Go Pro for using on trackdays advice sought
Discussion
I have an open top car with a twin hoop roll bar system in it and i have several track events i want to capture on video this year, looking for advice as this is not in my field of expertise! Looking at getting a Go pro, but which one, mini or standard, i am not a fan of the cloud so would like a card to go in it that i can do the old fashion way and plug it into my laptop to download. Go Pro do a roll bar mount, anyone here use it and can recommend? Not a technophobe by a long shot so any advice appreciated. 
Cracking car there! How much fun does that look?
My advice is:
Take your money and instead of buying a single new GoPro, look for three second hand ones; anything from 3 or 4 upwards will be fine.
Position one on the roll hoop, one on the passenger side facing you and move the third one around; a few laps facing rearwards, a few from low slung on the side, the front, foot well showing your deft toe 'n' heal, etc.... You'll need a roll hoop mount and a couple of suction mounts (buy these brand new).
If you've a buddy on track, attach one of the cameras to their car positioned looking back at you and do a few laps bobbing around in the field of view.
There is a device you can buy that connects multiple GoPros enabling you to press a single remote button to start them all recording at the same time - useful when it comes to editing.
Sound; what will be recorded on the GoPros will be awful. Particularly those exposed. Buy a wired lavalier mic (lapel) and tape this as close to the exhaust as you can, underneath the car, away from any airflow. Plug this into either your phone or a cheap MP3 recorder either of which you can tank-tape to the inside of your boot. Record the sound into that. Your video will enhance enormously doing this.
Editing. If you've got a Mac, use iMovie (native app). If not, just find an app that looks like something you could use. Lay all on the clips from the GoPros on tope of one another and cut away the clips where you want to cut to another view. Insert the sound file you've recorded. Perhaps a bit of music. And you got yourself a nice little film.
Don't get suckered into to shooting on 8k, 6k or even 4k. 1080 is perfectly fine and will save you a mortgage in memory cards.
HTH!
My advice is:
Take your money and instead of buying a single new GoPro, look for three second hand ones; anything from 3 or 4 upwards will be fine.
Position one on the roll hoop, one on the passenger side facing you and move the third one around; a few laps facing rearwards, a few from low slung on the side, the front, foot well showing your deft toe 'n' heal, etc.... You'll need a roll hoop mount and a couple of suction mounts (buy these brand new).
If you've a buddy on track, attach one of the cameras to their car positioned looking back at you and do a few laps bobbing around in the field of view.
There is a device you can buy that connects multiple GoPros enabling you to press a single remote button to start them all recording at the same time - useful when it comes to editing.
Sound; what will be recorded on the GoPros will be awful. Particularly those exposed. Buy a wired lavalier mic (lapel) and tape this as close to the exhaust as you can, underneath the car, away from any airflow. Plug this into either your phone or a cheap MP3 recorder either of which you can tank-tape to the inside of your boot. Record the sound into that. Your video will enhance enormously doing this.
Editing. If you've got a Mac, use iMovie (native app). If not, just find an app that looks like something you could use. Lay all on the clips from the GoPros on tope of one another and cut away the clips where you want to cut to another view. Insert the sound file you've recorded. Perhaps a bit of music. And you got yourself a nice little film.
Don't get suckered into to shooting on 8k, 6k or even 4k. 1080 is perfectly fine and will save you a mortgage in memory cards.
HTH!
Ok, got myself a Hero 7 black and have a couple of questions, the options to record video are 1440 or 960, this one has no 1080 option i have seen other people using, what would you recommend out of the two that i have, i have set it on 1440 res at 60fps, wide screen auto stabilization, would that be the best settings for using on the roll bar of my car for track footage. The micro sd that came with it is a 64, how long would that give me of video, will get a larger one, biggest is best or will a 128 do? Many thanks.
https://actiongadgetsreviews.com/gopro-hero-7-blac...
You probably need to turn on pro tune to give access to higher resolutions. I’ve never had a 7 but the 9, 10 and 11 do seem to do better at 4k60 with hyper smooth turned on than lower resolutions. Choose a resolution/frame rate that gives the highest bit rate. Experimentation will show you what works best for your situation.
Use very good quality memory cards like the SanDisk extreme pro. A 128GB card will give you about 2 hours depending on the bitrate you choose which is based on resolution and frame rate.
You’ll have to do some testing - see if you can insulate the camera from the bar to reduce the vibration to the camera. I mount it to my helmet but that might not be permitted on track ?
You probably need to turn on pro tune to give access to higher resolutions. I’ve never had a 7 but the 9, 10 and 11 do seem to do better at 4k60 with hyper smooth turned on than lower resolutions. Choose a resolution/frame rate that gives the highest bit rate. Experimentation will show you what works best for your situation.
Use very good quality memory cards like the SanDisk extreme pro. A 128GB card will give you about 2 hours depending on the bitrate you choose which is based on resolution and frame rate.
You’ll have to do some testing - see if you can insulate the camera from the bar to reduce the vibration to the camera. I mount it to my helmet but that might not be permitted on track ?
Footage seems quite good on the settings i used but wind noise was horrible, ordered a Windsock to fit it, hope that will improve the noise from the car with reduced wind noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L1o0rTF_oc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L1o0rTF_oc
An external mic in the airbox/engine bay/rear bumper will be magic, or even on the dash if it particularly noisy anyway.
