GoPro Photography Tips for Your Next Photography Trek
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Photo trekking is an incredible way to see the sights of the world from a bicycle and capture them as photography. GoPro action cameras are well suited for taking photos and video while biking, so we have some GoPro photography tips to help you get great results.
Basic GoPro Tips
GoPro action cams are very versatile. You can use them for still photography as well as video, they are water resistant or waterproof depending on the exact camera, shock resistant, and have wide lenses, some even including 360 panoramic views.
This GoPro photography tutorial will concentrate on using these action cams on a bike or a bike trip. Along the way, we’ll also talk about the Trek #GoByBike campaign of photo trekking.
For photography and videography from a bicycle, utilizing a secure camera mount on the bike itself is often a very good choice. Since you probably are using a high quality bike if engaging in photo trekking, GoPro photography bike mounts should provide a very good platform for both photos and videos.
In a basic GoPro tutorial, we find that the different GoPro cameras have some unique features among them. For instance, the GoPro HERO9 Black has ultra wide format views, HyperSmooth video stabilization, touchscreen controls, 5K video, and HindSight video recording which provides 30 seconds of video from before you hit record.
When to Use GoPro While Photo Trekking
In some of our previous photo trekking articles, we provided some tips on how to keep your DSLR or mirrorless camera safe as you ride, since operating a full size camera while on a bike has some safety issues for the rider and the camera gear, but these GoPro tips can be used for imaging and video while you’re actually riding.
In fact, on the website for Trek’s #GoByBike campaign, you’ll find a whole lot of images and short clips taken during an actual bike ride, sometimes road biking, other times mountain biking. A superb bicycle such as the Trek Remedy 9.9 provides a high level of comfort, stability, and performance along with excellent safety as you use the GoPro during a photo trek.
So, while you might not want to distract your riding with figuring out camera exposure settings as you’re pedalling, or risk damaging your new camera and lens by dropping, scraping, or bumping it, that’s the type of situation in which a GoPro excels.
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Photos or Videos?
photo by PamelaJoeMcFarlane via iStock
Much of what we see from action cams is in the form of video, either long videos or short snippets. Action cams are also very capable still cameras.
In our previous articles on GoPro photography tips, we’ve shown how you can take still images from video footage. Other ways to make use of the GoPro photography capabilities are to change the modes to still photography and choose ultra wide Max which can provide high resolution still images up to 20MB.
SuperPhoto mode will automatically provide the best settings for capturing and processing still images, so all you would need to do to get sharp photos during a ride is to set the camera for remote triggering or to take a series of pics at predetermined intervals.
Straighten Up
photo by piola666 via iStock
As you mount your GoPro action cam, pay close attention to the view. A skewed view may be interesting for a photo or two, but capturing shots that won’t require a lot of leveling during post processing.
This is also an opportunity to determine what point of view you want to highlight. Some photo trekkers like to include the bike and road while otters prefer pointing the camera a little higher for relatively unobstructed views of the sights on the ride. Either way will work fine. Since you can review on the GoPro, you might desire a mix of different POVs.
More GoPro Photography Tips
photo by piola666 via iStock
There are several small but important tips to keep in mind for your GoPro photography while photo trekking. A microfiber lens cleaning cloth is an essential item for any outdoor photography, it is especially useful for GoPro photography since road grime on a lens can really degrade image quality.
Keeping an extra battery or two is also a good practice for any photo trekking adventure. It stinks to come up on the perfect picture or video opportunity and be left with only about 5 minutes of battery life. With all cameras used by outdoor photographers, keep extra batteries with a full charge ready to change out while in the field.
Added to Our Gear Bag
For photo trekking, doing GoPro photography can be our primary camera choice, but for many longtime landscape photographers, GoPro photography will be an addition, not a replacement. It’s hard to beat the quality and features of our Full Frame, APS-C, and MFT format interchangeable lens cameras, whether DSLR or mirrorless.
GoPro action cams are super capable tools, especially if we are into videography. Set one up on your bicycle for your next photography trek and enjoy the results.
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