GoPro 3+ purchased! Now what?

I'm super excited about my recent GoPro 3+ Black Edition purchase! I also bought the suction cup mount after reading a few posts on here about it's versatility.

Anybody have any good suggestions about camera placement on a JK, tips or tricks about the camera, and/or advice on what kind of video editing software I should download (preferably something that doesn't require a degree to operate)?

I'm looking to document and create short films out of wheeling trips so any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

I bought two Hero 3 Blacks on Black Friday at Best Buy and have been playing with them , so far I have a Sticky mount on the roll bar between the middle lights ant the circular screw for the driver side freedom top to take a cabin shot while driving, I also placed another one on my bumper looking towards the front diff, I plan to install a sticky mount in the bumper looking forward towards the obstacles and I ordered the tripod mount so I can put one on a suction cup mount I have for standard cameras. I might put on the hard top pointing backwards to record wheeling buddies as well...

Jorge

jorgelrod said:

I bought two Hero 3 Blacks on Black Friday at Best Buy and have been playing with them , so far I have a Sticky mount on the roll bar between the middle lights ant the circular screw for the driver side freedom top to take a cabin shot while driving, I also placed another one on my bumper looking towards the front diff, I plan to install a sticky mount in the bumper looking forward towards the obstacles and I ordered the tripod mount so I can put one on a suction cup mount I have for standard cameras. I might put on the hard top pointing backwards to record wheeling buddies as well...

Jorge

Click to expand...

Sounds great! You should have enough angles to start your own reality series!

Hack12 said:

Sounds great! You should have enough angles to start your own reality series!

Click to expand...

:yup::yup:

I use the suction cup and some of the mounting peaces to mount it to the side of the Jeep, under the trail rated badge, and behind the front wheel facing forward. If you get the angle and distance right from the body, you get some great shots of the front wheel traveling up and down and the obstacle ahead of you. I few times I have mounted it the same way in front of the back wheel facing backwards. Just be careful not to nock if off at rocks or trees in tight spots.

whiteyjfm said:

I use the suction cup and some of the mounting peaces to mount it to the side of the Jeep, under the trail rated badge, and behind the front wheel facing forward. If you get the angle and distance right from the body, you get some great shots of the front wheel traveling up and down and the obstacle ahead of you. I few times I have mounted it the same way in front of the back wheel facing backwards. Just be careful not to nock if off at rocks or trees in tight spots.

Click to expand...

Awesome, I'm gonna try that for sure.

Anyone have and recommendations for editing software, preferably free.

go to the gopro site, the app for the phones or tablet to control the cameras is great, they also have a pretty nifty editing software

jorgelrod said:

go to the gopro site, the app for the phones or tablet to control the cameras is great, they also have a pretty nifty editing software

Click to expand...

Yeah, I love the iphone app. Quite amazing that there is only a half a second delay or so with the video transfer.

Just picked up one yesterday as a gift to the Jeep. I plan on using it as an In Car Camera, as well as doing other fun stuff as well. I like the idea of having several but at 400 each it will be a while.
Going to see how much I really use it before I get too carried away.

A guy on you tube had his sticky mount by the rear view mirror and had it wired in like you would a radar detector so it don't run the battery down.
Supposedly there is a way to loop the video and it will just overwrite the older video.

I plan on getting the grab bars from Wel**** Dist.*** soon and on their web site they show a photo with a Go Pro mounted on the grab bar. Another good idea but it would be kind of a distraction on the street.

I have had two close calls in the last week and have seen two pretty bad accident's right in front of me. It might be all the holiday cheer or the fact that this town is a haven for meth users and old folks but they sure cant drive for nothing around here.
Now to just get it on film.

I think the in-car camera idea is great. Can you charge them and use them simultaneously? If so, any little USB car charger would work fine.

Yeah there was some story about the little 99 cent usb car chargers not working right.
Guy was having all kinds of odd problems. You know the internet though.

I plan on plugging it to the usb on the head unit to try that.
Wife just found an extra battery and grabbed it as "It was the last one"

But yeah I plan on having it on Jeep power somehow until I want to go mobil with it.


Sent from my SCH-R970 using WAYALIFE mobile app

Tree Frog said:

Yeah there was some story about the little 99 cent usb car chargers not working right.
Guy was having all kinds of odd problems. You know the internet though.

I plan on plugging it to the usb on the head unit to try that.
Wife just found an extra battery and grabbed it as "It was the last one"

But yeah I plan on having it on Jeep power somehow until I want to go mobil with it.


