Fun With a Helmet Cam

Extreme Skiing at Alpine Meadows, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan.

I was on the verge of buying a cheap uderwater camera when I ran across the GoPro helmet cam: a compact unit that can shoot in one of 5 video formats all the way up to 1080P HD, plus the capability to shoot 5 megapixel still images one at a time or at selectable intervals.

The GoPro is water resistant to 80 meters deep, so no problem if you want to shoot video or stills while snorkling, fishing, whitewater rafting, or skiing.

It produces videos in an MP4 format which not all programs support, but I found free software which enables conversion to more common formats, while adjustment of video quality:
http://www.highballblog.com/2010/02/how-to-edit-your-gopro-hd-videos-with_25.html

At the risk of stating the obvious, the GoPro portion of the video here is the portion clearly shot from pro freeskier Kevin Wherritt’s point of view. (I should also add the caveat that the video uploaded here is a quick preview edit, and is of course severely downgraded in resolution and quality for ease of online use.)

Jeff Sullivan

Jeff Sullivan leads landscape photography workshops in national parks and public lands throughout California and the American West.

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怡均怡均怡均 says:

April 19, 2010 at 2:02 am

great msg for me, thanks a lot dude˙﹏˙
Constantin says:

May 15, 2010 at 11:15 am

Yup the mp4 format may be messy for some video editors.
I struggle with my laptop to edit in HD. Most of the times I create 3 or 4 one minute clips which I then join together into my final outdoor video. :-)
GoPro HD footage looks great but if you can't edit it in mp4 the best way is to covert it mov format; the avi format is good as well but it occupies much more space on your hard drive. The mov occupies just as much space as the mp4 files (compressed and keeping high quality).

Thanks for your post. Cheers!