Anyone Using GoPro's for Stage Event Work?

[Rey Lowe]

Assuming the performance is brightly lit, how good are these little cams at capturing footage from creative angles and editing alongside prosumer Sony's?

[Shaun Roemich]

The Hero3 is vastly improved over the Hero2 in terms of image quality and responds well to good lighting. Your exact application of course may or may not benefit. Rent one for an event and try it out.

I HAVE found that they tend to stop recording somewhat at random based on my experience thus far.

[Allan Black]

In the interests of full disclosure, the Russians can do it :) ...

GoPro video from the tail of the MiG29 and Su27 cockpit on Vimeo

Cheers.

[David J. Payne]

i filmed a stage performance with 3x 5d mk ii's recently and put a gopro hd heo 2 up high facing out to the crowd expecting not to use the footage but I was surprised how good it looked and how often I went back to it. As you say it really is all down to lighting though, it needs to be good or the HD hero 2 falls down. Getting a 3 soon so will hope thats considerably better in low light

[Chris DeVoe]

Here's one that I didn't shoot, but did edit and mix:

Outta My Head - Daughtry - Kansas City School of Rock - YouTube

The cameras were four 5D's, one 60D and three HD Hero 2s.

The Heros were shooting up between the toms on one drum kit, overhead on the other drum kit and clamped to the end of the keyboard. I was shocked by how good the HD Heros looked, and I picked up a couple to add to my kit. I haven't used them for a shoot yet, but I plan to do the drum kit mount, as it is always tough to get good shots of the drummer.

[Adrian Tan]

They look better than the DSLRs to me. (Is that blasphemy?)

To put it another way: clear, (reasonably) stable, interesting compositions beat shaky, out-of-focus, underexposed, badly composed images with rolling shutter problems, despite difference in price point, and despite shallow depth of field.

[Chris DeVoe]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

They look better than the DSLRs to me. (Is that blasphemy?)

To put it another way: clear, (reasonably) stable, interesting compositions beat shaky, out-of-focus, underexposed, badly composed images with rolling shutter problems, despite difference in price point, and despite shallow depth of field.

Yeah, as I said, I edited and mixed it but did NOT shoot it. It was a shoot for a web series that didn't get used, and my client received the raw video and audio files and I did an edit and mix job. Believe it or not, these are the most stable shots (which is why I had to keep going back to the shot of the drummer). The rest of the footage looks like it was shot by ferrets.

[Zach Legleiter]

Great little cameras (for the price). I am a TD for a small TV sports network in southern Kansas. During basketball games we mount them behind the baskets as "slam cams" and route them to the EVS machines for some awesome replays.

I will admit, they are difficult to match (white balance) with the much more expensive cameras we use to cover the games. But as a "Flavor" shot with their super wide angle lens they are pretty amazing.

[Chris DeVoe]

Originally Posted by Zach Legleiter

I will admit, they are difficult to match (white balance) with the much more expensive cameras we use to cover the games. But as a "Flavor" shot with their super wide angle lens they are pretty amazing.

Which model are you using? Hero 2, Hero 3? White, Silver, Black? Are you using them in "ProTune" mode?

[Zach Legleiter]

Chris, we have Hero2's

[Chris DeVoe]

I wish they had a manual white balance option, but based on the things they have added already, it may appear at some point in the future. I have the GoPro App on my Android Galaxy Tab tablet, and it is so much easier to set options on it than the painful process of navigating through menus with only two buttons.

I haven't tried it yet, but I understand the ProTune option extends the record quality and dynamic range of the cameras, but would probably not be of much use if you are using them live as a component source.

[Noa Put]

Since it's release I have read quite a lot about the 3 version stopping randomly during recording, would that still be the case? That's one of the reasons why I have not bought it yet, if I can't trust it to record safely as long as the battery powers it I don't care how good the rest is as that won't matter if you have no recording at all. Second is that in Belgium it's expensive (the black version costs 650 dollar here)

[Chris DeVoe]

Don't know. I only have Hero 2s like yourself.

[Chris DeVoe]

Shot my first show with the GoPros this weekend.

They worked, but the wi-fi link is NOT reliable in real-world usage. I was able to start them, but once started, the preview disappeared and I was not able to get it to come back. to ensure that I still had the image. I really need the update where I can have multiple cameras on one wi-fi link.Dropping one wi-fi connection and trying to make another to switch camera views is a major pain. If I had known that I was not going to be able to preview, I would have set them up to record in ProTune more.

All that said, I did get the full show on both cameras.

[Paul R Johnson]

Most of my work is theatrical - so here's a clip under normal stage lighting.

Gopro in the panto car on Vimeo

Vimeo