Sent from my SCH-R970 using WAYALIFE mobile app

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's my plan too. I'll use the USB input on my MyGig RER.

I hope I am not hi jacking this thread too far off base.

So I quit talking out my butt and unboxed this thing. I have spent weeks watching videos about it and though I had it down.

However I just ran into a little snag-- The waterproof housing thing that it comes mounted in, has to be sealed all up to hold the camera in and then inserted into a mount. This will stop us from using the waterproof housing thing and a car charger at the same time.:doh: Yeah it has to be this way so its waterproof :doh:

Looks like we will need the "Frame" style mount.

I have a feeling this is going to be a lot like a Free Cat. Anybody that has ever gotten a Free Cat will know what I mean.

Tree Frog said:

I hope I am not hi jacking this thread too far off base.

So I quit talking out my butt and unboxed this thing. I have spent weeks watching videos about it and though I had it down.

However I just ran into a little snag-- The waterproof housing thing that it comes mounted in, has to be sealed all up to hold the camera in and then inserted into a mount. This will stop us from using the waterproof housing thing and a car charger at the same time.:doh: Yeah it has to be this way so its waterproof :doh:

Looks like we will need the "Frame" style mount.

I have a feeling this is going to be a lot like a Free Cat. Anybody that has ever gotten a Free Cat will know what I mean.

Click to expand...

Ah ha, it seems we have all overlooked a vital problem in trying to charge and film at the same time. Thanks for pointing that out. I probably wouldn't have realized that until I actually tried to use it for the first time.

No worries about hijacking the thread. I enjoy letting the conversation go in whichever direction people want it to.

Tree Frog said:

I hope I am not hi jacking this thread too far off base.

So I quit talking out my butt and unboxed this thing. I have spent weeks watching videos about it and though I had it down.

However I just ran into a little snag-- The waterproof housing thing that it comes mounted in, has to be sealed all up to hold the camera in and then inserted into a mount. This will stop us from using the waterproof housing thing and a car charger at the same time.:doh: Yeah it has to be this way so its waterproof :doh:

Looks like we will need the "Frame" style mount.

I have a feeling this is going to be a lot like a Free Cat. Anybody that has ever gotten a Free Cat will know what I mean.

Click to expand...

Can you drill a hole in the case, run the charging cord through, and silicone it back up?

jeepwayoflife said:

Can you drill a hole in the case, run the charging cord through, and silicone it back up?

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using WAYALIFE mobile app

Click to expand...

I'm sure you could do that and it would probably work, however I wouldn't personally mess with the integrity of a waterproof case protecting an expensive camera. That's just my opinion. I can't imagine why it wouldn't work though.

Update;

So the GoPro works great as an In Jeep Camera. On a fully charged battery I got right at 2 hours set at 1080p-30 with the video set to loop. 2 hours was about half of the 32GB card.
For some reason it will break the segments up into about 28 minute files.
One thing to watch for is that when the battery goes dead the last file segment you are recording, will be corrupted or something and you can not open it. (At least my dumb self could not do it.)

If you go to GoPro site they now have a Skeleton housing for the 3+ that will let us plug in cords and get the Micro SD card out without taking the camera out of the housing. I ordered one last night and some more sticky pads so I can mount it in my hotrod and work truck as well. But yes if you did not care about waterproof housing you could take a Dremel and window out the current supplied housing.

In the waterproof housing you can not hardly hear the interior cab sounds (Talking and stereo music) I just left the solid back door on for now as I don't really care about hearing the sound anyway.
As quiet as a stock 3.6 is you can hear it pretty good when you throttle up.

I mounted it with a sticky pad up behind the rear view mirror on the passenger side. I can not see it from the drivers seat. Only thing you see is the bottom of the little knobs.

Set the LED's to off as the red light will kind of bug you on playback flashing off the windshield. Operation will take some getting used to, as I can barely hear the little beeps that signal camera on and video recording.

Did a run yesterday at 720p-30 and it looked great as well. Even in heavy fog you could see pretty good. In heavy fog and pitch black night you could still see enough to make out what happened if God forbid there was a crash.

Also note checking the output of the 430N's USB port shows an MAX output of .500 where GoPro's charger is rated at a full 1 amp. So it will have to be on a plug in style car charger.

All in all I love this thing-It is just going to take a while to get used to.

Great info! Thanks for the tips!