GoPro HD Hero2

[CarpeyBiggs]

cheap and quick? ha. nice try... it's expensive, and difficult to learn to fly well.

[JONBOYLEMON]

It would be cheaper to charter a heli from Salt Lake and see it for yourself than do what he is doing. And I am not exaggerating by much.

[deagol]

Hmm, OK, I stand corrected. How much $$$ are we talking here ?

[CarpeyBiggs]

for a basic wing DIY kit you are looking at around $2k, with enough lift to support a gopro camera. about 40 hours to build it out, and a lot of time to develop the skill to fly it.

[Sombeech]

RC Helicopter might be the way to go, get down in the slots, check it out.

[deagol]

Just for the record, I am not thinking of getting into RC planes or coptors. I just thought if you already had this setup, it would be a cheap way to scout out some areas. I noticed that video was pretty close to Granary Canyon & Potash. I really liked that video.

Back on topic, the second firmware update for the Hero2 is now available.

[CarpeyBiggs]

RC Helicopter might be the way to go, get down in the slots, check it out.

yeah, we've looked into this... again, for any kind of quality and stability, it's incredibly expensive. it seems like you should just be able to find a dirigible or something for a reasonable deal and float a camera into these places, but variables like wind speed, motors, battery life, and a rig with enough lift for a camera make it so you need a pretty robust system.

the quadcopters that are actually any good run up to 10k for a reasonable setup. basic guai quads can be built for like $400, so maybe one thousand could get the whole setup, but they vibrate like crazy, battery power is super limited, and they are risky to fly (especially in a slot).

there's options, they just cost more than i can afford right now.

i'm still surprised to hear your problems with the hero2. we've used one a lot in the last two months, and they are a huge upgrade on the original. we've had issues with the image being green when the lcd backpack is first placed on there, but cycling the power seems to fix it. hope yours gets resolved soon.

[deagol]

As far as the "scouting" of canyons by RC aircraft, I wasn't thinking that actually flying INTO them would be a good idea, but merely flying over them. Just an idea from watching that video.

Anyway.... my problems with the Hero2 are all related to cold weather. I've traded several emails back & forth with Gopro support and they are aware of the cold weather issues. They tell me that there will be a firmware updated called "V60" that is not available yet that should fix the problem(s). Last night, I noticed they had the 2nd firmware update "V58" available for download, so I got that installed. I have not tested it out yet.

I have stated previously that I have had great results with the Hero2 when the cold is not an issue and I am looking forward to getting my setup dialed-in (whatever that will entail).

I have downloaded Windows Live Movie Maker for Vista (thanks for the tip, Sombeech) and have been able to make some test videos both slowing the footage down and speeding it up. Vista has a hard time with it possibly since many codecs also need to be running to allow the MP4s to play? I've had a few crashes. From the things I've read, Windows 7 would run it better.

Carpeybiggs, I have seen some of the vids you have posted, particularly the Freezefest stuff, and they are really awesome. I really liked the timelapse stuff where the camera also panned across the landscape slowly (motorized tripod?). While I would never aspire to get that professional with it, it is a fun hobby that I was inspired, in part at least, to get into by seeing what other more expereinced photographers have done.

[deagol]

Update: firmware version V70 is out and all cold related problems SEEM to be fixed..

[jamesdak]

Hmm, I wonder if the Hero2 has a different color sensor than the Hero1 ?

If so, I guess it could be more sensitive to the cold than the Hero1 (this is pure speculation on my part).

I have used the Hero2 in the cold/snow and sometimes it works fine. I am guessing that in those cases, it was already warmed-up from prior filming.

I did a test the other night where I left it out on my balcony for a while (maybe 30 minutes ?) then brought it back in and perfomed the "work-around" then turned it back on and did a test video inside. It did not work properly (another pure white film).

My guess is that the work-around was not adequate to warm the camera up and maybe if I left it on longer the film would have turned out OK? I am going to try this again later and try to pre-warm the camera by putting it in an interior pocket or something, perhaps leave it on longer than the recomended 2 minutes..

All this talk about warming a camera to shoot in cold is counter to what I do with still photography. I shoot outside all winter long and just allow my gear to stay cold. Moving it back into a warm area quickly causes all sorts of condensation problems. Not sure how this would apply to the Gopro but if it does not work outside in the cold it's useless for me.

[deagol]

I had been emailing their customer support about this issue, as outlined above. It was a pain to do the "pre-warming" but now with the firmware 70 version, it seems to be OK. I did some cold weather tests where I left the camera outside after 2 hours (can't remember the temp, but probably around 30 degrees ?) and it worked fine. It think the firmware update to V70 has fixed this. If I find otherwise with additional testing, I'll post here...

[deagol]

This is a follow up to my previous post. I tested the Gopro Hero2 again today at a ski area with fairly cold "ski area" temperatures and am just now looking at the videos. Everything is fine. The cold did not affect anything this time (since firmware update to V70). I did not do the work-around (see up-thread for explanation) to pre-warm the camera that was previously recommended and it still worked great. I would say now that there is nothing to worry about with the Hero2 and the cold.

[jamesdak]

Outstanding! Thanks for the feedback. Now to justify the cost, LOL!

[ststephen]

I'm late to this party, but been playing with my new hero2 just a few times so far. I have question about editing. So far I have just iMovie on my macbook. When I import the video it must do some type of automatic conversion from H.264 to something else, because the disk space consumption is out-of-whack with what is on the SD card. I have a 16 GB SD card and with only 10 or 15 minutes recorded it consumes almost 16GB on my HDD. Must be something like a 4X factor of expansion. Perhaps I should be converting it myself somehow first? Use a better editor/importer?