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Good evening Bgafd people,

I was wondering if there is any advice from the tech savvy of those amongst you regarding equipment for POV type work?

I'm looking to take video and stills although I don't mind splashing out on a separate piece of kit for each, and of course I will need some sort of lighting rig..I have considered investing in some constant panel lights but have no idea if they are up to task!

my budget for all this is pretty generous as long as the kit is up to the job! so any advice is very much appreciated

Jim POV.

I recently bought one of those GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition sports cameras and have used it for WAM and POV content. From a camera the size of a matchbox (out of its waterproof housing) you can obtain full 1080p HD footage (and beyond) and 12Mp for still shots if you want.

You can get a chest harness for it that these surfer dudes use when they want to film themselves catching a wave (or whatever the fuck it is they do) but this setup is ideal for hands-free POV shots.

The camera talks to an app on your iPhone/Android phone or tablet so you can set it up before you shoot, it allows all sorts of adjustments including white balance (or no balance at all so you can edit the raw footage in your video editor). For ?359 it's fucking amazing what this thing can do.

And it looks really cool.

And no I don't work for GoPro.

Have the recent Go Pro HD releases like the Black not got the bowing of straight lines like previous ones? I guess not.

GoPro Black has had some reported issues freezing up.

I'd go for the Hero 2. Save a hundred quid (here in Japan). Or the Panasonic HX-A100

The 'bowing of the lines'?? It's super wide. You'd expect that.

After my post yesterday, I did some youtubing. Found a channel called brynmag with GP3 footage [not sure of board's youtube links policy so I've not put it in]. GP3 has various FOV settings eg wide, medium, narrow. You can see Brynmag footage in 1080P. There's less and less bowing as you go towards narrow where there looks to be little.

That plus the better low light of the Black might be a better option.

Been using GP Hero3 black too. Quirky camera not for the faint hearted but gives great results with care. I made some undistorting edit tools myself to vary FOV, eliminate/scale bowing effects.

Hi all

Thanks for all the feedback

Is the gopro really upto the job? I know it is used for action sports etc but is it good enough for broadcast? I was thinking more along the lines of the Sony HXR-NX30E

any comments appreciated

IanJimPOV,

I can give *some* info on this.

Certainly the picture quality is good although it depends what you find acceptable. 1080P, 960P, 720P looks great to my eyes *in good light* My knowledge and use is a long time ago with 960P and Hero 2. It's certainly been used in pro stuff [music vdos, snow/skateboarding, action sports]. Do a utube/vimeo search for examples. There's also a post either on here or another forum showing the GoPro in use [Black I think]. Check the specs for the Black HD3. They're even better but my knowledge of that is limited.

Also, you can now get protune, as a software upgrade I believe, although you'd need to check on which GP cameras. I think I can maybe even get it on my GP 2 but I've never upgraded the software as I've no need/interest. Protune is where you shoot the video flat and color process it later [ie RAW].

An issue you might have with POV is the very wide angle and the bowing of lines. I did try POV with it once and it was okay. It was a limited amateur experiment, though. My research the last week or so shows that you can use software [eg after effects] to remove the bowing. Or even hardware but this means removing the lens or even adding something over it. Hmmm. You do get different FOV as well eg wide, medium, narrow. The latetr almost removes bowing. It works by zooming in [ie cropping], I think.

Then there's the stabilisation issue. Handholding? Strapping it to your body? Clamping it to something? You really need some one who has used it like that which isn't me bar brief attempts a long tome ago. Mind if surfers and bmxers can get away with it...

Erotical,

What do you mean by you made some tools?