How to Create a Travel Film With Go Pro
Right out of the box a GoPro is able to take some great photos and videos while traveling, but with a niggling know-how, you can take more than of your shots to Ballsy status. Later more than five-years of daily use with my GoPro's, I accept learned a few GoPro tips that piece of work.
There'southward no magic or special software or equipment needed, just a few little tips & tricks that will make a big divergence. Here's my guide on how to get meliorate travel photos and video from your GoPro.
GoPro Tips
Whether you're a GoPro Beginner or you take been using your photographic camera for a while, these tips will assist yous accept better shots in no fourth dimension.
Bound to:
- Beginner GoPro Tips
- GoPro Photo Tips
- GoPro Videos Tips
- GoPro Video Editing Tips
- GoPro Timelapse Tips
- GoPro Underwater Tips & Tricks
- GoPro FAQ
GoPro Tipsfor Beginners
If you lot've had your GoPro for a while and are pretty comfortable with information technology already, and so skip downward to some of the more advanced sections. For those of y'all who but bought a GoPro or are justing getting around to taking it out of the box for an upcoming trip – this section is for you.
Practice makes perfect
The best tip I can requite to new GoPro users is to just commencement using it. Take it with yous on your next trip to the park or make a special trip. Whatever you practise, make sure you have a skilful handle on the controls earlier you lot take a holiday or actually want to apply it.
Buy an extra bombardment or two
At that place are many things GoPros are great at, merely battery life isn't i of them. From Hero 5 and more recently, the bombardment life is much improved, simply you still don't desire to miss out on photos and videos while you are traveling because of a dead battery. Buy At present On Amazon Just $17
Become some accessories
To take get the well-nigh out of your GoPro y'all really should pick upwards a few accessories that fit the means you hope to use the activity photographic camera. Whether it's a uncomplicated handgrip or a suction cup or fifty-fifty a GoPro dome – ane of the first things y'all should exercise is get some gear.
GoPro Photography & Photo Tips
Continue Your Back to the Sun
The GoPro's do pretty well shooting outdoors with a good dynamic range and prissy colorful images. Even so, yous can brand those colors and details fifty-fifty ameliorate in your photos by doing this i unproblematic thing: Keep the camera betwixt the sun and the field of study!
Have you always noticed when you lot take a picture and the sun is in the frame everything else seems too nighttime? That's because the GoPro is trying to requite yous a balanced photo, but the lord's day is just too brilliant. Instead, use the sun to low-cal upwards your subject. This mode your shot has much more even brightness range and will turn out style meliorate.
Get Close
GoPro'southward are neat at catching the activity, all 170° of action. The GoPro does this with a super wide-angle lens. Which in most cases works really well, only yous need to keep in mind how this affects how large things volition appear in your pictures. The GoPro sees things differently…
Compared to the human eye, things will be a little more than ii.5x times further abroad on a GoPro. So what I always tell people when they have a GoPro without a back screen is to get closer, and when you retrieve you lot are close enough, get some other stride fifty-fifty closer.
Utilize the Burst Style
Exercise you want to freeze an epic moment in time? That'southward what the burst mode is for. Even the tiptop-end DSLR'due south are only capable of shooting v-ten photos per second, only a GoPro can snap 30. The outburst mode has a ton of uses and I am constantly coming up with new ones. Do you have a friend that tin't seem to e'er get the jump photo quite right? Use the burst mode and y'all'll grab them no matter how brusk their hang fourth dimension.
One of my favorite shots I defenseless using the burst manner was of a sea turtle coming up for a breath off the shores in Mexico. I figured out that about every few minutes the turtles have to come for a breath of air, but they do it then speedily it'due south almost impossible to time a shot. I switched to burst mode a swam shut to the turtle just as it was about to take his breath and I got 30 shots of him. Afterward I was able to option my favorites to share when I got back onshore.
Don't Be Afraid to Become it Dirty
The matter I love most about my GoPro's is that I can take them places I would never bring any other camera. My GoPro's have been within of the mouth of a Cheetah, in a WWII shipwreck 120 anxiety deep in Coron Philippines, plastered in mud aboard an ATV in Alberta, hanging out of a shark diving cage in South Africa, and even driven over by a few safari trucks. The durability and the fact they are water/dustproof allows for i of a kind shots that aren't possible with any other camera.
