GoPro for Beginners: Everything you Need to Know

1. Introduction: GoPro is an action cameras have evolved from only being used in extreme sports by specific athletes and professionals to being some of the best cameras to capture moments of our lives due to their tiny footprint and amazing image quality that they deliver. Learning to fully utilize the potential of those cameras will enable you to capture aspects of your life with extreme ease and make your special moments look even better than you felt they could. Hello everyone, welcome to this course. My name is [inaudible] and I am a fourth year medical student and part-time film maker. Over my past five years in the film making field, I have been shooting with GoPro for as long as I can remember. I have traveled with my GoPros, recorded vlogs, recorded buggies. I've even shot open heart surgery with those cameras. I'm very proud to introduce you to this course. In this course right here, you would learn everything that you need to know about those cameras. We're going start by analyzing the hardware and the outside elements of those cameras. Then we're going to dive in the software and we're going to analyze different modes of the cameras: video mode, photo mode, burst mode, time-lapse mode. Then we're going dive deeper into each of those three modes. I'm going to explain to you some tips and tricks that I have learned through trial and error from all of those years shooting with those cameras. Then we're going analyze all of the accessories that you can bear with those cameras, which is really where the true magic happens. Finally, we're going charge your batteries, grab our gear, and go out and shoot a sequence with those cameras. Then we're going fire up our computers and I'm going show you how to edit footage to create an amazing sequence. In this course, again, we're going to learn everything about GoPro cameras, how they look, their outside features, their inside features, how to shoot with them, and how to edit footage that come out of them. Finally, to end this course, I have a one hour long interview with one of my dearest friends and two times GoPro [inaudible], in which we discussed some things that we love about those cameras, some things that we hate about those cameras, and why we still use them in every single shoot. So enough with the talking, click on the next video and join me in this course to learn everything and master our GoPros. [MUSIC] 2. The Class Project: Thank you very much for deciding to join me in this course. In this small lesson right here we're going to discuss about the class project. As you will see, we're going to go through everything you need to know in order to successfully shoot and edit videos with your GoPro. The class project that I chose to assign to you for this course, is as I mentioned in introduction, the creation of a 30 second edit, shot and edited of course by you using your action cameras. Now I'm going to give you complete creative freedom when it comes to the content of this video. It can be a baguette in which you just took your GoPro and your bicycles to the trail, to mountain bike. It could be a sea or a beat or a swimming edit. It could even be a video edit of you making breakfast. Literally anything goes. I strongly suggest everyone to give it a go and complete this class project. Because at the end of the day, in order to really seal the knowledge that you acquire through those lessons, you need to take your GoPro, go out, shoot and experiment. Also note that I will be personally reviewing every single class project and leaving feedback for you guys. Even if you don't own a GoPro, you don't have to worry because I will attach at the description of this course, a link which will enable you to download my footage so you can follow us in the editing process. When you're done with the class project, make sure to upload it in the class projects section of a course to make it visible to me, of course, and other students to be inspired from it. Now, I think that we're ready to start to master our small cameras. Let's start with the hardware. 3. The Hardware: Now before we master shooting with our GoPros and before we start capturing all this breathtaking footage that you see, we need to set foundation and discuss about the software and the hardware of those cameras. Starting with the screens of the camera, the front screen is just a black and white LCD screen that indicates some key features of a camera, such as the battery life, the minutes or hours left in your SD card, as well as the mode that you're shooting and the recording time if you're recording video, for example. It is always on and very handy if you tend to shoot yourself or don't have access to the back screen of the camera, for example, in a specific shoot that you're at. Now the back screen of the GoPro is obviously the most commonly used one. It is of course, a touchscreen and the main way to interact with your camera. It is scratchproof and waterproof, just like the camera itself. But as you can see, my screen here has a crack, but more details on that, on the lesson in which I share my experience with a camera. The back screen is your portal to navigate through the GoPro. Through the back screen you change the modes of shooting. Of course, you can also play back footage that you have captured. Of course, the GoPro has also a built-in speaker so you can also hear audio from the clips that you have captured and you watch again. Moving with the buttons, these are really straightforward. The upper button is used to start and stop a recording or capture an image. In addition to that, if you have set the camera into quick capture mode, when you press the top button, the camera will turn on and start recording automatically. The side button is used to navigate through the different modes of the camera. If you're going to get your hands wet and dirty while using the GoPro and in many of those cases, the touchscreen is not going to cooperate with you. This is why they added this physical button right here so you know, and you feel when a mode changes. The lens of the GoPro is also straightforward. The very famous wide-angle fisheye lens that all GoPros have. Now depending on the model of the GoPro that you have, this lens could be detachable. In my GoPro the GoPro HERO8 Black in general again, GoPros use fisheye lenses, which are just ultra-wide angle lenses that cover a huge area landscape of more than 120 degrees. Finally, there's of course, this side port which houses the battery and the SD card, which you use to shoot. The small door that opens and exposes the battery and the SD card is completely detachable if you want to connect cables there and connect your GoPro to external audio and monitors. But it also detaches back and closes in a fashion that makes your GoPro again waterproof and dust resistant. You do not want to have water inside this compartment. Make sure to wipe your hands clean of any water or dust while accessing the battery and the SD card of your GoPro and also when you close this portal, make sure that it is locked securely. That's pretty much it when it comes to the hardware and the outside elements of those cameras. Now it's time to move into the internals of those small devices right here. In the next lesson, we're going to analyze the software of those cameras. 4. Software 01 - Video Mode: Now let's talk about the different modes of the camera. In general, GoPro cameras have five different modes to capture footage from. We've got video mode, photo mode, burst mode, time lapse mode. Time lapse mode is subdivided into time lapse video and time lapse photo. Now, in this and the following lessons, we're going to analyze the software of the GoPro, those five modes that I mentioned, and in addition to that, I'm going to suggest you the best settings for every mode, and of course, for every filming occasion that you may find yourself. In this lesson right here, we're going to start with the most commonly used mode, the video mode. Now, in video mode, your camera will obviously capture videos, but that being said, there are many variables which we can tweak to optimize the image quality. More specifically, we can change the resolution, the frame rate, the exposure, as well as the zoom of your lens. You heard correctly. You can zoom in with your GoPro. Now, let's start with resolution. When it comes to resolution, note that all GoPros nowadays shoot at least at 4K. As a rule of thumb, remember that the higher the resolution, the bigger the video file that you're going to get, and it is also going to drain faster the battery of your camera. In my opinion, the perfect resolution that gives you the best image quality without sacrificing that much storage space and without draining that much of your GoPro battery is 2.7K. Now, the next video variable that you can change is the frame rate. Higher frame rates will give you the opportunity to slow down footage in post-production. But just like in resolution, higher frame rates will capture a bigger amount of storage in your SD card and drain your battery faster, and lower frame rates will, of course, not give you the chance to slow down that much your clips in post-production, but they will capture less space and drain your battery, in general, less. In order to determine the frame rate that you want to set in your GoPro, you should ask yourself, "Do I really need to slow this clip down on post-production? Is this a video that needs to be slowed down?" If not, then you shouldn't have the highest frame rate. If you have a video and you know that this video is better to be slowed down in post-production, for example, a waterfall or some extreme sports, then it is recommended, of course, to shoot at higher frame rates. So you have this luxury. Depending on how much you want to slow down footage in post-production, you can choose between 24, 60, 120, and 260 frames per second. My go-to frame rate for casual shoots is 60 frames per second because this gives me the opportunity to slow down clips by 50 percent if I want in post-production. In general, it doesn't sacrifice that much storage space and battery life while casually shooting outside. Finally, you can also tweak the exposure of your videos by double-tapping the screen and sliding the cursor up and down. Although this is pretty much not recommended if you ask me because the GoPro does a perfect job to automatically expose videos. Many times you're using it with a GoPro, the scenery changes, the lighting conditions change, and you don't want to manually have to change and adapt to those changes of the light conditions. So I suggest you to just set exposure to auto and let your GoPro do the job for you. But if you want to get the absolute best results out of your GoPro, it is optimal to tweak the settings based on each type of shoot that you have. Some things that you should ask yourself before pressing the "Record" button in each different shoot that you use your GoPro are, for example, "Do I need slow motion for this video? Do I want a wider or a more linear view? Does this recording right here absolutely need the best stabilization or my GoPro is, for example, on a tripod or a GorillaPod so I don't need to have stabilization enabled?" All of these questions should cycle in your head to have the best results and optimize in the best way the settings of your camera. Now I'm going to give you some examples of my GoPro settings, depending on the different shoots that I'm at. When I film travel videos or vlog videos or documentary-type videos, I really don't need that much slow motion, but I want my videos to be smooth and stable. This is why I shoot at 2.7K at 60 frames per second with HyperSmooth at high mode. HyperSmooth is a built-in stabilization program of the GoPro, which when it is activated, it automatically stabilizes your footage inside the GoPro, but of course, it drains, again, more battery. When I'm shooting a POV video, a point-of-view video, I usually, again, don't need slow motion, but I definitely need the widest field of view possible. This is why, again, I shoot at 2.7K, at 60 frames per second with the HyperSmooth mode at standard. I don't need any fancy stabilizations here because I don't want to sacrifice battery. I set my GoPro lens mode to ultra-wide. For the best cinematic modes, I am going to bump up that resolution to 4K, or the best resolution that my camera has, again, at 60 frames per second or even higher if I want to slow down the clips for a more cinematic visual. Because I need more battery in my camera, I'm going to have HyperSmooth into standard. If slow motion is my priority, then I'm going to prioritize shooting at 120 frames per second or more, with the maximal resolution that my GoPro allows me to. For example, in my camera, I can shoot at 120 frames per second at 2.7K. HyperSmooth, of course, is going to be on standard because, again, we don't want to drain that fastly our battery. Finally, for the best stabilization results, the resolution is going to stay at 2.7K, frame rate at 60 frames per second. Of course, HyperSmooth is going to be at high, and we want our camera on the ultra-wide mode because in general, wide-angle video tends to be more stabilized than linear and more narrow video. I am now going to introduce you to a new term of the GoPro world, which is the Protune. Protune is the name that GoPro gives to their expert and advanced options. In general, we have two sets of Protune options: Protune video and Protune photographs. In this lesson right here, we're going to discuss about Protune video now. In Protune video, the GoPro gives you access to tweak parameters that are usually automatic, and you don't get to tweak in normal video. These parameters could be controlling the shutter speed, the white balance, and some picture profile, as well as the built-in sharpening that GoPros apply to their videos. Protune exists because GoPros come out of their factories with a preset color profile, exposure profile, and sharpening profile, which can be tweaked even more to have the optimal image results. Right now, I'm going to list you the perfect Protune video settings so you can change them in your camera and have even better results. The parameters that you can change in the Protune settings of your camera include the bit rate, the shutter, the EV comp, the white balance, the minimum and the maximum ISO, as well as the sharpness and the color profile. For the best video results, I suggest you to have the bitrate at high, the shutter speed at auto, EV comp at minus 0.5, set the white balance on auto, or tweak it if you have a very specific scene in which you want to change it, set the minimum ISO at 100 and the maximum ISO at 1600, the sharpness at low, and the color profile of your image at natural. This is everything you need to know about GoPro video. I know that this lesson might sound a bit weird and might sound a bit overwhelming. Trust me, GoPro video isn't that weird. At the end of day, you just press the "Record" button and record. But I wanted to teach you all the parameters that you can tweak to have the optimal video settings. Now you know them. Go apply them in your GoPro video. Make sure to note down what we analyzed in this lesson right here. If you're ready, let's move into GoPro photographs. 