If you are one of those frenetic GoPro shooters wanting to get the most out of your favourite camera and take your workflow to the next level without emptying your bank account at the same time, you’ve just landed at the right spot. The following episode of Kingston’s indieHack series is not just for shooting better videos with your GoPro, but it also reveals how to implement everyday items such as dirt cheap pool toys and boat key chains in your creative workflow.
For instance, you can create inexpensive floating case options for shooting in water, or to take scrap wood, some string and miscellaneous hardware to make a cable cam for taking cool, aerial style videos. World-renowned surf photographer Mark Dimalanta also showcases how to take a panning time-lapse with a simple egg timer and more. Without further ado, let’s just dive right in!
Occasionally, we’ve all experienced situations where we needed to deal with a shaky and jittery footage, especially when it’s captured with a GoPro camera. The atrocious rolling shutter artifacts that can be introduced while shooting on such occasions are quite frustrating, to say the least. One of the possible solutions would be to utilize a dedicated handheld gimbal for extra stability, or use your chin instead.
Yes, you’ve read that right, no typos here. By supporting your GoPro camera with both your hand and your chin you will be able to get much smoother, hence usable footage as a result. This technique is great when you want to follow a subject or just want to do a simple panning shot.
Alternatively, you can use your belt that can also stabilize your wrists by creating a counter tension against your hands just to keep the camera steady as it works far better than just holding it with your bare hand.
Furthermore, if you are worried about that you might lose your GoPro by dropping it accidentally in the water you can use a simple key chain floater and double sided tape to stick it to the back of your camera just like that.
This way, your GoPro camera won’t be only water-proofed, but it will float in water as well. You can apply the same trick with your GoPro selfie stick by attaching a simple swim noodle to the rig that usually will set you back a dollar or even less.
Another cool trick for shooting time-lapse videos with your GoPro camera is attaching your camera to an egg timer. This way you will be able to make your time-lapse video a lot more interesting and appealing by adding some panoramic movement to your shots.
For the last hack, the so-called DIY Cable Slider, you will need a little bit more time to spend and a few more pieces to buy. As Mark Dimalanta points out, this slider is a nice alternative to some drone movements, or if you want to follow a subject from a higher point of view above the ground.
According to the provided equipment list, you will need a bunch of pullies, carabiners, a rope, laundry hooks, nuts and washers. You don’t need to spend any money for counter balance for your Cable Slider, a water bottle would do the trick instead.
At last but not least, don’t forget to load your GoPro with a reliable and fast enough high-capacity microSD card to capture all of your shots flawlessly and seamlessly without worrying too much about the available space left on the card.
There you have it. These are six simple tips and tricks that should make your next GoPro shooting session a lot more fun and exciting. If you have more useful hacks like the ones above, don’t hesitate to share these with the community in the comment section below.
[source: Kingston Technology]
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Kingston 128GB UHS-I microSDXC Memory Card with SD Adapter (Class 10)
GoPro 3-Way 3-in-1 Mount for GoPro HERO Action Camera
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