Go along People in the Center
The super wide-angle lens that allows yous to catch action shots has ane minor side consequence of the edges of the frame being stretched. Virtually times you don't even observe this happens, however when you have a person on the very edge of the frame you might detect their faces can get distorted.
Keep in heed when shooting people make sure they are towards the heart of the frame. This result is more amplified the closer you are to your subject area.
GoPro 3 -Way The Best Selfie Stick & Tripod In One
Compose Your Shot
Something that holds true for all photos no matter what camera you employ is a groovy composition. Sometimes it can go lost in the estrus of the moment, merely with a footling planning, yous tin catch something ballsy with a classic composition.
The easiest and about widely accepted composition is "The Rule of Thirds". Meaning that if you divided y'all frame up into iii equal part vertically and horizontally you'd have lines that intersected at four points where two 1/3 lines run into. If y'all can place the master focus of your photo at 1 of those points you'll accept a much stronger photograph.
Another thing to keep in listen while shooting activity or adventure sports is to leave room in the frame for your subject to visually 'go'. For example, if you taking pictures of a surfer – leave more room in your motion-picture show in the direction they are heading and don't have the tip of the surfboard at the edge of your frame. Sounds simple enough, but many times limerick is the deviation betwixt average and ballsy.
Connect for more Epic-ness
Using the built-in WiFi you lot can add even more versatility to the GoPro. Selfie sticks and poles are bully, but taking a posed shot while continued to the remote or phone app will give y'all the same great shot without your arm, or worse, the stick in the frame. This as well works great when putting the camera out of reach or in front of something really cool. I love connecting to the app with the GoPro stuck to the windshield with the suction loving cup mount.
Try Out the Time Lapse Function
Time lapses are awesome and I could watch them for hours on stop. The GoPro makes information technology super easy to shoot them with a built-in fashion, simply true time-lapses aren't the only expert thing this mode is good for. Yous can use the fourth dimension-lapse mode to take a bunch of shots for a group picture to give yourself a better adventure of anybody having their optics open.
Endeavor time-lapse fashion at 0.five seconds on the end of a selfie stick to become the perfect selfie without a remote. I besides utilize this fashion sometimes while diving and snorkeling with the GoPro at the finish of a pole to grab colorful reef fish without my paw on the camera scaring them abroad.
Shoot in RAW format
If you are looking for the highest quality GoPro photos so you might want to consider taking RAW photos. The only downside to this is that these RAW files will need to be edited to take total advantage – if you don't plan on editing you lot'll probably want to stick to standard jpegs.
However, if you desire to unlock all the photograph potential of yous GoPro then endeavor RAW photos which takes the prototype correct from the camera'southward sensor. It has a lot more than information to it and allows yous to make bigger edits on your GoPro photos. Starting with Hero v, all of the Hero Black models have this functionality.
Grab a Even so From a Video
I love GoPro for both photos and videos and sometimes when I am taking a video I wish I could have a picture of that also, and with a footling software help, I tin can. Near common video editors take an option to hands export a single frame into a picture, but if you don't have i of those the GoPro Studio can exercise it for you too.
I always make sure to have my video settings turned as loftier as I tin can for the all-time quality. If you find yourself doing this a lot like I do, then brand sure you lot accept the frame rate ready to 60 fps significant every 2d the GoPro volition record 60 frames. This allows crisper still images to be exported from your videos.
Use the Accessories
As side from being waterproof and taking great pictures, the fact that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of ways to attach a GoPro to yourself or anything, makes it incomparable to any other camera. Take advantage of this 1 of a kind ability and get creative with information technology.
My favorite accessories are the suction cup mount, head strap (get a cheap ane like this on Amazon for $6), and the handlebar mount (not any cheaper on Amazon). I recall I have simply well-nigh every GoPro mount known to man, only these are the ones I find myself using the most. I've had the suction cup stuck to the windows of safari trucks all over the world, exterior of cablevision cars k's of feet in the air, and on the inside of plane windows.
I love the head strap mount because it'due south both stable and super versatile. Sometimes I don't fifty-fifty clothing it on my head. Lastly, the handlebar mountain gives me a sturdy mount on anything with a round shape from handrails to the confined on the front of an ATV. Oh, and I use my GoPro on my tripod a lot so a tripod mount is e'er in my bag too.
