remo reduces garbage vid to scan thru later and saves battery and memory

I edit using gopro studio. no longer supported by gopro but you can still download from 3rd parties for free. intuitive interface and powerful editor with some nice extras

I've got a smart remote but I only used it once. I like the idea but I don't like the way you don't know whether it worked or not...

Go Pros are a vexed camera - they can work really well or be very frustrating. Water on lens, battery running out of batteries failing, no knowledge of if its on or not- vibration. And then add in the go pro angle fatigue that audiences have (and now actively avoid go pro shots)

For wave sailing they flatten the wave making a mast high wave look like its waist high

But there are some wins to be had

Half way up themast pointing straight down is a good angle- great for gybes, wave sailing turns. No good for jumps.

Facecam is nice but you need a bit of a rig to get it there - i use an old broken boom head with 2 ft of boom left on it and mount that above my boom on the mast. Got some great stuff of polakow with that at Gnaraloo years ago - and you see the track off the bottom turn going back up the face and being eaten by the wave.

Go pros are probably best when you are chasing someone else - especially with helmet cam - its a terrible angle for self shot footage.
see how bad the helmet angle is here -

In general they are super handy when cut in with nicely shot stuff off a tripod.

they are awesome for easy landscape timelapses - but you have to add in motion blur in post (or add an nd filter)



You can do some creative stuff with slow motion if you can handle the image quality drop



They arent too bad for shooting from the water (if you like dodging fins)



But then again - you can tie one to a rock - put it in the reef and get a great shot of yourself sailing or SUPPing over it.

Creativity yields results with go pros - but in mission critical shoots they seem to regularly let you down

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stehsegler said..

Gestalt said..
i'm gonna be that guy and say I don't think gopro works for windsurfing.

That's probably because 99% of all videos that cover windsurfing and use only GoPro footage are one of three angles: mast down, attached on boom or POV by attaching on body somewhere. Those types of shots only work for short cut aways. You be able to get away with footage that's more than a couple of seconds if there is a change in the action. But let's be honest the majority is just people straight lining it.

I am currently cutting together a 3 minute video of people foiling. It was captured via drone and land based cameras. In total, I have about 90 minutes of footage from different locations. But even then because the majority is just people going in a straight line it gets repetitive very quickly.That said I think filming yourself with a goPro while trying to learning new things can be helpful. It's one thing people telling you that you need to do this or that to stick a jump but it's a another thing actually seeing yourself on screen.

drone footage seems to be a winner for windsurfing and gopros.

look at the pwa and freestyle events. they are doing great things with drones.

iwt as well.

ok, a case study video,..

I link the video to point out :

1) music drives a video for better or worse, but almost always for the better, even the cruddiest music tends to improve video. the music in this vid ROCKS, so crank it up! it is an instrumental edit of Van Halen, and FB allowed it to load directly (usually prevented with copyright music)

2) the pony ftg - a very small bit of B-roll (B-roll is something other than the subject (WS'g) that adds environment to the event/story). more B-roll is better. in fact - 95% B-roll in a finished vid will probly be appreciated more at a later time as far as jogging fond memories of a WS day.

3) this vid was filmed with helmet cam, and clew view using (1) H6 cam. took the helmet off while out on the water to get sweeping shot of WS'r jibing around me for one clip. prolly could have done it with the helmet on, but either way. i expect it was more clear to the other sailor what I was attempting to do, and worked.

4) sailing portion of the vid starts off with a post-production zoom of another sailor that pulls back to reveal the actual point of view (from the helmet mnt).

5) while editing, i had a shortage of clip to work with and sorta had to use a longish bit of straight-line hooked-in sailing. i cut that clip into pieces and turned it into multiple clips by post-production zooming in to different portions of the sub-clips. there's a zoom-in with nose of board in foreground and looking at other sailor, and zoomed-in looking at feet and tail of the board/spray.

4) the remo screen mirrors the cam's, so it is possible to see if the cam is recording or not. since my remo is swingably mnt'd to the watch on the hand that operates it, i swing it up into my palm and can hold remo as close to my face as i want, to see what is going on without turning my head or taking the other hand off the boom. i tend to look at remo when I activate recording to see if it makes the red blinking led, then verify the cam is recording by looking back at it to see if its red led is blinking. y, pita, not perfect but reasonably work-able.

Manuel turns gopro on and leaves it on, which i think is a good approach since less fiddling and thinking abt cam while sailing is good! that kinda stinks during edit if taking breaks while sailing, long waterstarts, or all the other non-action ftg or long straight line sailing. but kinda depends on how well your computer deals with initial review and editing i suppose.

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Reflex Films said..
Go Pros are a vexed camera - they can work really well or be very frustrating. Water on lens, battery running out of batteries failing, no knowledge of if its on or not- vibration. And then add in the go pro angle fatigue that audiences have (and now actively avoid go pro shots) ,...

nice vids! :)

I agree with vexed camera comment. I try to laugh when I want to cuss, and put it away if it's getting the best of me.
for most part, using it goes pretty smooth now but it has a cpl tricks that never get old

All my videos suck - mainly due to the distance of the camera from the rider (too close) and by youtube standards fairly boring footage

Main issue I have is mounting the camera (for no vibration and in the right spot) hopefully I'll have a solution soon (two versions - for personal use) that will enhance the fairly boring (for an audience) footage

A 360 camera is a good (expensive) option as you can get the best perspective - hope to get one of these soon as well

DJI just released a waterproof case for their OSMO - so it is possible to get gimbal-stabilized shots on the water now with some clever rigging

Sorry - I can't find this as a video on YouTube / Vimeo - it popped up on their FaceBook page - but its awesome!!! (fast, stable, drone video)

www.facebook.com/PWA.World.Tour.Windsurfing/videos/590238438175365/

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Reflex Films said..
DJI just released a waterproof case for their OSMO - so it is possible to get gimbal-stabilized shots on the water now with some clever rigging

I totally missed that they released that... If think if the moister munchers work properly this could be great. But if they don't this will work for Windsurfing for all of 2 minutes before it fogs up.Might have to pick one up next time they go on sale.