Hello! and welcome to the newest addition to the blog ::drum roll:: LABS! Which is where I’ll be sharing a few of my creative experiments. Recently I’ve been playing around more with my GoPro Hero 3. In the past I’ve mainly used the camera to record some behind the scenes and POV vlogs of my photo shoots. Since my car was out of commission today I had to run my errands by moving to and from on my longboard. In the process I thought it would be fun to use bits of grip gear lying around to stick my GoPro to my board to get the board’s point of view.
Gear You’ll Need:
- Some model of GoPro
- Manfrotto Superclamp with a 1/4″ Pin
- GoPro Tripod Mount
- Gaffer’s Tape
- GoPro Mobile App (free)
Mounting the camera is quite simple. First I attached the tripod mount to my GoPro’s housing, then screwed the tripod mount onto the 1/4” pin.
The I stuck the pin into the superclamp and the attached clamp to the end of my board. I also wrapped the ends of the clamp with gaffer’s tape beforehand so that I wouldn’t ruin the wood of the longboard.
Finally I used the GoPro App on my phone to check composition and then proceeded to cruise around. It should be noed, however, that while riding I had to reposition the camera several times. Depending the street’s conditions the bumps and unevenness of the roads can create vibrations that gradually pivot the GoPro to an unusable angle.
Melly, you are seriously the coolest.
Thanks for these instructions. I bought the Superclamp after reading this post and it works great for securely attaching a camera. Instead of Gaffer’s tape I use a piece cut from a sponge cloth, folded twice.
What did you use to stabilize the video? I mounted my easyPix GoXtreme on top at the front of the board but even with a high amount of stabilization (in PowerDirector; I also tried iMovie with similar results) the footage is pretty much unsuable, very shaky and wobbly. Your video looks much better than my results so far. Would a better camera make a difference (but the GoPro models also have rolling shutter and no built-in stabilization)?
Hi Stefan,
Glad the mount is working! I actually didn’t add any additional stabilization to my footage. There are plugins available for Adobe Premiere thought. Good luck!