The GoPro has become an indispensable tool for me to capture ane of a kind images while I travel. It'south an HD full-function video and notwithstanding camera that fits in my pocket that I can stick anywhere and beat the crap out of and information technology always brings me dorsum epic images.
GoPro Video Tips
When it comes to GoPro video, the about important thing is to get lots of skillful, usable clips. If you sentinel a lot of videos on YouTube most of them are pretty shaky and pretty unimpressive. GoPro's are capable of getting one of a kind unique content, but y'all have to harness that filmmaking power into something people actually want to sentinel.
Here nosotros are going to show you means to become more quality usable footage from your GoPro. Make your adjacent travel video better with these quick and like shooting fish in a barrel tips.
Tell a Story
The most important role of having a nifty GoPro video is that yous tell a complete story. Brand sure to film all of the things leading upward to the main event you program on filming to give your video context. Make certain that your video has a first, centre, and end. Too many videos start right at the activeness without showing the viewer how they got in that location, where they are, or why they should care. Great footage is nice, but groovy footage that tells a story is actually neat.
For example, if you are going on a surf trip, you'll want to picture more than than you shredding waves on your board. If it's an international trip tell the whole story by starting filming in the aerodrome on the way to the destination. Capture your emotions, if your comfortable talk to the photographic camera about how you're feeling in that very moment, if you're not comfortable – do it anyway, information technology volition aid you become comfortable, and if you don't similar information technology leave information technology out when you edit your video. Let the people watching your GoPro video experience and encounter everything you are.
GoPro Gimbal or Stabilizer
The most distracting thing while watching videos is shaky footage. The best way to beat out shaky shots is by using a gimbal. These accessories are best for walking shots and filming B-curlicue. The downside of gimbals is that they are much more fragile than your GoPro and tin't exist banged around a lot.
They are also not waterproof, so this will limit how much you can use a GoPro gimbal. However, if you are serious well-nigh making dandy GoPro videos, these are a must. We accept this Feiyutech gimbal for $239 but would suggest the GoPro Grip gimbal we are getting that side by side it'southward much better equally it was fabricated for GoPro cameras.
Shoot with your edit in mind
In that location's nothing worse than getting back from a mean solar day filming with your GoPro only to realize you didn't get the clips you lot needed to tell your story and make your video. A five-infinitesimal planning session earlier the mean solar day starts will make a huge difference in the editing room.
To take that i step further, if you want a certain style or a particular blazon of transition to your GoPro video make sure you plan it out and brand sure to become those shots. An case of this is a video that has a repetition of you lot walking at the camera in different locations on your trip.
Use Higher Frame Rates
Another style to get smoother footage without a gimbal is to utilize higher frame rates to get good wearisome-motion footage. Tape fast action scene in very high frame rates similar 120fps or the highest your GoPro will allow. When y'all become to edit your GoPro video, you lot can slow the footage downward significantly enhancing the expect and making it a lot smoother.
- 60fps – upwardly to ii.5x slow motion
- 120fps – up to 5x irksome movement
- 240fps – upwardly to 10x dull motion (GoPro Bullet time)
Take a variety of clips
No i whats to encounter you snorkeling underwater for five minutes straight pointing your GoPro at a fish nether the water. Instead become shots of the boat ride, a view of the bow of the boat, the wake the gunkhole makes, scenery on the ride, a fourth dimension-lapse of the boat ride, you lot jumping in, so give the camera to a friend underwater and jump in again, then swim with them filmed selfie-style, and then put a clip or two of the coolest fish you saw. There is and so much more than just the couple of fish yous saw that makes a better story and ultimately a amend GoPro video.
Too try and pic diverse angles of the same thing – wide, very close up, straight down, really loftier, or really low angles, mix it upward and get creative. You'll be happy when you lot first to edit when you accept lots of clips to choose from.
Take Shorter Clips
All too frequently when I first started shooting video with my GoPro I would take these massive several infinitesimal long clips with one really cooling thing somewhere in the heart. Then when I got back from a trip trying to call up where in this super long clip that one thing I really desire to show was.
