Action camera - go pro advice and experiences please

[Nickypeckham]

hi there
I am new to furum.
I want to take an action camera with a chest strap to wear on rides. Is this allowed? Has anyone got experience with this?

I am going next week so please help if you can.

Thank you

 

[Robo]

hi there
I am new to furum.
I want to take an action camera with a chest strap to wear on rides.

1. Is this allowed?
2. Has anyone got experience with this?

1. Yes. On attractions which don't have a "no video" restriction. (MOST attractions are NOT restricted.)
2. This is one of the most-asked questions regarding camera use on this board.

to the DISboards, Nickypeckham!

 

[Nickypeckham]

So there isn't an issue taking it on rides? Have you done this yourself? Thank you

 

[Robo]

So there isn't an issue taking it on rides? Have you done this yourself? Thank you

Just do a quick search on YouTube for WDW rides and find dozens and dozens of GoPro attraction videos.

 

[Accident]

many of the vloggers that use action cams usually just hold (with some type of handle that isn't a selphie stick) or wear a wrist mount.

but yes you can do it on the rides.. It's selphie sticks you cannot use and they will emergency stop a ride if it happens (which takes hours to evacuate and reset the ride)

 

[ExCMbeau]

I tried and found that the chest strap was pretty useless on rides. You just get the back of the car in front of you. I will use a small non-extending handle so I can get the camera where I need it. Here is an example of me using a gopro on rides at Magic Kingdom.

 

[TXDisneyFan1]

We attached our GoPro to the short yellow stick that you are supposed to use when you are in the pool. We took several other mounts, but found this one to be the only one we needed to use on rides or in the water.

The GoPro is great for action video, but not as great at other stuff like filming fireworks. Just want you to be aware.

 

[dfb]

I'm not sure how much experience you have with using the Go Pro but here's a couple things to consider.

I've not used the chest strap but the Go Pro handle (no extension) is allowed and is good for action video as ExCMbeau demos. For regular video (walking around looking at stuff) the Go Pro and handle can be very shaky if not careful. This guys you tube videos give alot of good tips on reducing shaking and other:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTs-d2DgyuJVRICivxe2Ktg

The key is practice before you go and review to get the results you want.

If you use the waterproof cover then the sound will be no good. If you use the water resistant cover the sound will be good and you'll have some protection on water rides.

 

[DisneyCAL]

The short hand stick, chest strap and head mount (except for space mountain) are all okay. We mounted ours onto a baseball cap and that worked great! Also took along an external charger with usb to charge cam and phones. We recorded an unbelievable amount and were able to make a great family video. Cant wait to do it again this August.

 

[Accident]

The GoPro is great for action video, but not as great at other stuff like filming fireworks. Just want you to be aware.

There is actually a few settings you want to change (which I recommend changing no matter what you are filming). I've done this with a hero4 and 5.

- enable protune. It'll remove some of the saturation of colors and make it more of a cinematic feel color wise. It'll also be in a better spot for any editing color adjustments.
- change sharpness to medium. I find the default setting of high to be too sharp and a little ugly (and part of why fireworks just don't come out well).
- change fov (field of view) to medium. This is probably the 1 setting that will have the biggest impact. It narrows the image down but it removes the fisheyeness of the gopro and how it gets the really wide shots and make it closer to a higher end field of view.
- you'll want to play with what FPS you like the most in different lighting. maybe actually prefer the look of 24fps and at night that might be a great compromise to help with low light situations..

and then, don't wait for the fireworks to happen to try it.. if you can do anything at home to get some test footage with fireworks, it's worth your time. If not, you at least want to pull the camera out and decide where you want to be in the hub.. you don't want to digital zoom the camera so you'll need to find out where in the hub you want to be to get the footage. Keep in mind the closer you get the more the castle will be blocking the high altitude fireworks. I would say the closest you want to be is just behind walt and mickey statue in the center. too far back and not zooming might be a problem so you'll want to review other youtube video on where the fireworks are actually in the sky and look around in the day to see where where the edges of the image are in relation to the buildings next to the castle.. Also keep in mind 4K and then cropping it to 1080 after the trip is a great way to keep a high quality but not have zoom. you'll get a full set of pixel for the 1080 square in the center of the image and if you shake around a lot, it's a lot of extra room to keep the same square steady for the whole show..

The vloggers with zooming abillity are basically around the bridge or edge of main street buildings as it's higher up than the rest of the hub and a great field of zoom and they have expensive cameras they can zoom. (and it's near speakers to get the audio.).