If you follow me on Facebook at Pinola Photography then you have already seen this probably. I made this video Saturday night while photographing the Lafayette Brawlin’ Dolls final home bout of the season against the Fox Cityz Foxz. I like to throw the Go Pro on top of my camera every now and then to get a look at how I shoot. I really thought that I had a rough night shooting that night. I just didn’t have the keeper rate that I am used to. Looking back at the video though I can see that I really did pretty well. I don’t like to show my team in a bad light, and it was a rough night for them. I may be shooting derby again this Saturday in Indy so I will give this another shot if I do. As I said before this is a great way to see your shoot over again. Just like the athletes it is good to study yourself as a photographer to see where you can improve.
Mounting the GoPro to my camera is actually pretty easy. A $5 hot shoe mount that you can purchase on Amazon here gets you started. Then you use the GoPro tripod adapter to screw onto the hot shoe mount. From here you have a couple of options. You can mount the GoPro right to the tripod mount as I have done above. Doing that you have a view of nearly what you see shooting. You also have the lens in the frame. If I want to take video without having the lens in the way I used a couple of 90 degree adapters to get the GoPro up a bit higher. When doing a video like the one above though I like to see the lens in the frame so I mount the GoPro as close as possible to the camera.
This video was made in the GoPro Studio that is free from the company. You can download the program right from there site. They have some templates that you can use that have the bumpers for the company at the beginning and the end as well as a music track. I used a longer template with 14 videos in it to get everything that I wanted included. You really have to conform with the template, but it makes it very easy to make a video.
Dave Wegiel Photography 