5. Software 02 - Photos and Burst Mode: Obviously, GoPros are known for their spectacular video capabilities, but they are also capable of capturing amazing photographs. This is exactly what we're discussing in this lesson right here, Let's talk about GoPro photography. What makes GoPro photographs even more special is the fact that GoPros utilize their built-in software and their built-in artificial intelligence to automatically tweak settings and make your photographs even better right out of a box. Obviously, capturing an image using your GoPro is fairly simple. You just tap the button located in the top of a GoPro, but we can dive deeper than that, just like in the video settings, the photograph settings of the GoPro can be tweaked for the optimal results. As we said, we have two types of protune settings, protune video, and protune photographs. We discussed about protune video in the video lesson. Now we're going to discuss about protune photographs, which are the best protune settings that produce the best image. In my opinion, based on my experience, these right here are the best GoPro photograph protune settings. You want to have again, your white balance on auto or at 5,500 Kelvin, color profiles when we set in GoPro, the minimum ISO of 100, leave the maximum ISO again at 100 or up to 1600 if you're shooting at night. Sharpening needs to be on low and EV compensation on zero or minus 0.5 to save the highlights of your image. Now, modern cameras, and of course GoPros, have two different image processing types, JPEG and raw images. In similar words, the difference between JPEG and raw images is that JPEG files are more compressed and take up smaller room in your SD card. Of course, due to the fact that there are very small files, they're easily shareable, easily viewable, they make your life easier. The only cut here is that when the GoPro compresses the file to create this JPEG image, a lot of detail becomes lost. This makes JPEG images a bit worse than raw images when it comes to post-production photo editing. This is where the strength of the raw file comes. As the name suggests, raw files retain all of the sensor's data to give you the optimal settings for a post-production image editing. Keep in mind that raw files, of course, capture more space in the SD card than JPEG files, so you might need a bigger memory card again. In simple words, if you're short on space, go with JPEGs. But if you want to make the most out of your images and you'd like to tweak them in post-production, for example, in Lightroom or other photo editing software, then I would suggest you to shoot at raw photographs. Another aspect that GoPro cameras utilize for the best results when it comes to photographs, is the HDR mode. During HDR, which stands for high dynamic range, photographs are internally changed again using the artificial intelligence of the camera when the scene that you're capturing has a wide range of shadows and highlights. This is where the HDR mode really comes in play. If you see that the highlights of your photos are completely blown out and just white with no detail, or the shadows respectively are extremely black and you don't see details there, then the HDR mode in your camera is probably going to be very helpful. HDR mode combines several exposures together to create a final composite image in which everything from bright highlights to dark shadows are properly exposed. It's like the camera exposes many pictures and then combines the best parts of its picture together to create the ultimate frame. A tip that I have to give you is to just always have enabled the HDR mode. It is just something that will improve your photographs without sacrificing any space or any significant battery life. Another photography mode of this small camera right here is the burst mode. The burst mode is extremely useful and it is exactly what it sounds like. Depending on the setting that you use, the GoPro will fire a rapid set of photographs altogether. There are many different burst mode. You can have the auto burst mode or capture three photos at one second, five photos at one second. I usually capture five photos at one second, if I'm shooting a high-speed subject. If you choose to shoot with the auto burst mode, note that the camera will prioritize the exposure of your image over a specific number of frames. Meaning that depending on the light, you might get 30 photographs per second or you might get five photographs per second if you're shooting in low light conditions. This was the photo and burst mode of the GoPro. Now, it is time to move to one of my personal favorites, the time-lapse mode. 6. Software 03 - Timelapse Mode: Now that we discussed about the video and photo settings of the camera, it's time to talk about my personal favorite mode, the time-lapse mode. Time-lapse video for those who don't know is a spectacular way to capture the passage of time and GoPros are one of the most commonly used cameras to capture amazing time-lapse videos. Due to their ease of use, tiny footprint and amazing clarity of image, they are my personal favorite means of capturing time-lapse videos 100 percent of the times. Some of the most breathtaking footage that you've seen, not only on YouTube and social media but on Netflix and movies are captured by GoPros. Learning to successfully master and tweak the time-lapse settings of your GoPro will give you the opportunity to capture amazing time-lapse videos and sell the time-lapse effect even better. Let's dive into GoPro time-lapse video. Now, GoPro time-lapse video refers to a film, a video that is created from a series of photographs captured with a time interval between them and compressed together to create this illusion of the passage of time. The sequence of photos is then played at high-speed to, of course, deliver this time-lapse effect. The time intervals between each photograph of your time-lapse, of course, will determine the duration of your video. In time-lapse video, you get to tweak and choose different time intervals between your photographs. You can choose between 0.5 seconds, 1 second, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30, and 60 seconds. Depending on the time interval that you will set, your time of video will be shorter or longer in duration, and will, of course, show time passing faster or slower. Remember that professional videographers use time lapses to record scenes that occur over time. These could be eclipses, sunrises, clouds passing, cars in a motorway, anything that has the element of time into it. Mid-range gender intervals such as five seconds between each photograph or 10 seconds between photographs are perfect for these occasions, for example, shooting clouds passing or sunrises or sunsets and shorter intervals are better for sports for example, and less lengthy activities. Just like in video mode, you have the ability to choose the resolution of your time-lapse video with higher time-lapse video resolutions, capturing more SD card space and more battery, and lower time-lapse video resolutions capturing less SD card space and less battery. You can record 4K time-lapse, 2.7K, time-lapse, 1080, full HD time-lapse, and even more than 4K if your camera supports it. Now that we've talked about the basics of time lapses, how they work, the different intervals, and the different resolutions, it is really important to talk about two or three things before we press the record button for the time-lapse. First of all, you need to make sure that you have the correct framing. With the correct settings in your GoPro, you need to make sure to have your camera mounted in a stable surface which will not change. For example, this could be a tripod, a gorilla pod, or even on a rock but again you don't want your camera to move. Next, make sure that everything that you want to be shown in the time-lapse is in frame and you don't have any other distractions that could alter your video. Of course, you can always adjust the camera angle for the perfect framing. When you're ready to start to record the time-lapse, you just press the shutter button just as you would record the video or record a photograph. Now your time-lapse has started and it will keep recording until you press this button again to, of course, close it. Here are some additional tips to help you understand time-lapse video and make your shooting experience even easier. Remember again that the interval settings that you set will determine how long you need to shoot with your GoPro to capture one second of video. For every one second of video that we see with our eyes, 24 images have been captured. For example, if you have a five-second interval between each image in your time-lapse, then in order to capture one second of video, you need 24 times five seconds. If you have your interval set to 60 seconds between each of the photographs, remember that your camera will have to shoot for at least half an hour for you to get one second of video playback after the time-lapse. Under daylight conditions for intervals, I would suggest 5-10 seconds. These are perfect. Now, for nighttime lapses, you can tweak this interval even a bit more to 15-13 seconds if you want. This gives the GoPro the option to lower the shutter speed at nighttime, which leads to a better exposure and a lower amount of noise. Remember, at daylight, the perfect interval is about 5-10 seconds, and at nighttime, you can increase it a bit to 15 or 30 seconds. A second tip that I have to give you is that you need to allow your camera to record a bit more than you usually tend to. This might not sound important, but it will give you a lot of creative freedom in post-production and we're going to discuss this in the editing lesson. The next tip that I have to give you is that when you're setting time lapses, you need to make sure that there is actually something moving in your frame. This subject that could be moving could be clouds, boats, cars, grass, leaves, or threes that swing, but you need to have some motion to make your time-lapse video really unique. A factor that makes time-lapse videos very cool is that they display motion, which normally couldn't be seen with the human eye just by waiting. It's very cool to film something that is very slow, for example, leaves growing or the sun setting. These make the perfect time lapses. Another tip is that for the optimal time-lapse result, you need to have your GoPro stopped into some accessory for stabilization. Of course, you can just set your GoPro to the ground or to a rock but this won't diminish any small shakes and these small shakes can ruin your time-lapse video. We're going to discuss this in the accessory lessons. You need to have an accessory on your GoPro that stabilizes your camera to the ground or to a tree or anywhere you wish. Don't worry, we're going to discuss about this again in the accessory lesson. Last but not least, remember that when you're shooting time-lapse video, your camera's battery run-time will be similar just as you shoot video. Of course, again, this depends on the resolution that you set, but for example, if you shoot time-lapse video at 2.7K, it will drain your battery as fast as 2.7K normal video does. This was GoPro time-lapse. Make sure to master this mode because it has the potential to produce amazing images and videos which are very unique. This is my personal favorite video shooting mode in GoPros, and really utilized correctly, it can give you amazing results. Now that we're done with the software and the theory of GoPros, it's time to charge your cameras, grab a gear, and go out and learn how to actually use them. In the next lesson, we're going to discuss about shooting videos without GoPros. 7. Shooting Videos: Welcome to the shooting video with your GoPro lesson. Now that we know the internals and externals of those cameras, it is finally time to learn how to use them. In this lesson, we're going to highlight some tips to help you produce the optimal video recordings as well as some mistakes that I did, at least as a beginner, to help you avoid them. Here are some basic and simple tips that I use when I shoot with my GoPro that will help you improve your videos from basic into cinematic: The first and most important tip, and I can't stress this enough, is to plan your shots before you press the record button. Planning your shots is the first step to improving your videos. By planning your shots a little bit in advance, this could even be in your head before you press the record button, the chances of telling a better story and delivering a more meaningful image with those cameras increase significantly. Instead of rushing to press the record button and capture this scene that you see; take your time, observe the environment, brainstorm potential camera movements and potential subject that you want to have in your frame. You will realize that you will probably discover new camera angle opportunities or lighting combinations that could be used to your advantage. Trust me, taking the longer route and planning your videos before pressing the record button will dramatically increase your likelihood to capture an amazing video. If you commit just a little bit to be more creative and try very little bit more, your videos would look way better in post-production. Trust me. This was my first tip, to plan your shots before pressing this record button. The second tip that I have to give you is to keep your recordings relatively short. You really don't need to have every single one of your GoPro videos more than one or two minutes long. This will just make your life in post-production harder. Most of my videos that are shot from my GoPro that I have on my hard drive in the computer are 10-15 seconds max at length. Keep in mind that we are going to edit those videos in post-production and we're going to combine multiple shots together so we don't want every shot to be one or two minutes long. We