I use a genuine GoPro rollcage mount and it's great, but don't add any adapters or extra fittings if you can help it otherwise the camera will vibrate/wobble about.
I use a genuine GoPro rollcage mount and it's great, but don't add any adapters or extra fittings if you can help it otherwise the camera will vibrate/wobble about.
RizzoTheRat said:
If you want some alternative positions, the GoPro suction mounts are very good, I use one on the side faring of my motorbike and it's rock solid. If you're editing together a video it's nice to have some different camera angles every so often.
Some organisers/individuals don't like suction mounts to be the sole method of attachment, some require additional tethers.
Never done it on a car but on a bike on track many times.
I'd go for the later models of GoPro 7 upwards, only go for black editions as I did a back to back video with a silver and the video quality was quite different and noticeable.
The stick on pads that come with a GoPro are amazing and they won't come off so you can stick these on doors, wings, boot, bonnet etc. What I would say is that the TDO or track owner may want you to tether the GoPro to something secure on the vehicle just in case a mount/bracket fails, I used some lockwire and generally secure onto a bolt on the bike. Obviously you have the luxury of a roll bar so you can get u-mounts to clamp around that. Helmet mounts, dash mounts, you can really go to town on different angles.
Another point to note and has been mentioned is memory cards, make sure you buy exactly what GoPro recommend as cheaper cards don't tend to handle the frame rates well and cannot write fast enough. Also get some spare batteries, you probably won't get much more than an hour out of a single battery. You can buy some 3rd party (cheaper) batteries rather than pay GoPro prices and a multi-charger which I have used previously with issue.
As for video, well you will spend far more time messing around with video editing than probably driving your car if I am honest, no idea what computer you have but Apple computers come with iMovie which is pretty easier to use as a beginner, not sure on Windows it's been a long time since I used one.
I'd go for the later models of GoPro 7 upwards, only go for black editions as I did a back to back video with a silver and the video quality was quite different and noticeable.
The stick on pads that come with a GoPro are amazing and they won't come off so you can stick these on doors, wings, boot, bonnet etc. What I would say is that the TDO or track owner may want you to tether the GoPro to something secure on the vehicle just in case a mount/bracket fails, I used some lockwire and generally secure onto a bolt on the bike. Obviously you have the luxury of a roll bar so you can get u-mounts to clamp around that. Helmet mounts, dash mounts, you can really go to town on different angles.
Another point to note and has been mentioned is memory cards, make sure you buy exactly what GoPro recommend as cheaper cards don't tend to handle the frame rates well and cannot write fast enough. Also get some spare batteries, you probably won't get much more than an hour out of a single battery. You can buy some 3rd party (cheaper) batteries rather than pay GoPro prices and a multi-charger which I have used previously with issue.
As for video, well you will spend far more time messing around with video editing than probably driving your car if I am honest, no idea what computer you have but Apple computers come with iMovie which is pretty easier to use as a beginner, not sure on Windows it's been a long time since I used one.
Edited by Freakuk on Monday 19th June 12:42
Totally agree with putting an external mic somewhere shielded, otherwise the wind noise will be terrible. With the earlier GoPros you can buy cheap adapters to allow you to plug a mic into the micro usb, with later ones you’re obliged to buy the overpriced GoPro media mod for £75.
Also having a couple of cameras with one facing backwards allows you to film when you overtake people (
)which looks really good.
If you can work out a way to get a USB power cable to the GoPro that is really helpful as the batteries don’t last long and it’s a pain changing them mid trackday.
If you want to get a bit fancy with editing the (free) DaVinci Resolve software is amazing and is limited only by how long you want to spend learning it.
Oh and you’re supposed to use tethers for any camera although the marshals don’t always check.
Also having a couple of cameras with one facing backwards allows you to film when you overtake people (
)which looks really good.If you can work out a way to get a USB power cable to the GoPro that is really helpful as the batteries don’t last long and it’s a pain changing them mid trackday.
If you want to get a bit fancy with editing the (free) DaVinci Resolve software is amazing and is limited only by how long you want to spend learning it.
Oh and you’re supposed to use tethers for any camera although the marshals don’t always check.
Fair point on tethers, pretty easy to do though, I used to use a cord on my suction mount just in case but stopped bothering in the end. The sticky mounts are also rock solid, I have one on top of my helmet (to make me look like a teletubby) a rear facing one on a pannier, and one on the nose of my bike. Worth checking what the track's rules are on helmet mounted cameras if you fancy giving that a go, as they may consider it to be a safety issue in a crash.
It should just work. Sometimes you have to connect the adapter and then re power on the phone though.
Also because it’s a USB connector it can work loose so worth using some gaffer tape to secure it, there’s nothing worse than recording an epic lap and finding out there’s no sound
Make sure your mic cable has only three connectors (TRS) not four (TRRS, some have this and are designed to work with phones), if not you can buy a cheap TRRS to TRS adapter.
Don’t worry about the sound volume, most mics can handle a lot, but you need to keep it away from wind as much as possible
Good luck!
Also because it’s a USB connector it can work loose so worth using some gaffer tape to secure it, there’s nothing worse than recording an epic lap and finding out there’s no sound
Make sure your mic cable has only three connectors (TRS) not four (TRRS, some have this and are designed to work with phones), if not you can buy a cheap TRRS to TRS adapter.
Don’t worry about the sound volume, most mics can handle a lot, but you need to keep it away from wind as much as possible
Good luck!
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