As a photographer, you get me started on the topic of cameras, and you might have to block off an hour or two. In the last six months in particular, the topic of the GoPro has come up frequently. Three times today, in fact.
I can't say I've ever seen such a phenomena for one particular camera model. Maybe in the time of my great-grandparents, when the Kodak Brownie was popularized, would we have seen a similar pattern. Everyone, and I mean everyone, either has one, has seen one, or wants one, if they do any sort of sporting or adventurous activity.
What is the GoPro? It's an inexpensive, tough as nails, waterproof camera that is small and light enough to attach to almost anything or anyone. They are currently in their third generation of the Hero series, with three different models.
If you watch almost anything on Discovery Channel, you will see GoPros in use and their actual footage. You can recognize the video footage by its extreme wide angle appearance, where straight lines on the edge of the frame become curved. The camera itself can be spotted by its clear plastic case mounted in unusual positions. There's helmet, handlebar, suction cup, surfing and diving mounts, to name a few. It was invented by a surfer to record his feats in the water.
They are nearly indestructible, and because they cost only a few hundred dollars (often a fraction of the cost of the activity they are used to record), if one gets smashed, so be it.
When you go to Bestbuy.ca and look up camcorders, the first thing you are shown is a GoPro.
As long as you use them in daylight, they are very capable video and still cameras. I had a picture printed on metallic paper 26 inches wide for an album and it was indistinguishable in quality from my professional Nikons.
Indeed, I got my GoPro Hero 2 shortly after I got my top-of-the-line Nikon D4. The D4 cost roughly 20 times what the GoPro did, yet in some ways I was more excited about the GoPro. I put it in situations where I would never dream of putting my Nikons.
One guy I spoke to uses his to film his kids racing. The second guy talked about using them to film quad racing through mud pits. Yesterday a photography podcast I listened to talked about mounting them on a tiny robotic helicopter called the Phantom. A few months ago I spoke to a rig hand who broke a bone or two the first time he took his GoPro out stunting.
I made up my own heavy-duty magnetic mount and an attached safety lanyard. I bought my GoPro with the express purpose of mounting it on the side of the block on a drilling rig and sending it 100 feet in the air, looking down. I've been able to do that several times, and that point of view, for both video and stills, has been amazing. Better yet, I've been able to control its functions, switching from time lapse stills to different video modes, wirelessly using my iPhone. I can even see what it sees via the iPhone.
I've also tried it with the suction cup, attached to different parts of my truck, at highway speeds.
GoPro was part of the Felix Baumgartner jump, when he broke all records last year skydiving 39 kilometres from the edge of space. He wore a GoPro in his chest pack.
It's not perfect. With limited low-light capability, it's next to useless indoors. I find the two button interface for all functions maddening. I never take it anywhere without two batteries fully charged, and even then, a few times I have ended up with both of them dead. But when it works, it does so brilliantly.
It will never be as ubiquitous as the Kodak Brownie, nor be anywhere as close to long lasting, but the GoPro has definitely captured its spirit. As with the Brownie, anyone can get one for cheap and take amazing picture that they never would have dreamed of before.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