just need some seconds, especially for capturing extreme sports or fast action, which we tend to capture with those cameras. Remember that shorter is better. Next time that you're shooting with your GoPro, try to record less than 10 seconds and move to a different angle. It is way better to have a wide variety of angles and shorter videos than have one long video at one boring angle. If you have planned the shoot beforehand and you have a shortlist, you will have a ton of angles to choose from. The third tip that I have to give you is that you need to always have the battery charged and you need to save battery at any chance that you have. Battery life has always been the worst enemy of GoPros. These are very small cameras with very high processing powers. All of those internal features and automatic modes that these cameras have that we discussed in previous lessons, of course, drain a large amount of battery, so we need to maximize our camera runtime as much as we can. Of course, you can buy more than one batteries and swap them all the time. But usually, in shooting scenarios with GoPros, you have water on your hands, you have mud on your hands, and you don't want to be opening this small portal right here and changing the battery every time, you just want to save as much battery as you can. Some tips to help you drain the least amount of battery that you can is to have quick shot enabled in which in order to record the video, you just press the Record button. The camera turns on automatically and automatically records. When you press again the Record button to close the video, the camera switches off. Also, turn off Wi-Fi, turn off Bluetooth, turned off voice commands, and the GPS. These are relatively useless functions of the GoPros and they just drain your battery. Finally try to keep your spare GoPro batteries warm. Cold weather drains battery faster. If you keep them warm, you have a higher chance to preserve the battery percentage before you use them. Finally, if not needed turn the display of your GoPro off. You have this option in the settings of your camera. One of the most important factors, in order to deliver the best possible video with your GoPro, is, of course, stabilization. You're very lucky because GoPro tends to offer one of the best built-in stabilization systems in any camera that I've used. The hyper smooth stabilization mode really turned GoPro to one of the most competitive action cameras out there and they keep improving the stabilization with the newest GoPros that they come up with so you really need to use hyper smooth. Of course, there are situations in with hyper smooth and building stabilization does not work that well. Some of those occasions are low-light occasions. In low-light situations, the camera algorithm that controls hyper smooth struggles to recognize objects in frame and creates video artifacts which are known as the jello effect. If lighting is an issue, try to avoid hyper smooth or any other camera's stabilization. Another way to stabilize your clips if you're in a low light situation could be a gimbal, a tripod, or just hand holding the camera and making sure to keep your hands stable. Alternatively, if your video footage is very shaky and you didn't have hyper smooth enabled, we can also add civilization in the post-production editing. More information about that in of course, the post-production video editing lesson. The next tip that I have to give you is to use the correct accessory for each shooting occasion. As GoPro filmmakers and as GoPro enthusiasts, you will see that we tend to accumulate a big amount of GoPro accessories and we want to use them all in every shoot. This is one of the biggest mistakes that you can do as there are some accessories that are very versatile and can be applied into every single GoPro shoot but there are some accessories that just can't. If you're just starting out, I encourage you think of the camera angles that you tend to enjoy and film at the most. These questions will help you evaluate which accessories you should add to your camera bag in each, of course, shooting occasion. We are going to have a separate lesson on GoPro accessories. But just to give you a small example of the correct choosing of accessories, if you're traveling or creating a vlog type video, you want to have a selfie stick, a mini tripod, or a floating handle grip in your camera bag. If you're shooting sports, you're going to want to have a helmet mount, a chest mount, a head mount for the GoPro, or some wrist straps. If you're shooting bicycles or motorbikes, you want to have a handlebar mount for your GoPro, again, head and chest straps. But if you're filming in a car, you want to have a suction mount strap. There are many different accessories for every different shooting occasion for your GoPro. The final tip that I have to give you is to get creative with your GoPro. Those cameras have a tiny footprint for a reason. They are meant to give you the creator the chance to capture your life and capture your moments from an angle that other cameras just can't. In the accessories lesson, we're going to discuss about certain accessories that enhance this ability to capture videos from specific angles and from unique perspectives. But in general, remember that GoPros are meant to be dusted, they are meant to be beaten up and they're meant to capture angles that you wouldn't capture with a DSLR or with your phone. Now, although GoPros are programmed and designed to mainly capture videos, this doesn't mean that they don't have amazing photograph capabilities. As we discussed in the software lesson, GoPros use artificial intelligence to enhance your images and produce amazing visual results with a minimum amount of effort. Join me in the next lesson in which we're going to analyze GoPro photography. 8. Shooting Photographs: Welcome everyone to this lesson in which we're going to analyze GoPro photography techniques, tips and tricks to help you improve your photography game and your photography outcome while using those against small cameras. If you capture adventure or action photography, you definitely need a camera that fits in the setting and GoPros are masters for that. GoPro photography is really ideal if you try to record moving subjects and even if you are the subject. In this lesson, we're going to analyze what makes a GoPro photograph really good, again, some tips and tricks. Just like in the video shooting guide, I'm going to also highlight some things that you should avoid. The first thing that you need to understand when it comes to GoPro photographs is why you choose to shoot with a GoPro in the first place. It is because they are small, easy to use, rugged, and they deliver an amazing image quality, again, in a very tiny footprint. All of these factors will make you grab your GoPro rather than your DSLR or your mirrorless camera. This means that you will mainly choose your GoPro to use as a photography tool in scenarios that other cameras just couldn't perform. Such scenarios could be extreme sports, travels in which you don't want to have that much gear in your back, and again daily activities and vlogs in which you don't want to have the burden of a huge camera and lens selection to choose from. In most of my GoPro photographs, in which usually I don't have the luxury to choose the subject and to compose the image appropriately and to think about all the factors that I would think if I were using my normal camera, I usually shoot photographs in burst mode. This is the first GoPro photography tip that we are going to discuss about. It is using burst mode. Again, during burst mode, your camera will capture anywhere between 5 and 60 photographs per second. As you can imagine, this luxury of having multiple photographs captured per second dramatically improves the chances of capturing this perfect shot that you're going for. I find myself using burst mode photography in my GoPro when I'm involved in an activity in which I can't really control the composition, I don't have the energy and time to control the subject, the lighting, and all of those factors, or if my subject is moving very fast, for example, and again I don't have the time to capture just one shot. For example, a mountain biker landing a backflip. You don't want to just have one shot taken of a backflip, you want to have 30 or 60 frames shot per second so you can choose one of those frames to be the ultimate one. The only problem with burst photography is the fact that, of course, more images are taken per second and your SD card fills way faster as well as your battery of course drains way faster. But, this was the first photography tip that I have to give you is to use more burst mode. The second tip is to completely forget about midday photography with your GoPro. Midday is just terrible for GoPro photography, the sun is at the highest point in the sky and it just sucks out all the color that your sensor would normally capture. We discussed about the HDR mode of a GoPros that tries to compensate the bad dynamic range that these cameras have due to of course their very small sensor, but this doesn't mean that they are still capable of retaining those high image details in harsh sunlight conditions. Unfortunately, most of the cameras do a very bad job of capturing images in broad daylight. By shooting photographs on sunrise or sunset, you get those beautiful so-called golden hours or blue hours in which the sunlight is not that harsh, and you get those perfect lighting conditions to produce the most amazing photographs you can have with those cameras. If you insist on a midday shoot, I would suggest you to buy an ND filter for your GoPro. We're going to discuss about ND filters and attachments that go in front of the lens of your GoPros in the accessory lesson. But again as a rule of thumb, if you want to shoot and you can't avoid shooting in midday, you would probably want to have a ND filter. An ND filter which stands for natural density filter will just work wonders and help your camera compensate a bit more with those very harsh lighting conditions of midday. My third GoPro photography tip is to not being afraid to use accessories. Sometimes we think that accessories are only built for video and not that much for GoPros, but this couldn't be further from the truth. A tripod, for example, of course, keeps your video footage stable, but it is a perfect solution for time lapse and night lapse photography. It is essential to keep your photographs also stable. In addition to that, with a tripod, you can also take some beautiful selfie shots with a huge landscape behind you. A selfie stick is also an extremely useful and portable piece of gear that can help you step up your photography game, again, by moving the camera further away from you which are the subject and capturing a bigger field of view in the photograph. In general, accessories help you get creative with your images, and this is the point of GoPro photography. You use your GoPro due to the unique angles that you can take with a camera that is so small. If an accessory actually motivates you to shoot more and shoot from different angles and more spectacular angles, this is going to be a huge plus in your outcome. By using different accessories, you can attach your GoPro to vehicles, to your pets, or even your shoe, and again capture creative and very inspiring images. Moving on to the next step, and this is not particularly a GoPro photography tip, it is a photography tip in general. If you're not in a rush and you have time to actually compose and think about your image, I suggest you to use the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a concept that helps you take into consideration the placement of your subject in the framing of your photograph. This look makes your photos look well balanced, visually appealing, and interesting to look at. The rule of thirds involves breaking the image that you want to capture in thirds horizontally and vertically. According to the rule of thirds, if you place your subject in the top, bottom, left, or right third of the grid, you will get a more visually appealing image every time. For the most appealing results while using the rule of thirds, you should keep your foreground in the bottom third, the horizon in the middle third, and the sky in the top third. Another tip is to shoot at raw image files and always have HDR on. If, again, you're shooting on harsh sunlight, you might want to lower the exposure level to avoid having parts of the image looking washed out. Locking in daylight, white balance is also a good idea while shooting outdoors in harsh sunlight conditions. For low-light photography, especially, it is recommended to always shoot raw photograph. As we said, the raw photographs have advantage that they can be easily manipulated in post-production and they pack a greater image detail, with of course the disadvantage that they capture a bigger amount of space in your SD card, and again, drain your battery faster. But in GoPro photography, especially in difficult lighting conditions, harsh sunlight or, for example, in low-light photography at night, I very much encourage you to use raw photography. Last but not least, the final GoPro photography tip that I have to give you is that you need to familiarize yourself with a camera, and shoot more in order to master this mode of a GoPro. Most of the theories that we talk about into this course right here comes secondary to the functionality of the camera. It is way better to use the camera and learn from your mistakes and then go out again and improve every time, then to learn by heart all the best pro [inaudible] settings and understand everything about the raw images and HDR mode and all this fancy stuff. Of course, these are very useful to know, and now that you know them and we've discussed them through those lessons, you have a great advantage but you still need to take your camera, take your gear and your accessories, and go out and shoot. Because, trust me, the best way to improve in this field is through trial and error. This was GoPro photography in more details, I hope that you've learned some of my tips and tricks that I wanted to share. I hope that you understood some things that you should avoid. Now that we're done with GoPro photography, I think that we are ready to discuss about time-lapse photography. One of the most exciting modes again of this camera. In the next lesson, we're going to actually learn how to shoot time lapses. 