Tag Archives: GoPro

GoPro

Capturing a photo at 70 mph – the safe way

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It would not be safe for me to be driving 70 miles per hour down a crowded freeway, and then stick my hand out the window with my expensive DSLR and try to snap some photos. That would be an accident waiting to happen. Lucky for me, I have a GoPro HD Hero2 and a suction cup mount.

Capturing a low angle on the freeway

The Capturing True Emotion Salt Lake City Facebook group had a photo challenge this week – Low-angle. I originally thought about sticking my GoPro in the toilet and getting a low-angle shot looking out past the bowl – but I opted to go a different route. I recalled a photo I captured while driving up to Haleakala in Hawaii in a rental car.

Before heading off to work this morning, I mounted the suction cup, with the GoPro attached, to the door of my car, as low as I could to the ground. But would it hold while traveling up to 70 mph on the freeway? To give myself peace of mind, I attached not one, but two strings from the camera and tied them to a solid part of the car. That way, if the suction cup failed, it wouldn’t tumble to the asphalt and get run over by a bazillion cars before I could rescue it.

041213-Low-angle-on-road-SETUP

I programmed the camera to take one photo every five seconds. I figured that would give me enough photos to choose from, without giving me a bazillion photos to have to look through. Although I might have been better off to have it take one every one second – but maybe another time.

Here’s how it looked as I headed off to work. —->

Anyone else tried something risky like this with their GoPro? Share a link below.

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Everyday Life

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How many days do you hop in the car and drive somewhere? Is it to or from work? The grocery store? The gas station? The movie theater? School? Chances are, most people’s lives involve driving, either directly or indirectly.

With those thoughts in mind, I share this photo with you as part of the Daily Post at WordPress.com Weekly Photo Challenge – Everyday Life.

091812 Everyday Life

I really don’t have any specs to share on the photo (aperture, shutter speed, focal length, etc.) because I simply opened up my sun roof, held my GoPro above the car and let it snap a few dozen photos. Yes, I was driving on a one-way street in downtown Salt Lake City at the time and was convinced that drivers around me were giving me weird looks. But I promise I stayed in my lane, used my blinkers as needed, and made it safely to my destination. Oh, I hope I didn’t jinx myself for my next drive in the car!

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

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I must confess that the idea for this photo came from my wife. When I read the challenge on Friday, I wasn’t sure what I could do and thought I would end up spending a lot of time thinking, or even over-thinking, the challenge. But when I mentioned it to my lovely wife, she pointed out that we were going kayaking the next day, which could be a great representation of the Free Spirit photo challenge.

090112 Free Spirit Kayaking

Although I would have loved to take my Canon 60D out on the kayak with me, my nightmare of losing the camera into the water got the better of me. But, I had my GoPro, dive housing and a 16 GB SD card, so I headed out on the lake.

After getting out into the water, I took a few shots from under the water – but worried that the green, murky water didn’t bode well for a great photo, so I took some shots from the surface, capturing the kayak on the water, with the stark contrast of the white clouds and blue sky above. I wish I had a floating contraption that would have allowed me to not stretch out my arm and have it be that awkward part of the photo, but I made do with what I had.

Once I got home and surveyed the photos, I found the one above and brought it into Photoshop. I made some minor adjustments to the levels, and thought I would also make some adjustments to the saturation – just to give it a slightly different look. I thought a lens flare would look good on the photo, but then my purist thoughts got the better of me. I didn’t want to doctor the photo and add elements I hadn’t captured in the shot.

As for the free spirit part of the photo… I love kayaking. I love paddling my way out onto a lake, setting the paddle across the cockpit and floating there on the water. It is a great way to escape from the hussle and bussle of life and simply enjoy nature. Regardless of how rough the lake water is, I enjoy getting away from shore.

With Labor Day marking the unofficial end of summer, I am not sure how many more kayaing trips my family and I will be able to get in before things start to get a little chilly and eventually ice over, but for a Labor Day weekend, it was a great end to the summer vacations!

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, Just for fun

A Split Second Jump Into the Pool

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We spent two nights at the St Regis Hotel in Park City, Utah this weekend for my brother-in-law’s wedding. Saturday morning, we spend a good three hours playing in the pool. I, of course, had my GoPro with me so I could try to get some really cool shots. I used the setting that shot 10 photos in one second, then pieced this photo together of the jump.

072012 Jump Pool St Regis

I learned a little late, that there is a split second delay from hitting the button until it snaps the first photo. Plus, you wouldn’t think that in such a short period of time, the camera would move, but I found that each photo was off just a little, so it didn’t mesh together as cleanly as I would have liked.

Overall, it was a fun time and a great wedding. Hope you enjoy the photo, and I’ll share other outtakes from the pool on my Carltonaut Facebook page, so be sure to follow me there, too.

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Movement

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I was vacationing with my family in Bear Lake when I saw the email on my iPhone about this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge. I went through my camera bag to survey my equipment and made a game plan for Saturday to capture movement.

GoPro? Check. Waterproof case? Check. Boat? Check. Tube? Check.

Let the photography adventure begin.

Once we got the troubled boat out of the harbor (long story), we loaded it up with life jackets and family (ages 3 to 65) and headed out on the water. When it was my turn to get into the tube, I grabbed my GoPro and jumped in. My sister got in the other tube and off we went.