On the flip side, you don't want to miss the action. And so, if you are going to keep the photographic camera rolling, endeavour and cease the footage periodically when y'all know there is going to exist a interruption in the activeness and restart it, this will speed things upwardly when you want to edit later. Also the shorter the clips the easier it will be able to edit because your reckoner volition handle the smaller file sizes better, especially if you have an older computer.
Use a Tripod
Some other pro tip is to always take a lilliputian travel tripod for your GoPro. We honey a gorilla pod and a tripod mountain. This gives you tons of options to hang, mountain, or steady your GoPro for stationary shots. As great as shots with movement are, yous all the same need some nice steady shots in your video.
If you lot don't have a tripod or forgot your tripod set your GoPro on a rock or railing or anywhere it tin sit down, safely, to accept the same outcome equally a tripod. This is a great of a shot of y'all walking by to establish a shot or give a sense of identify. This is also great for time-lapses, which are expert to mix into your videos.
Get Closer
Since the GoPro camera is and so wide and it can pb to about of your clips feeling far away and look too much the aforementioned. Vary your shots and take fourth dimension to get real shut, but when you do that make certain to avert using the 'Wide' settings to avoid fisheye effects.
Don't shoot into the sunday
If you are using the automated modes of the GoPro, the camera is constantly adjusting the settings to give you a balanced photograph, simply when yous bespeak the photographic camera toward the sun the vivid skies will make the camera adjust the footage darker to compensate. If you can instead proceed you back to the lord's day when you moving-picture show your footage will look much better. While this might not ever be possible, it'south a great tip to follow equally often every bit you can.
Proceed something steady in your frame
Another way to make fast-moving action footage feels a scrap more stable to keep something not moving in the frame. Our tip to practice that is to mount the GoPro in a mode where part of an important object stays in the aforementioned spot in the frame through the clips.
For instance, if you are mountain biking quickly down a hill, if you can mount the camera to the bicycle in a manner where you lot will always see the handlebars or the forepart tire, the footage will feel more stable – even if it's very bumpy.
Apply the app
Proceed your clips nice, brusque, and high touch on by using the GoPro App when you are not right next to the camera. This is great for filming yourself doing things on a trip to give a feeling that someone else is filming you lot.
Another time I utilize the app is when I have the GoPro mounted somewhere like on a suction cup exterior the car. From the app, I tin can start, stop, and alter the settings of the photographic camera remotely. Using the GoPro app is another tip to get even more from your accessories and camera.
Have a plan or script
A more advanced tip when filming with your GoPro is to program out your shots before the trip to make certain you lot get what you need to edit a good video. This doesn't take to be a lengthy process, just as you lot start to have your videos more seriously information technology can really help. Even if it's on a piece of scratch newspaper or a napkin having a 5-minute plan with brand your videos significantly improve.
GoPro Video Editing Tips
Past far the hardest part of the creative process of making a GoPro video is editing the video into something that looks as epic every bit the trip was. Here are a few tips we learned from many years of filming and editing using GoPro cameras.
Tell A Story
Fun flashy edits are good, simply a video that tells a story is groovy. The difference between a good video and something that ends up looking like a bad home flick – is the story! The biggest problem with almost videos is that they don't actually tell a story. They are just a mix of clips that don't communicate what really happened or hogtie anyone to watch it.
When I say story, it doesn't even necessarily have whatever words. You can still tell a story visually by walking the viewer through the trip or experience. Even so, some of the best videos exercise have people in them talking, or at least equally the main graphic symbol.
Pick your music first
Afterward a story, the nigh important thing to edit is the music. you desire a song that fits the mood of the footage – you wouldn't want a ho-hum guitar song playing while you're skydiving. The mood and the footstep of the vocal should fit the footage and the experience of the video you are planning to make. Pick your music first is important for the tone but too for how you clips fit into the video.
My best GoPro Editing tip is that y'all should always be 100% set on your vocal before you offset editing, peculiarly if y'all plan to make your cuts to the beat out.
Edit to the vanquish
Ane of our favorite GoPro Editing tips is to put your footage to the beat of a song. Calculation music will give a level of polish to your video also as keep people watching longer. Similar the tip above states, it'south always all-time to pick your song first as that sets the stride of the video.