9. Shooting Timelapses: Welcome to the time-lapse video lesson. In this lesson we're going to follow the layout of the GoPro photography and GoPro videography shooting lesson. We're going to analyze some tips and tricks that help me and I wish that will help you in your time-lapse shoots, and again some things that I would advise you to avoid during this goal remote. Now because time-lapse photography and time-lapse video is a special type of capturing footage, I will also list in this video some gear that you're going to need, which will make your time-lapse life way easier. Trust me. Don't stress about the gear because again, we will recap all of the accessories that I'm going to mention in this video in the big accessory lesson that will follow. Let's begin this lesson with the gear that you're going to need for the perfect time-lapse. Now apart from the camera and the correct settings, the truth is that you don't need any fancy gear to capture an amazing time-lapse. In fact you can actually capture the time-lapse just with your camera, with no gear at all, but this will make your time-lapse experience way harder. Now I'm going to list some accessories that you can buy to make your shooting easier, simpler, and faster. The first thing is that you absolutely are going to need some stable mount for your GoPro. Without a dry board or a stable mount, your images will not blend properly into a video because again, time-lapse video is just many images taken in a big duration of time, compressed together in a video. Now if all those images don't have a relatively consistent framing, this will make your time-lapse look jitterous and it just won't look good on video. There are a number of mounts that will keep your GoPro stable. The best mount for your shoot and for your GoPro time-lapse videography will depend on each occasion. For example, you can use an ultra clamp mount, just like this one right here, that attaches to doors, benches, and pretty much any surface that fits into this gap right here. This mount right here is pretty versatile because it can be applied into multiple stabilization scenarios for your camera. GorillaPods are another type of mount that you can use for your GoPro. They are a bit more expensive, but totally worth their money. I bought this GorillaPod right here about six years ago and it totally works perfectly. They are also very versatile because they double up as a tripod. You can fix your GorillaPod like this to act as a tripod, but you can also wrap its legs around the three brands, for example, so it can act like a clamp. Finally, another accessory that you can use is a suction cup mount. It helps you mount the GoPro in any glass surface. Usually we use suction cup mounts for guard time lapses. I never owned a suction cup mount for my GoPro, but it is good to know that they exist. If you tend to shoot again time-lapses in your cars while traveling somewhere, I would suggest you to make that investment. One of the absolute coolest gear pieces and one of the most famous gear pieces for time-lapse photography is a rotating mount. The rotating mount is a device that can be attached between your GoPro and you're tripod and will gradually rotate with the passage of time. This will give your time-lapse a gradual horizontal movement, and trust me, this will make your video 10 times better. Note that I will show you how to recreate this effect of a vertical movement in the time-lapse in the post-production editing lessons, but if you want an analogue way to produce this magnificent movement during a time-lapse video, I would suggest to you to invest in a rotating time-lapse mount. Now that we're done with the most commonly used time-lapse accessories and their scenarios that are going to be needed, it's time to move on and discuss about some time-lapse tips and trick that will help you improve your time-lapse game. If you grab your camera and go out and actually shoot one or two time-lapse videos, you will realize firstly that battery is our biggest enemy here. As we said, time-lapses drain about the same amount of battery as normal videos, which of course, is going to be an issue if you're planning to leave your camera at a certain location for a big amount of time. In other words, your cameras battery life will limit you on the duration of your time-lapse. The best way to bypass this obstacle is to connect your camera either to a power bank or in a wall outlet. Obviously finding a wall outlet in nature is pretty hard if you tend to shoot time lapses outside, so I would suggest you to invest in a good power bank and connect your camera to it to, of course, prolong the duration of your time-lapse. Obviously do not open the portal if you go, bro, and do not connect your camera to this power bank if you're shooting out in harsh weather conditions. You don't want rain and water to go into this compartment in which your battery and your SD card is stored. But if the weather conditions allow you, totally go ahead and connect your camera to a power bank while shooting time-lapses. By connecting my GoPro to a power bank, I was able to record a six hour time-lapse of an operation. Tip number 1, if you don't want to be changing batteries every 1-2 hours of every time-lapse shoot, connect your camera to a power bank and just never think of battery life again. The next tip that I have to give you is not technical, but it is of key importance. When shooting time-lapses you need to get comfortable and shoot longer. As you can imagine, shooting time-lapses is a big time commitment. Depending on the location of a time-lapse you choose to shoot and the weather conditions, you might be able to just place your camera there and leave and come back the next day perhaps to get it. However, most of the times you might want to at least be close to your gear to keep an eye of what's going on. Waiting for your camera to capture hundreds, if not thousands of imagings, is time consuming and will need your patience. Make sure that you're prepared for the weight. Dress appropriately, bring food, perhaps, and water. If it's cold outside, make sure that you have many layers of clothes and pay close attention to the temperature of your neck, hands, and feet, if it's cold. If the conditions are very hot, you'll use lightweight and breathable clothing and you will be fine. If the weather forecasts shows the possibility of rain, makes sure first of all that your gear is protected and no water comes anywhere near the GoPro housing if you have it open. Again, bring snacks with you, water, as well as a small stool to relax. The more comfortable you are, the better the time-lapse shoot will be, trust me. Now moving onto the next step, which is about the composition of your time-lapse video, a very cool thing that you might want to keep in mind is to show shadow movement in your time-lapse. Note that the weather doesn't always cooperate for ideal photography conditions. If those great white puffy clouds that you felt that would make your time-lapse interesting suddenly dissipate and you just left with clear skies with absolutely no movement, you need to find something else to indicate the passage of time in your time-lapse video. The perfect subject to film in this case are shadows. If the sky is boring during a time-lapse, minimize it. Focus on the shadows of things that will move as the sun sets or moves throughout the day. The possibilities are truly endless in time-lapse videos, so all you need to do is just put your creativity thinking cap on and get busy. As I mentioned before, the weather is a key factor when we're shooting time-lapse videos, and sometimes it just doesn't cooperate with us. It is of key importance to predict some very basic weather conditions before you go out and shoot. This and much more can be done by special applications that we edited and programmed solely for time-lapse videos, which is a perfect transition to the fourth tip that I have to give you, which is to use apps to plan your shoots. There really are thousands of weather apps that provide amazing insights on weather conditions and much more information that you need to know about time-lapses, so there's really no excuse for not being informed. Here are some of my favorite apps that you can use to predict weather conditions before going out and shoot time-lapses. The first one is the Noah Hi deflator. Costs about $3 and it really has inside everything that you need to know about weather. You pretty much don't need anything else except this application. Some other applications are GoldenHour.One, MyRadar, Dark Sky Finder, and there are many other things besides the weather to consider while planning a time-lapse shoot. Such things could be the Milky Way, knowing the position of the sun, knowing the position of the moon, and there are again, many apps to help you with those other factors. One of my favorite apps for those parameters are really good photo spots. Obviously I encourage you and you can totally use Google Earth, which is completely free. Also one of my personal favorites is photo pills. These were some basic tips and tricks that I had to share when it comes to time-lapse videography. In the next lesson,- we're going to discuss about GoPro accessories. 10. The Accessories: Welcome everyone to the highly anticipated GoPro accessories lesson in which we're going to analyze all the gear that you will need to help you with your GoPro shooting. In this lesson right here, I'm going to introduce you to the best value for money accessories, and I'm also going to mention the accessories that you're going to need in each shooting occasion, because different shooting modes in different filming occasions, of course, call for different GoPro accessories. Trust me, there are thousands of GoPro accessories out there, this lesson right here is going to be very valuable to you. Small disclaimer, in the description of this course, I will link all of these accessories that we mentioned in this video, if you want to buy them, you can just click the links that I have in the decryption and this will navigate you to Amazon so you can buy them. Firstly, we're going to cover the accessories that you absolutely need to own and are absolutely needed for any type of global shooter. Then we're going to move to analyze accessories that are not of that critical importance, but still can improve very much your visuals. Before we dive into the three main categories of GoPro accessories, let's first mention those accessories that are absolutely needed in every single type of GoPro suit. The first accessory that you will absolutely need are a lot of those screws that helps you mount the GoPro in any other accessories. These tend to get lost very easily, trust me, and they also tend to rust sometimes if you don't wash the salt off after a day in the beach. Please, if you have a GoPro, go ahead and buy more of those screws, they are very cheap, and I think when you buy a camera, it comes with two or three of those screws which are totally not enough. The good thing with those screws, is that they have a screw mount, so you can literally screw them with a screw driver rather than just your hand if you want extra stability. The second essential accessory to buy, are those GoPro adhesive pads. Those adhesive pads are literally just sticker mounts. I think they come in a package of eight with four flat adhesives, and four curved adhesives which are usually used in helmets and the bike stuff. If you buy an eight pack of these, you have the opportunity of course, to stick them in eight different places. One thing we need to note when it comes to those adhesive stick pads, is that they're not meant to be permanent. If you notice that their thickness is wearing off, you need to immediately change them because you don't want to sacrifice your GoPro. Of course, adhesive pads can stick to literally anything, surfboards, helmets, bicycles, walls, cars, anywhere you want. Broad tip for adhesive stick pads. If you want to relocate an adhesive stick pad and you stick it off a surface and you want to stick it somewhere else, this is not that recommended because again, this thickness will wear off. But there's actually a pro tip that you can do. Get a lighter and heat the sticky surface of those adhesive sticky pads, and this will melt the surface and when you place it into the new object and you want to stick your GoPro to, this could make an amazing job to maintain the stickiness and maintain your GoPro security. Of course, again a tip is off the book, but it works. The final essential GoPro accessory that you absolutely need to own if you tend to film in the beach or in the sea or any sea sport activities, is the GoPro floaty. The GoPro floaty is a silicone waterproof, protective and shock absorbing GoPro mount that makes your GoPro float. You might not believe it, but trust me, GoPros do not float, they sink to the bottom of the sea. If any of your accessories fail once you're in the middle of the sea, for example, or in a lake, and you lose your GoPro, then it will sink to the bottom. With the floaty it just attaches to the back of your camera or surrounds it. If we're talking about newer GoPros, and it will just make your GoPro float. You can see it has a bright orange colors, so it is very easy to locate your camera and get it back. GoPro floaty is needed even in shallow waters. Trust me, I have lost a GoPro in this way. I've lost my beloved GoPro hero four black in this way. The GoPro floaty is an essential accessory that can literally save your camera one day. Now it is time to move to the three major categories of GoPro accessories and discuss in which occasion to use each one of them. The first category of GoPro accessories involves those that enhance and protect your camera, the second category of accessories involves those that improve the visuals and deliver a new visual perspective, and the third category of accessories that I've listed includes those that assist you while filming. Let's start with the accessories that change and improve the visuals of your camera. We're going to start with the GoPro dome. Now the GoPro domes are fastly becoming the latest and greatest and most essential travel accessories for those photographers and videographers that want to capture unique underwater perspectives. This very simple and basic piece of equipment has really brought a new perspective in underwater photography. It is a simple housing for your camera that allows you to take those split underwater over water photos. With GoPro dome, you can capture two intense features in the same photograph as again, this allows you to capture both the underwater world and the world above the sea. This makes an amazing composition, that