I originally set my GoPro on video, but once my sister fell off, I switched over to a photo every 0.5 seconds and the boat floored it. My goal, as weird as it sounds, was to get a cool “biffing” shot, and so I was pretty excited when I went through my photos at the end of the day and found this photo mixed amidst a ton of other ones only half as cool.

070712 Water Impact

I found some other outtakes from the day’s events and shared them on my Facebook page. Check em out!

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, Just for fun

My GoPro + Golf Course = Creative Golfing Shots

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The other day, a few friends and I were supposed to meet at a local golf course to do a round of nine before work. Two of them were unable to make it last minute, so Marcus and I hit the links.

I brought my GoPro with me, along with my suction cup mount, and off we went. While I grabbed some video footage during some of our adventures (which you can watch here), I also shot some stills. Not just any still, but from the viewpoint of the hole.

061912 Jason golfball

I posted my favorite one above, but here are two others that you can check out. Which one do you like best?

061912 Marcus golfball

061912 Marcus Putt

061912 Golfball n Hole

One of the many nice things about the GoPro is it’s petite size. It allows it to fit in smaller places, get mounted on a wall without being in the way, and be easily carried from place to place. I’m not a salesman for GoPro, but I think it is one of my favorite pieces of camera equipment I have in my repertoire.

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge, GoPro

Alphabet Photo Challenge: W is for Watery Slide

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I had a really cool shot in mind for this week, using the word Water for W. However, it’s been a crazy week yet again, so I didn’t have the time to set up the shot and take it. But eventually I will, and I think the wait will be worth it.

Anyway, during a birthday party today for my niece, my daughter went on a trip down the watery slide (slip and slide). She was gracious enough to take the GoPro down with her; I’d set it to take a photo every .5 seconds and ended up with this one that was the best.

060912 W is for Waterslide

Did anyone else photograph something for the letter W this week? Now on to the Weekly Photo Challenge from WordPress – Friendship.

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Today

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When I saw the email about this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, I thought the write-up about it makes a great point on photo challenge submissions. I have a pet peeve about that, which I will most likely elaborate on in future post. But for now, I’ll share the photo I shot and am submitting to the photo challenge.

060112 Today photo challenge

I was in a meeting and didn’t have my camera on me when I saw the post. Then it was one of those CrAzY Fridays at work where you’re frantically trying to get stuff done so you don’t have to bring work home with you over the weekend. (Which probably means I shouldn’t be taking the time to write this blog post, but I was eager to get my photo up).

At about 1:30, when I finally decided that I better grab some lunch, since I skipped breakfast and didn’t want to get sick before dinner, I headed out to grab some food. I decided to bring my trusty GoPro along to get a shot that I’ve been thinking of taking for a few weeks now. Carpe Diem!

I put back the sunroof, set the camera to take one photo every .5 seconds, and held it outside of the car. I didn’t expect to get so much of a reflection in the windshield, but I liked the final result. One that I really liked was of a cross walk directly in front of the car, and perfectly reflected in the windshield, but the camera was off-kilter (that’s what happens when you’re driving and photographing at the same time).

So that’s my shot. I’ll rant about my photo challenge submission pet peeves later!

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, Travel

Looking out the Plane Window

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How many of us have tried taking a photo out the plane window? It can be a little challenging with the darkness of the plane and the brightness of the outdoors. So on my way to Philadelphia a week ago, I whipped out my GoPro to take a few shots out the window to see if the wide-angle of the GoPro would make for a good photo.

051612 Plane to Philly

I took that photo while in the air, but when we landed in Minnesota, I whipped out the GoPro when I noticed an airplane on the other end of the runway waiting to take off. In order to catch it out my window, I had the camera set to take a photo every .5 seconds in hopes of catching it. Well, here was the result.

051612 Plane taking off

Nothing really earth shattering, but I think it just goes to show that my mind is almost always thinking about ways to photograph the world around me. My wife mentioned to me the other day that a lot of my life is seen through the viewfinder. Is that good or bad?

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, Travel

Snorkeler’s view: In and Out of the Water

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I’ve tried to get one of those shots where you see in and out of the water in a single shot. Since this is the first real waterproof camera I’ve had, and I can take a bazillion shots without having to pay for developing the film or printing the shots, I figured I would give it a shot the other day while snorkeling in Maui.

I was hoping to see a sea turtle while snorkeling, but no luck during a long swim out and around the rocks at Black Rock. On the way back, after seeing a lot of cool fish, I stopped along the row of rocks to try getting one of these shots.

050812 In Out of Water

GoPro | One photo every .5 seconds

Since there is no viewfinder on my GoPro (until I buy the LCD bakpak), I had to snap a bunch of photos and look at them once I got back to the hotel. I set the camera to take a photo every .5 seconds and held it at the waterline, angled slightly down and let it shoot away. Of the probably 50 photos shot, only about 5 of them were decent, with this one being of the better shots.

After exhausting myself with the long swim back to where my wife was sitting on the beach, I encountered a large group of people swimming around a sea turtle. I was able to grab a little video of it before I couldn’t keep up with it any longer. You can watch the video clip of the sea turtle on my YouTube channel.

After catching the sea turtle, I had to part with my camera or my wife was going to get really upset with me. Every time I was in the water, I was using my GoPro camera. It was time to leave the camera on the beach and just enjoy playing in the water. It was a blast!

~signed, Carltonaut