Mute the recorded Audio
Unless people are talking or you really desire people to hear what is going on, the sound you get from your GoPro usually doesn't add together much to the video – and a lot of times it's super distracting. This tip is especially true when you are holding the GoPro by mitt or underwater.
The microphone seems to capture a lot of creaking and mechanical sounds of your easily moving on the GoPro. Bad audio tin can exist very distracting and will oft exist the reason why someone stops watching a video – even more then than a shaky video.
Employ the lens correction tools
when filming in the wide modes of the GoPro you lot can correct the fisheye effects that the lens has on your footage. Virtually video editing software have presets congenital-in for GoPro cameras. Yet, test it out – sometimes information technology has negative effects on your footage, peculiarly when filming people.
Alternate clips
I of the best tips I could give someone new to filming with a GoPro is to brand sure you lot get a variety of very different looking clips. Don't but point the camera in the style you are looking, a video that is all kickoff-person view isn't going to be as good as a video that has lots of different angles and shot types.
Get creative and mount your GoPro in a few different places throughout the day or action – some will piece of work, others won't, merely you'll have much improve odds of getting some keen stuff if yous try lots of things.
Keep the clips brusque
Ideally, you want to go along your clips only as long equally they need to be to show people the important parts of the scene. In general, that is going to be less than x seconds, but in popular modern videos most clips are 2-3 seconds – and 10 seconds can seem like a lifetime unless something really epic is happening.
Use some Slow motion
Some of the coolest footage is from things that happen very fast, and slowing it down tin can really enhance your videos. Utilize the video editing software to tiresome downwardly the clips, but don't slow them past what they are capable of information technology will await stuttery. For example, if you take footage shot in 120fps, if you are editing it in a 30fps timeline in your editor you shouldn't slow it down 4x or 25%, anything slower the editor will non have plenty frames and it will expect stuttery.
Another Tip: Edit your videos to 24fps, this allows further slow motion and can requite your GoPro footage a more cinematic experience. With a 120fps prune, you can slow it downwards 5x on a 24fps timeline when editing.
In improver to just making to absurd stuff happen slower and longer, information technology tin aid your less ballsy shots look smoother. Slowing clips downward volition give the feel that they are smoother because any movement in the footage will too happen slower and expect less shaky.
Mix in some Speed Ramping
An advanced editing tip is to utilise a technique is called 'speed ramping'. This is where a clip changes speed within the aforementioned clip. For example, someone jumping off of a boat could start fast, and and then simply as they are about to hit the h2o slow it way downwardly, then back fast again later they are partway into the h2o.
This technique allows you to highlight the best parts of your GoPro footage while calculation a fun effect. If you program on doing this technique y'all should film in as loftier of a frame rate as yous can. Which on newer GoPro's that is 120fps or 256fps (frames per 2nd) – the higher the frame rate the slow you can make your footage without it getting stuttery.
Use the Quik App
If you desire an like shooting fish in a barrel what to edit your GoPro Footage you tin can actually practice information technology really rapidly right in the GoPro Quik app. Simply open it up and commencement a new projection with your clips and the software does the hard part for y'all.
If yous want to take it to the next level you tin make adjustments to the video that much better. Yous tin can set highlights to the frames that y'all actually want to showcase and so the app with take care of the hard role of editing your video to the music.
Quik volition cut and transition your footage right to a vocal you select from their audio library, and there is actually some pretty good tracks. While it lacks some flexibility for advanced editors, it turns what can take hours into minutes of editing time.
Watch your GoPro Video like a stranger
It's easy to go lost in the footage while you lot are editing and not tell the whole story. Before you publish your video watch information technology from the perspective of someone who wasn't there with you and inquire yourself if the video is interesting enough to share or does information technology tell the story you were hoping. If you have a friend y'all don't mind showing, share it with them, and inquire for their feedback.
Watch other people's videos
The best way to see what is possible with video editing is to watch other videos. Watching what other people are doing with their GoPro footage volition assist you lot be more creative while filming and make meliorate use of the footage you've already shot.
Watch How to Videos on how to edit your footage
If in that location is something you are trying to figure out, the chances are there is a video about information technology. YouTube is the best identify to find videos on how to make videos too! No matter what software you are using there is probably a video that tells you lot how to use it and even how to make specific edit types.
Edit, Edit, Edit.