if you travel to a tropical region or literally any region that you have visibility under the sea, you can capture truly unique and remarkable photographs with your GoPros in a very cheap price. GoPro domes, are not expensive. Next time you're in tropical waters, try to photograph for example, a diver and the boat that is above him, or a beautiful landscape above the seas and a snore killer, for example, with turtles, stuff like that. GoPro domes are very cool, I actually own one. Now we're going to stay a bit in the underwater world with our next accessory, which are GoPro under water filters. GoPro under water filters are designed to bring color and contrast back to your underwater video. As we dive deeper into the levels of the sea, certain UV rays actually disappear. Colors like red and green are the first one that disappear as we dive deeper into the sea, so those UV filters actually bring back those colors and bring back that contrast that is naturally lost. By bringing those red colors actually up, this will assist your GoPros building artificial intelligence and it will make a better job by selecting and other exposure level and the auto white balance. GoPro red underwater filters are essential if you like underwater photography and now want the videography. Again, the red underwater filter is the most commonly used one. Those filters are optimized for blue waters. If you tend to shoot at lakes which have more green waters, you might want to use a magenta filter. This was the first category of GoPro accessories, the accessories that change the visuals of your camera. Now it's time to move to the second category, which involves the accessories that enhance and protect your camera. Let's start by talking protection. The most important and absolutely essential accessory of the second category is some carrying case. By personal experience, I can guarantee you that the best carrying case that you can buy if you want to travel light with your GoPros, is the GoPro Casey. The Casey is a ragged and waterproof GoPro protection case, small enough to easily fit in your backpack and large enough to pack all of your accessories and as many GoPros as you wish. It is essential if you want to travel with your GoPros and move to different locations without losing your gear and it packs a ton of features. First of all, it is top-notch in quality and durability. It is perfect for those filmers that want to carry one or two hero cameras and their accessories. The outer surface of the GoPro Casey is made from a waterproof, semi-rigid material, you don't have to stress of anything squeezing your cameras or it being wet and stuff. It's extremely durable and the insides are well cautioned to protect all of your cameras and all of your accessories for any damage. This is one of my favorite accessories. I have borne the GoPro Casey, and I do not regret spending those about $80 to get it. Now, if you need more storage space and especially you want to carry your gear in a backpack, I would suggest you to buy the one and only GoPro Seeker, the absolutely best camera bag that you can buy if you own GoPros. Personally, I think that the GoPro Seeker is the best adventure camera bag in the market right now. It is very cheap for what you're getting, and it is perfect for every activity from scuba diving, to skiing, to mountain biking, to hiking. The GoPro Seeker is there and it will serve you well. I think it's retails for $170, and while this sounds as a steep price for a camera backpack, it is actually comparable to some competitor, backpacks in the market from which I think that the Seeker is superior. Again, following the great GoPro build quality, this bag is totally weather resistant and fits up to 16 liters. A cool feature with this bag, is that it actually comes with a detachable chest mount that you can take on and off, so you have plus one accessory if you buy this bag. This chest mount easily attaches and detaches from the backpack, it fits snugly into your chest, and when you take it out, the backpack has a dedicated space so that you can store this chest mount. It is very well-thought and you can fit all of your GoPro accessories there, they will fit perfectly, they won't jiggle and this bag won't fail you. I highly suggest you to buy the GoPro Seeker if you don't have an adventure backpack. The next accessory which is actually pretty essential, is a set of additional batteries. Now, this can be first-party batteries from GoPro, or they can be third-party batteries. If you're on a budget, choose the third-party batteries, they work just fine. Make sure to buy 2-5 batteries at least, so you're always juiced up and ready to go. If you can recall from the previous lessons, our biggest limitation while using GoPros is storage space and battery life. We can go around battery life by buying more batteries and have them charged up, so please invest into batteries. I have listed three different third-party and first-party battery options again in the course description. Also note that most third-party batteries come with a power supply that lets you charge multiple batteries at once. You don't have to set an alarm clock for every two hours that a battery recharges to change to the next one, you charge all of them together, you go to sleep and when you wake up in the morning, they are all juiced up and ready to go. Moving on to the third and final category of GoPro accessories. These are the accessories that are manufactured to help you, the filmer, film more creatively and more easily with your cameras. This is really where the fun begins. The first accessory that we're going to discuss, is actually visit accessory right here. It is the GoPro 3-way. It is called three way because it packs three features at once. The GoPro 3-way was introduced in 2015 by GoPro, and it is an amazing and extremely versatile accessory, which I suggest to every single one of you. I have owned this since 2015, it is 2022 and this accessory is always with me. It is called a threeway because it is a tripod. As you can see right here, a tripod mount screws at the bottom of the accessory. Right here, you got a tripod. You've got a handle. Also, it extends to a selfie stick or a selfie pole. If you want three great features in a small package, I would totally suggest you to buy the GoPro 3-Way. It is very rugged, very durable. Trust me, if you apply some basic maintenance into this accessory after every shoot, it will last you for years to come. I've vlogged with this while traveling. I've used this underwater. I've used this in the mountains, while driving beach buggies. This accessory has been through a lot, and it totally works perfectly seven years after I bought it. The next accessory that we're going to discuss about is actually our ticket to produce some of the most interesting and amazing shots that a GoPro can offer, which are the point of view shots. It is the GoPro Chesty. The Chesty or chest mount enables you to mount your GoPro in your chest and capture video, in which the viewers will feel like they're actually in your body, watching the world through your eyes. These types of videos are called point of view or first-person videos, and they're becoming more and more popular. GoPro's again are very light and compact. They're very popular in being the ultimate tool to providing this special type of video. The GoPro Chesty is again the best means to capture point of view videos. If you don't want to go with the GoPro Chesty, you can always buy the GoPro Headband, which is pretty much a mount again for your GoPro, but this time in your head. Many times, when you buy a GoPro, it actually comes with a head mount, so you pretty much don't even have to buy it. The head mount brings the viewers into a higher perspective again and delivers this point of view video that we're looking for. I have actually used the head mount to record open heart surgery with my GoPro. Now, moving on to the next accessory. If you are a bit of a more experienced filmer, and you're into extreme stuff, and the extension pole of a GoPro 3-Way isn't enough for you, you want to either get closer to the subject that you're filming or you just want to detach the GoPro from you and have a bigger field of view when you're filming yourself with the extension pole. I would suggest you to buy the El Grande pole. The El Grande pole is pretty much a handle that extends way further than the GoPro 3-Way could ever dream of reaching. Again, it unlocks two different worlds. The first thing that it unlocks is the fact that it gives you the ability to come closer to the subject that you're filming with this little pole so you can get more engaging, more amazing, and dynamic footage with the El Grande extension pole. Again, if you tend to film yourself in the selfie mode, like a selfie stick, you can actually move the GoPro more away from you. This will help you capture a bigger landscape, a bigger field of view in your image or in your video. Again, the GoPro El Grande is not that essential, but if you belong to the categories of shooters that I mentioned, go for it. It is very well-built, and the handle of the El Grande is very similar to the handle of the 3-Way. It won't fail you. Moving on, it is time to talk about an accessory that we mentioned in the time-lapse video lesson. This is a time-lapse rotating device. These devices tend to actually be pretty cheap, and they mount like a sandwich between your GoPro and your tripod or any other mount that you wish to mount your GoPro to. Between the GoPro and this mount, we've got this rotating device that will gradually, very slowly rotate with the passage of time. The small rotation of those time-lapse rotating devices adds a horizontal movement in your time-lapse videos, making them 10 times more engaging and very interesting. I've actually owned a time-lapse rotating device. I can tell you that they're very easy to use, very compact, very light. They're pretty cheap. I see no reason not to buy a time-lapse rotating device, if you're in to time-lapses. In addition to that, they get bonus points because when the rotation actually ends, a small bell sound is heard so you know that the time-lapse is done, the rotation is stopped. It is time to pack your stuff and go home. Finally, we can't mention GoPro accessories without talking about the Jaws Flex clamp. The Flex clamp is very commonly used in time-lapses. It involves, of course, this clamp with a neck extension and a GoPro mount on top of it. The Jaws Flex clamp gives you the opportunity to mount your GoPro in all places. Again, the fact that this clamp is so well-built and so robust adds to the sense of security when you're mounting your camera somewhere that you really don't want to lose it. This accessory actually delivers a similar result to a GorillaPod. The only difference is that a GorillaPod isn't that stable, and isn't that reliable when mounting your GoPro into stuff. If you tend to mount your GoPro a lot into places that you really don't want and can't afford to have your GoPro snap off, I would suggest you to go with the Jaws Flex clamp. Now, if you mount your GoPro's in places that are not that high-risk, and you can actually afford the gear to fail you once or twice, then the GorillaPod will get the job done. Just choose one of those two. Before we end this lesson, I would actually want to mention a bonus accessory, which is completely useless and not necessary. It is the GoPro Fetch. Now, don't let this introduction fool you. It might be completely unnecessary, but it delivers one type of shots, which are very unique, cute, and cool. The GoPro Fetch enables you to mount your GoPro in the back of your dog so you can see the world again from the perspective of your dog. There are many cool videos in the Internet shot with the GoPro Fetch. Unfortunately, I have a very small dog so the Fetch doesn't fit him. But if you have a bigger dog and some money to spare, I would recommend actually GoPro Fetch. This was the highly anticipated GoPro accessories lesson. We did not mention, of course, all of the accessories that exist. You can actually do the research and dive deeper into them. But I mentioned some of the accessories that you need to know, and some of the accessories that you actually need to own, if you want to get serious with your GoPro shootings. As you may notice, there is no perfect GoPro accessory. Every accessory depends on the type of shooting that you want to engage with. In addition to that, many accessories overlap with each other when it comes to their functionality. It all comes down in the way that you use your gear and the types of shoots that you tend to engage with the most. If I could give you a tip is to first go out before buying those accessories, test yourself. Note down which shoots fit your style the most, and which shoots you actually don't shoot that much. After you develop a certain style and personality when it comes to your GoPro photography, videography, and time-lapse shooting, then you can actually go. In a targeted approach, buy accessories. If you don't follow this approach, you will most probably end up buying accessories that you don't really need and don't really use. There is nothing worse than having GoPro and videography gear just sitting on a shelf and collecting dust. Thank you very much for sticking up until the end of this lesson. Join me in the next lesson, in which we're going to have a general discussion about some tips that you definitely need to know, and I definitely wish I knew before actually going out and shooting with your GoPro. After this lesson, I'm going to take you with me in a shoot outside and demonstrate everything that we learned in this course. See you in the next lesson. 