How much experience before using a GoPro?

If you have a heavy camera rig, what I have seen other people do is to ask your buddy to pass it to you after you are in the water.

I have seen also someone giant stride with his camera above his head, lens down with a lanyard attached to him.

You should create your own thread if your question is not related to this discussion

 

I am on my second GoPro. Once you research the best common settings and plug them in which takes all of 5 minutes, and figure out how to use the 2 buttons the rest is simply a matter of shooting video, viewing the results and making adjustments over and over until you're satisfied.

The camera is designed to be easy to use but if you want really good vids then that's where filters and software come in.

 

If using a handheld system, you definitely want a few dives in before you start adding tasks. How many dives is up to each person. Once you are comfortable with your buoyancy, and have a regular process for checking air, etc. then you can start to add some tasks.

If using a mask mount, you can pretty much start right away as the camera isn't requiring any operator intervention aside from starting it at the beginning of the dive and stopping at the end.

I spearfish on a lot of dives. Profile pic was actually taken from a GoPro mounted on my head. I have it set to snap a still pic every 10 seconds or so while it is recording video. Most of those pics are crap, but I usually get a few decent ones every dive. Since I spearfish, my hands were already full, and I didn't care for the gun mounted setups as they shake pretty bad when the shot is fired.

I agree with what others have said. You will find that a lot of the video is shaky. As you get more experienced, you'll be able to correct for that somewhat.

Keep one thing in mind. Most of your video footage should end up on the "cutting room floor." Nobody wants to watch a 30 - 50 minute dive. Even if it's an awesome dive. 3-5 minutes should be plenty for most dives. Get rid of all the shaky shots and really just include the most interesting parts as well as a bit of lead up. I usually start a bit with descent, and include a bit on ascent at the end.

 

YES! 100 times YES! Add to this, the very experienced diver who flat out does whatever they feel they need to in order to get the shot - including grabbing live coral and letting their fins drag along the sandy bottom or coral, and harassing the critters to get a better angle. Grrrrr. At least TRY to be polite to others and make an effort to protect the reef/coral/critters. I know we all screw up, even when we're trying our best. But the folks who aren't even trying make me crazy.

Ahem. Rant over.

 

French couple on my red sea aggressor trip... I literally complained to the crew about them until they finally said something.... I saw the woman break coral holding on to steady herself for the shot - I was so pissed. One of the other guests really laid into her, it was glorious.

 

I have done a giant stride with my GoPro tray setup with single light. I just clutch it to my chest with my arm. More often I will just giant stride in without and then have the crew hand it down.

 

I have a carabiner clip and a wrist cinch strap on my floating grip. I clip the cinch strap to the top buckle of the BC and the carabiner to a d-ring on my left and then I do my back roll. Never any issues removing it and putting on my wrist after the dive starts.

I do hand it up to the crew when I come out. I do not give them my gear, I get out with it on, my gauge console shoved into a neoprene bag clipped to my BC

 

I turn it on before I jump - it's mounted on my helmet. and then I carry my big camera. I wouldn't task load with an actual camera until 25 dives or so or you're comfortable. I wouldn't task load with a camera and drysuit until you have 25 dives and an additional 25 on the suit without camera.

You may be able to task load with gopro after 15-20 dives if you really practice all the skills and such. Make sure you have some sort of tether on the tray so you can drop it when SHTF.

 

My first was a gopro...it captures everything and you don't need to focus. I didn't get it until I had over 100 dives but that was me being super weird about wanting decent buoyancy. Now I only like the GoPro if I need it for something large so I have it mounted with my other camera. I like the smaller things...and my point and shoot can switch to video with one push.