Tag Archives: road

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

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, Just for fun, Travel

Driving the road to Haleakala Crater in Maui

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My wife thought I was crazy when I pulled over and hooked a suction cup mount to the side of our rental car, just behind the driver’s side tire. After driving for about 10 minutes to test the $30 mount to assure it wouldn’t fall off, I attached the $300 GoPro to the mount, setting it to take a photo every 60 seconds, and climbed back into the car.

We started driving, and with every bump, my wife and I cringed, hoping the jolt didn’t knock the camera off the car. We drove anywhere from 10 MPH to 40 MPH, depending on traffic and the many turns encountered on the climb from sea level to 10,000 feet.

050612 Driving to Haleakala

GoPro | 1 photo every 60 seconds

I wish I would have set it to take a photo every 30 seconds. Even though I would have ended up with a ton of photos, there would have been more photos to choose from. But I do like this one, which proved that mount is strong enough to have attached to a moving vehicle. But if I plan to travel any faster, I might attach a string to the mount so if it does fall, it won’t end up smashed along the side of the road.

~signed, Carltonaut