11. Field Notes and Tips: Welcome to the field notes lesson. This is going to be a very simple and short lesson in which we're just going to mention a few things that you want to keep in mind before actually taking your camera and going out to shoot. You could refer to this lesson as a general tip discussion before again, we grab our stuff and we go out to capture GoPro footage. In general, the first tip is to always plan our shoot before actually going out. As we said again, it is better to shoot during sunrise or during sunset as this one, the lighting conditions are in the optimal state. Again, you want to avoid the harsh sunlight of mid-day because the small sensors of our GoPros don't actually do the best job to compensate for that rough, mid-day sunlight. Apart from planning the shoot regarding the lighting conditions, also try to brainstorm a very basic shortlist. A list of some shots that you want to capture if you already have an edit in mind. For example, if you're going out to shoot bicycles, just like we're going to do in the next lesson, just make a simple shortlist for some shots that we're going to capture. For example, I want an establishing shot. I want a shot of the bicycles before the bikers ride on them. I want some close details of the bicycle features, then I want a shot of the bikers preparing to go to the site of the big jumps. Then of course, some action footage. Then again, and we edit with an establishing shot or shot of the bikers somewhere in the sunset. In general, a very basic shortlist is very essential to capture great footage and actually to ease your mind in post-production, you don't even have to write down the shortlist, just keep a basic shot list in mind. The second field note is do not forget to pack all of your batteries and all of your SD cards and have your batteries fully charged up. Trust me, this sounds very basic and simple, but it is of key importance. I can't even imagine how many times I've forgotten my batteries or I have just one SD card and this fails and then the shoot is ruined. Pack more than one SD cards. You can buy an SD card holder, just like I have to store all of your SD cards in one location. As we mentioned in the accessories video, make sure to buy 2-5 batteries, have them fully charged so you don't always have to think about battery life while shooting. The third tip is to choose the correct accessories for each shooting occasion and pack them in your camera bag. Don't bring all of your accessories in every shooting location. This will be overwhelming and you will end up using way less the accessories and you really want to. For example, you don't need a GoPro floaty if you go into bicycles in a mountain, there's not going to be a sea there, so the GoPro floaty is just going to take up space in your camera bag and it's just going to confuse you when you see it. Pack only the accessories that you need for every shoot. Of course, some accessories are very versatile. For example, the three-way or the jaws flags clamp or the El Grande, in general fit in every setting occasion, but some specialized accessories. For example, the car suction mount which mounts your GoPro in the glass of a car don't fit in every shooting occasions, and sometimes it's better to leave them behind so you have a more clear mind when you're shooting. The next tip is to enable quick capturing your GoPro. Again, you don't lose battery and time by opening your GoPro and then selecting video mode and then pressing the record button. In quick capture mode, as we mentioned in the software videos, we just press the top button of the GoPro. It opens and it starts recording. Then when you press again the top button of a GoPro, the recording stops and the GoPro turns off automatically. You don't have to stress about battery, you don't have to stress about navigation in a different GoPro modes with quick capture on, you just press the button once, press the button twice, and the recording is done. The fifth tip that I have to give you is to start thinking about post-production editing before you press the record button in your camera. Obviously, this becomes easier and easier as you gain experience in post-production. But there are some general tips that you can follow to make your editing life way easier. The first tip, as we mentioned again, in GoPro video shooting mode, is to keep your videos short. In general, you don't want one-minute and two-minute long videos. In order to make cool edit, most of my videos are about ten seconds for example. Keep your videos short and to the point. Remember that it is better to shoot more videos from different angles than to shoot a longer video from one boring angle. Shoot from many perspectives and many different angles and keep your videos short. The sixth tip that I have to give you is to always remember that story is king. Everything else comes secondary to the story. The resolution that you're shooting, the frame that you're shooting, the accessory that you're using, the experience that you have all come secondary to the story. Remember, don't only film the backflip, the spectacular backflip that a biker will do. Film the process of you getting in the car, going to the mountains, the biker setting up his bike. Try to deliver a story before the spectacular moment. This will give true value to your video. Again, try to record the whole process that leads to the spectacular moment and the process afterwards. Again, everything comes secondary to the story. Don't let your ego and perfectionism to get the absolute best shot get in the way. Try to first serve the story and then serve the visuals. The seventh tip that I have to give you is to actually try to figure out what song you're going to use in the edit before you start shooting. This is pretty hard because again, some people don't really know what songs they want to use and they start first to film and then they match the song to the footage that they have. But if you know the song that you're going to use in the edit before shooting the edit. This is the optimal scenario in all of the edits that I knew the song before I started shooting, they turn out way better than the others. This is because you realize that as you shoot, if you already know the song that you're going to use in the edit, you think of that song and you apply certain movements to your video and shooting style to match that song so the result is absolutely perfect. Whenever you hear a song that you like, remember to save it and keep it for a future edit. The eighth tip is to actually try to shoot with friends. Friends that are also passionate about videography and about photography will motivate you and inspire you more to dig deeper into this hobby and dig deeper into videography and improve yourself. There is nothing better than actually having a friend to discuss about gear, to discuss about shooting techniques and editing techniques, and discuss about your flaws and your mistakes, and learn together. Having a friend and discussing about your mistakes is one of the best ways to improve in any field. If you're a beginner and GoPros and the beginner videography and photography, I suggest you to start this journey with a friend. Now if none of your friends actually are interested in cameras, you can actually join an online community, for example, on Reddit and on other social media platforms.There, you can find like-minded individuals and again, improve by learning by the mistakes of each other. This is very helpful. Of course, you can always message me and I will message you back and contact you and help you improve. The final tip that I have to give you before we go out with our GoPros and shoot and create beautiful edits is not to get discouraged. Obviously, your first edits and your first recordings are not going to be perfect. Remember that in the early stages in the first steps of this journey, quantity is actually better than quality. Try to shoot more, not to shoot better videos. The more videos you shoot, the more mistakes you're going to do, and the more you're going to learn from those mistakes. Go with quantity, not with quality. Shoot more videos, grab your camera more and go out. This is the key to improve. This was the small fields note lesson. Now enough with a talking, let's grab our cameras and go out. 12. Shooting the Edit: It's finally time to shoot this GoPro edit. I chose to shoot a skateboard edit, so we're just going out to film skateboard, and I'm filming this with the GoPro 3-Way. The first shot that I want to take is actually the trunk of my car closing and revealing it to the next location. This is what we're going to do. Somebody block the gate. We've just arrived in the location that we're going to do the skate edit with this skate, of course. I have brainstormed a very basic shot list in my head. We're going to start the edit again by capturing some establishment shots. Some shots of the location just to tell the viewers where we're at and just to put them into the vibe. This what's happening right right, we're going to capture some establishing shots. Notice the small movement that I made at the end of the shot, this's going to help me transition to the next clip. So when I start the next establishing shot, I'm going to again do the same movement. In post-production you're going to see we're going to merge them together and create a beautiful transition, so keep that in mind. Actually, a mistake of mine is that we're shooting in a very sunny day, as you can see so this is totally a mistake. But when I started coming here from my house, it was actually cloudy. But now the sun is of course going to be harsh to the sensor of the camera so keep that in mind. I just saw a pit I right here. We're going to go in and try to hold it and place the camera in-between to get those beautiful angles with the 3-Way. This is the pit right here. Let's try some more general shots here, revealing shots. We've got some basic moving shots. We've got some basic establishing shots, some basic shots of the GoPro in the tripod. I've checked everything from my shot list. Now we're in the location, we going to cruise around, see what else we can find, see what else seems interesting, and then incorporate this to our edits. Again, not everything has to be according to your shot list. If you're outside and you see something that's unique and worth sharing, then of course, film it and worst-case scenario, we just delete it. We're done with the shooting. It was very simple, you just got to have fun. Bring your GoPro with you. Take some shots, have again, a brainstorm shot list. But again, anything that curious during the way, any cool shots that you see, just get them. Again, worst-case scenario, you delete them in post-production. We're just done with the shooting process, it was just a very basic skate edit. Now let's head to the computer to edit it, and this's actually where the true magic happens. See you in the next lesson in which we're going to edit actually the footage and create the beautiful edits that you are also going to create in the class project. See you in the next lesson. 13. Post Production Editing: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the post-production editing lesson. In this lesson right here, after we're done with the shooting process outside, which as you saw was very basic, a small sequence I shot myself, now it is time to open our computers, launch our editing programs, and just apply some basic edit principles to create beautiful edits. This lesson right here will be very valuable for the creation of the class project of this course, which will be again, the production of a video just like this one right here. A small disclosure before we launch Final Cut Pro, my editing software and start editing, you don't need any fancy editing software to achieve this class project and achieve this edit that we're going to do right now. You could literally follow along and apply the editing principles that I'm going to teach you in this course with a mobile free editing software, for example. Now if you're on a Mac, the best editing software to use is Final Cut Pro and if you're on a PC, the best editing software to use is Premiere Pro. Now this editing lesson is going to be done in Final Cut Pro, which is my preferable editing software. But again, you can follow in any editing software of your choice. As you can see right here, I've just laid out the basic shots that we have in the timeline. I haven't tweaked them. I went for the track Midnight City because you can't go wrong with Midnight City for any edit. The first thing that we're going to do is actually detach the audio and delete the sound of those clips. We don't need sound because we're going to have the music playing in the background, so we really don't want any distractive sounds. Now before we move, we're actually applying the music into the edit, I want to trim down the clips into the best part of every clip. This we're going to do right now. I'm just going to select the clips and start trimming them to just keep the best part. For example, this is the first clip and the next clip started again from here. We've got this transition. The third clip is this revealing shot right here, which we did this jiggled transition. We apply the same transition that we did previously. We have this here. I made this a smooth transition, so we can use this. Then we got this clip of us rolling with the skateboard. I'm just going to use this part right here. We also have a smooth part here, which I perform an ollie here. We're going to keep this also. Here is the ollie where we do above the swell. Let's keep the first one. Here we have these revealing shots. Again, we keep this part that looks pretty smooth. Great, so we keep that. I'm actually going to get the final one again to kick flip here. Pretty simple shot here again. Let's keep it. We've got this. That's actually a very cool shot, so we're definitely keeping this one. I think I'm going to slow this one down also. Again, don't need that much, we got shots like this. This is actually a cool shot. We can keep it at the end. We keep this, this we can discard. Now after trimming down our clips, we've got one minute of footage that is usable, and we chose it, and thirty seconds of music. We're going to trim it down even more to match the thirty seconds of the song. Now we drag and drop this song into the timeline with the shots. Let's see how we're going to construct this edit. The song started very simply. We just keep the first transition in which the gamma is in the trunk of the car and it becomes dark and then we move into the location. It actually match with the song, so we're just going to keep it that way. Then we got this establishing shot, which again, we're going to keep. We chose to show the viewers where the whole sequence is going to be. The establishing shot stays there and we want it there. Then we have the smooth transition in which we transition between the establishing shot and me skating. Again, we introduced the viewers into the subject of the shoot. After the establishing shot, I think we're going to move with this skateboarding shot of me just skating with the three-way above. The viewer know what is going on in this edit. This is actually the cool part of the song where the beat drops. Here I want to have the biggest and the best moment of the edit, which in my opinion, was the jump that I did right there. This was a beautiful shot. What we're going to do is we're