Video editing is something that comes with fourth dimension. The more videos you edit the better your videos will become. The kickoff videos that yous edit will take a while and they might not be super flashy, simply that'southward ok.
This is a learning procedure, and the but manner to learn is to edit videos. I look back at some of my commencement GoPro videos and I cringe, just I am glad I made them, each and every video I edit makes me a ameliorate video editor.
GoPro Timelapse Tips
Ane of my favorite things to film with my GoPro are time-lapses. They are like shooting fish in a barrel to shoot and actually add a lot of production value to a GoPro edit. Offset taking improve fourth dimension lapses today past following these simple GoPro time-lapse tips.
Frame the all-time composition for your timelapse
One of the most of import considerations when taking a time-lapse, or whatever photo or video for that thing, is the composition. Also called framing, this concept is the process of choosing what is going to be in your shot and how information technology's positioned in the shot.
One of the best and easiest compositions to create is called the dominion of thirds.
Cull the right timelapse interval
Picking the interval or how often a photo in the timelapse is taken is i of the most important decisions you'll make when setting up a timelapse. If yous are just trying to get clouds moving over a landscape you lot should watch the clouds and run across how fast they are moving. If it's a windy twenty-four hours and they are moving fast ii seconds might be good, or on a normal day, 5 seconds will requite you more movement.
If you are in a busy subway station and you want to show people moving you lot might be able to show that with a brusque of an interval at .v seconds. Ane tip to remember is that the longer the interval, the longer y'all'll have to let the timelapse run, simply the faster the movement will happen.
Put something in the foreground
Simply watching clouds far in the distance is ok, but fix upwards your fourth dimension-lapses past putting something interesting or of import in the foreground close to the camera. For example, if you're on a surf trip and you are taking a timelapse of the dusk, put a surfboard in the frame to give the photograph more context and interest.
Avoid using the wide-angle setting
Mostly, the wide-angle setting for a timelapse doesn't work very well. This is especially truthful when filming outdoors and you accept a horizon line like a dusk over the h2o. The fisheye volition distort the horizon and wait very unnatural. Plus the wide-angle setting makes everything seem very far away and minor.
Make sure in that location is enough motion
Wearisome-moving time-lapses are boring. Double-cheque your setting and your scene to make sure there is going to be enough movement to make your time-lapse worth shooting and editing.
GoPro Tips and tricks underwater
Ane of the most common uses for a GoPro is getting it wet while snorkeling, diving, or just have fun in the pool.
Don't utilize the touchscreen
The technology that makes the touchscreen work, unfortunately, doesn't work when the screen is moisture. However, there is a workaround with a combination of button presses volition allow you to admission all of the menu items.
Each model camera is slightly different, so check for your specific model – and learn it before jumping in. Alternatively gear up your camera to your desired setting and as long as you don't desire to make whatsoever changes all the concrete buttons to take photos and change modes all the same work.
Use higher frame rates
Underwater footage tends to be shaky while trying to swim with a GoPro in your manus. Combat the shake with high frame rates and boring your footage downward later.
Always use a Floaty
There are probably thousands of GoPros on the bottom of the ocean because people forgot to bring an accessory that makes the GoPro float. There are sticks that are buoyant enough to bladder your GoPro to the surface and some older modes have a bright orange slice of foam that wraps around the GoPro to make it float. Some other pro tip is to make certain whichever stick or accessory y'all choose has a wrist strap!
Get some lights
Even a few feet deep the amount of light is much less than at the surface and everything starts to have on a blueish-green hue. If you want some great photos or videos from your next snorkel or diving trip make sure to get an underwater swoop light for the GoPro.
Skip the ruddy filters
You lot might have seen other people using a pinkish-scarlet piece of glass over the lens of their GoPro, these are supposed to bring dorsum some of the colors while diving, but honestly, they don't piece of work very well.
The deeper you go the less calorie-free penetrates and the colour that is kickoff to fall off is carmine, hence the ruby-red filers. Bluish light transmits the furthest and is why h2o and the sky appear blue and non other colors. While the red filter volition add color to your footage, I haven't seen information technology make the footage actually look any meliorate. Skip the filters and pick upwardly some lights instead.
GoPro FAQ
Q: What is the GoPro Focal Length?
A: The GoPro full-frame equivalent focal length is 14mm in wide mode.
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