GoPro Hero 5 Users - Advice Needed!

We are buying a GoPro Hero 5 Black for our upcoming cruise in August.

The camera was my teenage son's idea, and he will be our primary videographer, but we'd like to keep the purchase a surprise from him for now.

Besides the camera, what else will we need? Extra batteries? Will one battery last through a full day's excursion? What about extra SD cards? Can we capture our whole trip on one 32 GB card? How do we get video off of the card? Will we need to bring a laptop? How are those accessory kits from Amazon - are they any good? Clearly, I'm new at all of this :-)

We don't want to do anything too complex with it, just capture our vacation along with some cool underwater and action shots.

Any advice on what else I should purchase would be greatly appreciated!

Besides the camera, what else will we need? Extra batteries? Will one battery last through a full day's excursion? What about extra SD cards?

According to this website, one battery will last for 1.5 to 2 hours, but this depends on what kind of video you're shooting and what features you have enabled/disabled.

The website provides tips for maximizing the battery life.

Can we capture our whole trip on one 32 GB card?

According to this other website, you'll get between 1 hour, 6 minutes and 2 hours, 11 minutes of video onto a 32 GB card, depending on the type of video you shoot.

How do we get video off of the card? Will we need to bring a laptop?

That's certainly the most convenient way to do it.

The first thing I would get would be some books...

Jordan Hetrick - How to Use the GoPro Hero 5 has some very good basic information

There is also a GoPro Professional Guide to Filmmaking.

I take a couple of spare batteries and a charger that will charge two or three at a time. Wasabi seems to make good batteries and chargers for less than GoPro.

Two cards should be sufficient, that way you have a spare.

A handle. I use a Floaty handle, a short one that floats. Also a longer one that can extend a bit.

The learning curve is steep with a GoPro, but a teenager will pick it up immediately.

Have fun...

I just bought one of those for my upcoming cruise. Does he have a small pole to hold it for recording?

The batts last between 1.5 and 2 hrs. I usually take 2 or 3 with me for a day trip. The aftermarket ones on amazon work fine and you can get a charger with them for the price of a single gopro brand batt. Gopros eat up memory cards, unless you have some way of backing up the cards you will need several. If your shooting at 1080 30 fps you will get about 5 hrs per 32 gig card. Cards are cheap if you watch best buy for sales or they will match Amazon prices. Get 1 card per day if your not taking a laptop. Get your memory cards from best buy thou, there are several fakes on amazon and ebay. I use Sandisk and never had failure with the ones I bought at best buy, but several failures from Amazon. The Acc kits you can get on amazon or ebay are fine for the mounts and stuff. I'd also get a small handle of some sort, a short selfie stick or something.

The batts last between 1.5 and 2 hrs. I usually take 2 or 3 with me for a day trip. The aftermarket ones on amazon work fine and you can get a charger with them for the price of a single gopro brand batt. Gopros eat up memory cards, unless you have some way of backing up the cards you will need several. If your shooting at 1080 30 fps you will get about 5 hrs per 32 gig card. Cards are cheap if you watch best buy for sales or they will match Amazon prices. Get 1 card per day if your not taking a laptop. Get your memory cards from best buy thou, there are several fakes on amazon and ebay. I use Sandisk and never had failure with the ones I bought at best buy, but several failures from Amazon. The Acc kits you can get on amazon or ebay are fine for the mounts and stuff. I'd also get a small handle of some sort, a short selfie stick or something.

Great! Thanks :-)

You can download to your phone but that eats up battery. Leaving wireless and bluetooth off on phone and go pro saves some battery.

Big box wholesale had a package deal with handle, mounts case, velcro straps a few weeks ago.

Take extra batteries and cards, more is better. I didn' t have any and have been learning as I go while on board.

Battery is$29 onboard

Memory cards start at $29 on board

Gopro offers a cloud service. But it needs a connection.

Alan

Sent from my SM-G965U using Forums mobile app

Either buy a lot of SD cards that are "fast enough" so you don't need a laptop on the trip, or buy just enough SD cards (2-3?) to make it through a day (plus a spare in case one dies or gets lost) that are the fastest you can find. Even if the camera can't use the speed, it can improve your download speed to the computer, which is a significant factor. In real world situations, there's always bottlenecks, and I think I'm getting 2.5-3 gigabytes per minute real world with my setup; if that was slower cards, OMG...

Just bought a GoPro Hero 5 for our upcoming trip.

I did some research and found a couple things that are necessary to go along with it.

The battery life is kind of disappointing. I found these would work well as it allows charging of all three at the same time.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0734J76NN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

These mounts also com in handy as the go pro does not come with anything the assist in handheld shooting of photos/video. The price is great and the quality is pretty decent.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01171X0UW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For storage go with a 128 GB micro SD card. A little larger in price but remember the Hero5 shoots HD video so a small video clip will consume a large amount of memory. 15 sec = 25 MB. according to GoPro the 128 card is the largest supported by the Hero5.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073JYC4XM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good luck with your shopping.

Thanks for all of the great advice!

25MB per 15 seconds is still 21 hours of footage on a 128GB card. That's why a lot of us recommend more cards that aren't so huge - if that 128GB card should get corrupted or lost, you've potentially just lost your whole trip worth of footage. If it were 32GB cards, now you're talking 5 hours of footage (still two batteries worth I think), AND if you bought four cards, when you get down to one card left, you know to be selective about what you shoot. If you only buy one 128GB card, you've got to live by the space indicator, and do you really want to buy two huge cards?

Lots of people have good success with aftermarket batteries, but I have a few words of warning: they sometimes don't last like the name-brand batteries do. Sure you can carry three spares, but if all three develop the same surprising drop from full charge to near-empty, you're now hauling a lot of dead weight, not actual camera gear.

I just bought one of those for my upcoming cruise. Does he have a small pole to hold it for recording?

I would suggest one of the $100-$150 or so motorized stabilizing gimbals. If there's anything worse than sitting through someone's five hour vacation video, it's sitting through one that looks like a remake of the Blair Witch Project.

:)

Dave

I would suggest one of the $100-$150 or so motorized stabilizing gimbals. If there's anything worse than sitting through someone's five hour vacation video, it's sitting through one that looks like a remake of the Blair Witch Project.

 

:)

 

Dave

Dave is right on with this advice. Like a tripod with a still camera the gimbal makes a huge difference in the quality of the video.

I still recommend the aftermarket batteries. They're so cheap, and if you use the OEM GoPro one first, the chances of ALL of them dying mysteriously is miniscule.

I just use one 64GB. If filming judiciously, it lasts about a week. If you plan on filming a bunch of longer clips (like shows or timelapses), then I'd get a bunch of 32GB ones.