going to slow down the part in which I jumped, actually with the skateboard, which is from here to here. We're going to slow this down just 50% because we're shooting at 60 frames per second, so we can slow it down by 50%. Let's check out how it looks and if it actually matches with the sound. Great. It actually matches. Again an establishing shot, we want to have variety in our shots. Here we're going to add an establishing shot [MUSIC]. I think we're going to discard this clip right here, it's not that cool. Let's keep the willie. This clip right here we're just going to slow it down 100%. We've got this Pub-Sub it here, so it stays, it looks beautiful. Let's see how it matches with the song. Let's just slow down also the kickflip here. Great. This can actually be slowed down at this point here. We're just going to end the edit with the shot of me just hopping out of the park onto the skateboard. Let's see what we got. We got the first shot of the trunk and transition to the shot of the trunk when we arrive actually at the spot. Then we got the establishing shot with a transition to me skating again, establishing the environment, showing, you what's going on in the edit. Then, of course, me skateboarding because this is a skateboarding edit. Of course this is the best part of the song, so we want the best clip. We had this jump over this obstacle right there. Then the jump over this pit thing, I think it looks cool. Then another establishing shot because we're want to add variety to our footage. Then again, this willie, it just looked cool. Some tricks with the skateboard and finally, we have the shot leaving the park. This 37 seconds is exactly what we needed. This is the so-called A-roll. We just change the duration of the clips and in some clips we also change the speed, and we have a very basic edit. Let's see the A-roll that we have and then let's start adding elements that will make this edit 10 times better. First of all, let's see the A-roll, which by itself it's pretty good. You can export this video right now and you can have it as an edit, but I'm going to show you tips and tricks to make this 1 million times better. Let's see it first of all. [MUSIC] I just sped up right now this part right here, which I felt that it would be more interesting if it actually added some speed. Right here you can see that it's very basic. I just sped up this small part and we are done with the A-roll. Now it is time to add two of my favorite elements that will make this edit 10 times better. The first one is the so-called letterbox. If you go to the Internet and type letterbox PNG, this small image is going to show up, which is actually two black lines that make every video look more cinematic. Those two black lines, actually, if you add them above your clips, just drag and drop them above your timeline, you can tweak them in how much or how big or how small they could be. I'm going to tweak them right here and they just make the edit a bit better. This has to do with the anatomy of the eye and how we watch things in a landscape perspective, more than a vertical perspective. It just makes the video better. If you want, you can add a letterbox to the video. Just makes it more cinematic. This is with the letterbox and this is without the letterbox. You can see with the letterbox, it is just better. We keep the letterbox here. The next thing we're going to do is that we're going to apply some basic color grading to the footage right here. We're just going to color grade them. Now, every editing software has a different color grading tool, but right now I'm going to show you some very basic color grading principles that apply into any editing software, into every edit. In most GoPro footage, the color grading that we should apply is pretty much the same. You need to increase a bit the highlights, increase a bit the shadows, and increase a bit the saturation. These are the three things that if you follow, your footage is going to look just better. Let me remind you that this edit was shot in harsh sunlight, so the lighting conditions were totally not the best, but this right here is the final edit that we created. I don't think that this was that hard to follow. We applied some very basic editing principles to this edit right here, so I hope that you could follow. Now let's watch it from the start to the end. [MUSIC] Another thing that I promised to teach you in the post-production editing lesson is actually in time lapses, how to recreate this panning effect that this rotating time-lapse mount delivers in an analogue way. As I told you, we can recreate this in post-production editing, so this is what we're doing right now. Let's say that we actually shot a time-lapse and we have a timelapse and this is our time-lapse. As you can see, there is movement of the clouds, but there is no solid movement of the camera panning. We can actually recreate this in post-production and I'm going to show you right now how we can do this. We press Crop and then we press Ken Burns. Now with the Ken Burns, we have the starting point and the ending point. It's pretty much a building keyframe that final cut at least has. With the Ken Burns effect, the first thing I'm going to do is that we command the video to actually zoom in as time passes. This is the first Ken Burns effect that we're going to do. As you can see, we played the time-lapse and now it actually gradually zooms in so it adds a third layer of movement in the video and it looks better. We can actually recreate this panning shot as we said. We're going to go here, crop Ken Burns, starting point here, ending point right here. As you can see, this recreates the spanning shot of the time-lapse, this time from the left to the right. This is just how easily you can recreate this in post-production. A small disclosure here, in order to create and deliver this effect the post-production editing software zooms in the clip so we loose some of the resolutions. If you shoot in very low resolutions and you think that resolution is a problem, then I wouldn't advise you actually to use this Ken Burns effect. But for now just for educational reasons, you know how it's done, you know how to do this. This is how we can recreate this rotating effect in post-production as I told you. This was the post-production editing lesson. Now we're going to move into the recap lesson in which we're going to summarize everything that we discussed and everything that we learned in this course before moving into the final video of this course, which is going to be a small interview, a small discussion with one of my dearest friends [inaudible] who is also twice awarded by GoPro for his photography. This is going to be a very valuable discussion. I suggest you to follow it along and I'll see you there. 14. Interview With Awarded Photographer Konstantis 01: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the final lesson of this course. This is not going to be a lesson, this is going to be an interview. A small discussion with one of my dearest friends called Alex Apollos. He's an amazing photographer. He's been using GoPros with me since day 1. We're hearing this casual chitchat. Actually, we're going to talk about those cameras. We're going to learn about those cameras, what we love about them, what we hate about them. You don't need to take any notes for this small video right here, just you can play it as you cook, as you go for a run or something like that, It's going to be a fun hour, a fun discussion with my dear friend because of this, so because of this, if you can introduce yourself to the audience. Yes, of course. Thanks for having me, Labrose. Not much to introduce. I am ocean scientist and have been a GoPro awardee a couple of times which means [OVERLAPPING] Nothing crazy, just my GoPro again. It's the photo of the day awards that GoPro used to run. I'm not sure if they still have them. As you said, I've just been using GoPro since day 1. It was pretty much the first camera that I got on my hands to actually create some content for fun and then it got more serious and interesting. But it has always been a tool in my camera bag. That's right. Then we have upgraded our gear. We have upgraded our setups, but still GoPros. Come with me, at least an unprecedented come also with you in every expedition out there, everywhere. Every time that you shoot, you just pack your GoPros with your cameras. Why do you still keep a GoPro in your camera bag? I mean, as I said, the GoPro is a very good tool to do lots of things. Here it took us so much time to set up all the big cameras, took literally five seconds to setup the GoPro. It's a camera that you can have accessible whenever you want, mount it, place it wherever you want, and just it's a rugged piece of equipment that is hardly ever going to fail you. Of course, it takes minimum amount of space [OVERLAPPING] in your camera bag. I have two GoPros. If I don't take both of them, which most of the times I do, I will take at least one. Most of the times I will use it. I barely can even remember a time that I had a GoPro and I didn't use it. Yeah. Exactly. Is that tiny footprint with this okay much quality and okay stabilization, actually, stimulation is even better now with the new GoPros, but it's this tiny footprint that makes GoPros irresistibly to take them with you. This is what I discussed with the audience in the lessons that GoPro, I've heard someone say that it just sticks in my head. GoPro are like sauce like ketchup. [LAUGHTER] You can't eat ketchup by itself. You can create a movie just from GoPro footage. [OVERLAPPING] Yes. If you combine ketchup with a burger, which is footage from a nice camera or a drone. [OVERLAPPING] Yes. It just makes everything better. GoPros know how to fill in those gaps that the big cameras just don't. Absolutely. For example, in the GoPro photography lesson we were discussing, why would you choose a GoPro to take a photograph? They have bad dynamic range, smallest sensors, you can't tweak setting, that's much. I mean, yeah, there is built-in button. No one really uses Protune. Why would you use a GoPro for photography? Sometimes you take your GoPro to places where you wouldn't take those cameras, you wouldn't take a very expensive camera that is fragile with a nice lens attached to it. You just take your GoPro. You don't really care about it. This is where GoPro comes and takes part of the cake from those big companies because due to this versatility, due to this amazing [inaudible] so they can reducing a very tiny footprint. Exactly. You said you started with the GoPro Hero 3 Black was it? Hero 3 plus black. What was your experience with it? Yeah. Back then every model had the white, the silver, and black, and going from least to best quality and whatnot. My experience was that, I think I got it in 2012 or something like that with my dad. It was meant to be used for ski runs and whatnot. Then I was doing some mountain biking at the time, so it was always on my helmet, cliff jumping, whatever. [OVERLAPPING] Exactly. Instantly as I started using it, it naturally became part of whatever I did that was outdoorsy. Yeah. You're going out, you're going to take your [OVERLAPPING] because you never know what are you going to end up doing. It was so easy. That's how I started and then later down the road, I got my hands on a GoPro Hero 6, which was the second GoPro with image stabilization. It was pretty good. I still have both of them. They still both work perfectly. You still bring the GoPro Hero 3 with you? Yes. [LAUGHTER] I still bring the GoPro Hero 3 with me. Sometimes I even prefer it over the Hero 6 one. This statement needs explanation. It does. Well, the background of the thought process is that the three-plus is a rugged GoPro in housing. That's it. For the GoPro 6, you need to put the GoPro. The GoPro, it's standalone, but you can still put it on a diving housing if you want to do something more extreme. But I don't want to be having the GoPro in the diving housing all the time. If I don't have it in there, I'm risking the screen getting damaged. Yeah. I just don't feel that it's so resistant. Rugged. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you had your screen getting right. [LAUGHTER] Exactly. Those are concerns that we didn't use to have. Exactly, and you felt [OVERLAPPING] you want to have and [OVERLAPPING] that's the whole reason why you're buying a GoPro. Exactly. You paying the money for a GoPro is because it's being advertised as a rugged product. Exactly. You're paying for that, you're expecting that as well. When you're mounting it on a beach buggy, you don't expect this to backfire. That's true. While if I use the three-plus, it comes into housing. The housing gets damaged you change the housing [OVERLAPPING] Exactly, and I have changed the housing in the past after three years of use and countless falls on my mountain bike, [LAUGHTER] but nothing ever broke that had to do with the GoPro itself. Point being that the older GoPros used to be more rugged and better for usage at higher-risk shots. The evolution of those cameras is a really interesting topic because I think that back then, they used to be very invested in the hardware, not the software of the cameras. The software was a joke. It was like three buttons, two modes. You just press Record, again, Record, then you're done. Software was 10 percent, hardware was 90 percent. They were rugged, still in 2021. You choose to go with your 2014, 2015 model rather than you go over Hero 6. Back then, hardware was everything. Nowadays, they've transitioned to this new smartphone content-producing era in which we are so invested into capturing videos; the horizontal videos and vertical videos, and Instagram every hour. They just lost this beautiful hardware that they have. They're more invested into software. We're going to discuss about this later. But I also think that software has major flaws right now. This is not a company that produces software. This is a company that produces rugged cameras. To give the people some context, micro recreate broke, the back screen broke as I was riding my beach bike, which is an extreme turned down because where should I use my GoPro on interviews? No, this is the first interview that I filmed with my GoPro. You want to use GoPros while you are surfing, while you're using a beach bike and drifting. This was an extreme turn-off. The screen can't be repaired. If I repair it, then it's not all debriefing anymore. What's the deal with that? I mean, how is it even possible? Now I can't use my GoPro on water. This is an extreme turn-off. If I have my