Go Pro camera - mounting, remote, etc.

[stevegrab]

I recently bought a Go Pro (Hero4 Silver Moto bundle) camera and I'm looking for some advice on a few things.
First mounting, helmet or on the bike? If on the bike where, front, side, low, high? My personal feeling is on the helmet will have a lot more movement, I know I turn my head a lot, especially in the wide open country looking at things on the sides of the road. I saw Norm Kern once at a stop and he had his mounted on the front of his ST near the light/windshield. While I might want to get some engine noise (esp on the VFR) it isn't critical and most video will probably have some music added over it later.

Remote use - first let me say the Hero4 model has the built in screen, so that helps some and doesn't require the extra purchase of the snap on screen. But if the camera is not on my helmet, or somewhere that I can reach it while I ride seems the remote be required (or else I can only stop/start when off the bike).  The Hero4 supports a WiFi remote, but can also work with an app on smartphones to control it. I don't have a smartphone now (stop laughing) but plan to get one soon. I was thinking I'd wait to see how well that works, say in the map pocket of my tank bag to operate the controls. In the end I'm thinking the remote would be better, and probably worth the $80ish price.

I also bought a charger and 2 extra batteries (Wasabi), a 32GB card (part of bundle) and a nice padded case for all of it. I know I'll probably need more memory cards at some point if I'm shooting a lot. (But I'll usually have my tablet on trips and can offload some there each night.) The case will probably get used mostly on day rides as its pretty large, taking up too much room on a longer trip where I need clothes and other stuff. I figure I'll use some small fleece storage bags form Aerostich for carrying it on trips.

Any other tips or tricks people have will be appreciated. So far I've only been able to use it walking in the park and mounted on the dash of my car driving some back roads. May try it out on the bike if I get a chance to ride this weekend.

[HawkGTRider]

I mounted a original GoPro on the right hand side of the bike on one of the engine guards for my trip to Alaska last summer. Because of the constant bombardment of mud on the Dalton and Dempster Highways, the camera was completely covered with goop when I really wanted to use it. A helmet mount would have been much better.

I could reach the camera and turn it off and on, but I couldn't SEE when it was off or on unless I was off the bike. I'm jealous of the wifi interface that your newer model has equipped.

Set on taking a photo every 60 seconds, I got a few good shots and a lot of pictures that were only useful for practice in deleting stuff. The good news was that the camera outfitted with a Battery BackPak was pretty much good for all day.

[VersysRider]

Helmet mount will result in less vibration of the video as your body acts as a damper between the motorcycle and camera. My GoPro video was for the most part useless when the camera was mounted directly to my Versys. This was on a twin, so you very well could experience different results.

You definitely need more memory cards. Buy the largest the unit will accept. My guess is your tablet doesn't have a hard drive so you would be uploading the videos to a server. Hotel internet connections are generally very slow, so that method doesn't work well. If you have a surface pro tablet or similar with a hard drive, then this isn't nearly as big of an issue. You can easily eat up the space on a 32gb memory card with a days worth of riding.

You really shouldn't need the extra batteries of you charge the unit each night. You can also power the unit from the bike if it is mounted on the bike, then no need to worry about battery power. You can get a 12v micro USB cord/charger for less than $10 on Amazon that is hardwired to the bike's electrical system.

I sold my GoPro shortly after I bought it as I was disappointed with the video and picture quality. I was getting better video from a $69 point & shoot. Hopefully the newer models are much improved.

[stevegrab]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys. I'll probably try both helmet and on bike mounts, though I'm not sure I want to stick a mount on the plastic body with the hopes of removing it later and not damaging the finish. So maybe I start with the helmet, and a less visible place on the bike.

As for power, I used it some in my car and hiking, and got down to 2 (from 3) bars pretty quick (under 2 hours). Since it has a built in screen (which stays on for a while then goes out) it eats more battery than the older ones. And I hear the WiFi (to remote or cell to control it) will eat even more  I've already bought the spares and they'll be nice to have. I plan to have some form of power on most bikes, but their primary purpse will be to run the GPS, so an extra battery could come in handy for the unit. (I plan to use power sources that allow me to plug in most any USB capable device to charge, phone, GPS, camera, backup battery pack, etc.)

My Tablet (an ASUS MeMO pad) has 32GB HD, so it will provide some space to offload stuff. I can also attach a USB, so I could carry an external HD and offload to that too. Of course I'm still learning how I can find info on what the tablet storage capacity is (how much is used vs. free, a simple thing in windows seems not built into the Android OS). More cards are definitely in the works, agree the largest possible is best. I want to ride for a few hours and see just how much of the card I eat up with constant video. So far I've been impressed letting it run for 10 minutes or so, click the shutter (to finish and save the video file) and it doesn't have a long delay (must be writing a file as it goes, there's no where to buffer it).

[RichGrab]

"... both helmet and on bike mounts, though I'm not sure I want to stick a mount on the plastic body with the hopes of removing it later and not damaging the finish."

Goo Gone - swear by the stuff. Used it to remove stickers from new body work on VFR as well as on new windshield.