GoPro Hero 4 Black, I would totally use it more than my Hero 8. That's a fact like every time. If you think about it and that links very much to the hardware versus software as you're saying, GoPro always use to release those videos when they released a new camera is like extreme videos you see like mountain biking, skydiving, Exactly. Whatever. If you see from the older ones to the newest ones, there has been a transition to more and more vlogging games [OVERLAPPING] Boring stuff. I know [OVERLAPPING] Inside those streams of those videos. Yeah. I remember them as epic. Exactly. I know exactly what you mean. I used to look at those videos before I go to the gym just to get hyped up. It was so good. Now you see people just vlogging at two-thirds of that video, [OVERLAPPING] the new releases. I know what you're talking about. There was a video where they were inside of a volcano, I think. Yes. Now you see these kids holding their GoPro Hero tens blacks in a water slide. That's the thing. It has progressed to that more user-friendly interface. Obviously having still some issues, but I suppose we're going to discuss that later, but that's the thing there. You can never please the masses. When you're trying to please more people, then you're forgetting about the audience that you had at the beginning and why these clients were going back to GoPro year after year and staying with those products because they used to be ragged. Now, exactly if you're doing motocross, you don't want to be buying a new GoPro anymore because it's just going to be breaking whenever you run, a rag is going to backfire then the screen is gone and that's it. Of course. There is a big list on stuff that we don't like about GoPros. But I think we need first to address some stuff that we like about GoPros again. [LAUGHTER] That's very true. [OVERLAPPING] Why do we use those cameras? Because at the end of the day, this is a course about GoPros. This is a course about learning how to use them. There are stuff that we don't like above them, but I think that we should list the ones that made us buy them in the first place. I'm going to start with my favorite aspects of those GoPros, except from the tiny footprint that we discussed about and the amazing image quality. I love the stabilization of those cameras. I am an absolute freak about stabilization. I love it everywhere. My DSLR doesn't have stabilization. I hate that and I love it. I can hand hold my GoPro and still it's going to look way better than older versions. This is what I really enjoy more with my GoPro Hero black then my GoPro Hero 4, if you remember with my GoPro Hero 4, I had to buy a gimbal. Yeah, I remember that. To keep things stabilized. That was another chapter, but I really love stabilization. I think that this is one part of the software that really paid out all the tests that they did worked out. It is reliable and I use it every time. The stabilization of those cameras are a key factor to buy them and invest in those cameras. Some stabilization is a huge plus for me and I really give it them. They do a great job on stabilization. Yeah, they absolutely do. When you love a product and a company as much as I love GoPro, you always have on your mind [OVERLAPPING] the bad staffs but they are incredible cameras, incredible tools, as I said, for so many cases. Yeah, stabilization, I agree. It's pretty good. I haven't had the opportunity to test the stabilization in one of the latest ones but I've seen the videos. It looks exceptional. I don't know, call me old-school but I still like that jittery, shaking. Sometimes when you are in a mountain bike going downhill or something. But no, jokes aside. It's really good. That's one of the things that they really got right because it was such a pain like editing afterwards. [OVERLAPPING] Having the warp stabilization. [LAUGHTER] Especially in those previous years. Yeah, I know. Back when editing software was also behind. Other than that, the quality is also improving to a point where maybe you don't even need that much good quality, but it's always good to know that you have it at your disposal if you need it. I'm talking especially about the video. What's your favorite resolution on video? What do you shoot? I shoot 1080. [LAUGHTER] I'm a bit of a game money in this, but I just hate long hours of editing. Big footage, big sized footage. Yeah. Four gigabites. I've never shopped for a [inaudible] or anything. Honestly, I don't see the point. Probably I will in the upcoming years, but for now the [inaudible] does the job for me. [OVERLAPPING] I'm not really doing so much, the professional aspect of 85 walls. Maybe I would increase the quality as well because I would be willing to spend more time on the computer afterwards. [OVERLAPPING] Okay. But right now that's my trade-off, I think it works. I've advertised to 2.7K [OVERLAPPING] so much. [LAUGHTER] But it really is my favorite resolution. I think it's this golden line between, and okay, 1080 works, 4K doesn't work for me. No. I don't like 4K. Those are huge files. They drain the battery, the GoPro overheats. Maybe it doesn't overheat that much nowadays, but it used overheat. 2.7K, I think it's the perfect resolution for GoPros right now. The other thing, you don't want to have those big files because then your computer's going to fail you. The K as filmmakers as photographers, as creators, you can call us whatever you want. There are many things that can fail us. The Gamma. [OVERLAPPING] So much stuff. The processing. [OVERLAPPING] Everything. Even the hard drive. [OVERLAPPING] [LAUGHTER] The hard drive, the [inaudible]. You really need to be secure in the place that you know and you can only have the opportunity to be safe. What's your opinion on GoPro accessories? What accessories do you use the most? Yeah. GoPro accessories is probably one of the best parts of having a GoPro because there is an accessory for everything and you can mount your GoPro anywhere. It really allows you to be so much more creative about the whole process. I would say one of my favorite accessories was the three-way. I don't know if they still make it. [OVERLAPPING] I got it here. You do? Oh, nice. The three-way. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, absolutely. It's really good. I actually used to have a third party one. Yeah. But for stuff like the three-way, there are so many mounting options that you can [NOISE] do with it. It's a really good piece of accessory. [NOISE] Other than that, probably the jaws, the jaws. [LAUGHTER] I also got it here. I got everything. Yeah. But without the flex glands. As well as exactly the neckstick whatever it is, I would say these two are the ones that I use the most. It so happens if you think about it, also that both of them are not just one tool, both of them are two tools. [LAUGHTER]. Exactly, exactly. So they have this versatility and so many other accessories also do have this versatility. You can use them in multiple ways. So there are so many mounting options. I like also the chest. The chest obviously. I think it comes with a GoPro or they get their head mount with a GoPro, they give you one of two, either choose or take the head-mounted. They have multiple packages right now. Chest, it's an essential if you want to spot a few videos. Obviously. What I was thinking is that when I was brainstorming those lessons to create, I felt that there are two or three accessories that you need, that you absolutely need. You're not going to handheld you your GoPro. I mean, you are, but it's better to use some accessories. There are two or three accessories that are absolutely needed, in my opinion. As you said, the three-way is an absolute essential. I've traveled everywhere with my three-way or have been since 2015. It has never failed me. The jaws or some kind of gorilla pod or something like that. But I suggest you to buy the jaws. Jaws is even better. Yeah, it is more. It's a camera in a higher level and you've got your mind clear when you're using the jaws. I also like those adhesive pads of gold rule, those stickers. The sticker box. You can put in your helmet, in your car, anywhere. I think that those are the essential accessories that you absolutely need. There are countless of accessories other than those, you can have a suction cup mount. The feds for the dogs, there are so many accessories. [LAUGHTER] This is a very nice accessory. Also the head mount, the head mount is also an essential, I think. You can film anything. If you want a point to view the video, you're going to use a head mount. I mean, I've filmed open heart surgery. It doesn't get any more than this. You can film literally anything with the head mount. So yeah, I think that again, investing into the proper accessories is of key importance. But the question here is that I have, how do you know which are? Let's say that you've got the basic as you've got a three-way, you get the jaws, you get a head-strap, how did you know in which accessories its worth investing after that point. How do you discover your shooting style with a GoPro, what do you suggest to people? Well, first of all, about the immense investment, one more thing that I'd like to add is that we all know GoPro accessories, anything GoPro related is very expensive. So once you find those two, three, five accessories that you think you're going to be finding yourself needing most of the time, buy those from GoPro, make the investment. But the rest, if you're going to be buying a fetch, as I said, I have one. I bought the original. I don't know why. I've used it twice. My dog hates it. [LAUGHTER] Stuff like that I wish I had not spent the money to buy the original one. I had bought a third-party one. Things like that if you're only going to use it every once in a while, buy the third party one, it's going to be okay. But as I said, I did the mistake and I bought the three-way as a third party one and after a while it broke because the plastic was terrible quality. So for those hard plastic accessories like the jaws and the three-way and all that, it's worth making the investment. I got it. Makes sense also. Now, what was the question? The question is, how do you discover, for example, you made a mistake while buying the fetch, how did you discover which accessories are worth investing? You need to develop a filming style, for example, I like shooting cars, I like car videography, I liked car time lapses, then I'm going to invest in the suction mount. Okay. But how in the first place do you realize what type of filmer you are, what type of shootings you tend to engage to the most? Yeah. I'll tell you the answer and the answer was basically inspired by you I have to say, because you're doing so much DIY stuff or at least like you used to even more in the past. My opinion is that you should stay with no accessories or with only the sticky mounts that you put your helmet for as long as you can. Try to be creative, struggle finding new points of view, and find yourself wanting to improvise in order to make your own accessories. Once you do that, you're going to realize like that [NOISE] which accessories you'll need, because if you start mounting your GoPro on a stick like sweep or something like that, that means that you need some stick accessory to point it farther away from you. All that kind of stuff. If you're finding yourself being in the car all the time and wanting to do those car time lapses, maybe what you need is a suction cup and things like that. So it comes naturally, but exactly because nobody knows what they need at the beginning and especially because GoPro is a type of camera that is, for many of us, it's the first camera that you're ever getting when you're starting your journey into the creative process. It's worth not spending the money at first because you might do a mistake and then the money is gone. I mean, so take it easy, struggle a bit, and then it's going to come out naturally and the things that you're going to get are going to be the things that you actually need. Makes absolute sense. This is an expensive hobby, guys. An expensive hobby. Keep your money, trust me. It's going to suck out a lot of money, a lot of energy, it's totally worth it, but don't rush into buying all the accessories just because you bought a GoPro. Take your camera and use it. Go out, shoot. Understand what types of shoots you engage the most, and then go ahead and of course invest accessories. But most of all invest in adventures. Invest in experiences. Going out and actually shooting the equipment that you have. I keep talking to people. People keep sending me messages, asking what camera should I buy. Saying, okay, what do you want to shoot and say, Oh, I want to shoot a little bit of wildlife, but I also want to shoot videos and also want should time-lapses and also want **** underwater. Whoa, whoa. I mean, like, chill out, you have to decide. If you are so [inaudible] decided. Get a GoPro, try out everything, and then you're going to. 15. Interview With Awarded Photographer Konstantis 02: You're going to start narrowing down. Of course. You're going to be like, maybe I don't want to I shoot wildlife. I actually really like those wide-angle shots and even more, I like them under water. Then you move on to the camera setup, which is more specialized to one of the things. Exactly. But, at the beginning everybody wants everything. Of course. [LAUGHTER] No one wants to talk himself. I'm a wildlife photographer and miss out on the car photography, or in the under water, or landscape. Exactly. Yeah. That's a great advice. Now back to GoPro shooting modes that we got video mode, photo mode, time-lapse mode. Obviously we both use video mode the most. I want to hear your thoughts on photo and time-lapse mode. Start with photo mode because again, you are awarded twice by this company. So where do you stand with GoPro photography? By emphasis. Konstantis is an amazing photographer. He happens to be one of my best friend, but he's also an amazing photographer who shot this image right there. Which I'm going show right now in this interview. So really listen to the things he has to say. He really has to offer a lot of knowledge, both for you and to me. We're listening now. [LAUGHTER] This up here portfolio. Everywhere, portfolio, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin. Yeah. As I said, GoPro was my first camera. For at least three years I was shooting everything on the GoPro. I didn't really have the option and phones back then were not so fancy with cameras and everything. GoPro was the go to because it was the only option. Today that I also have a Sony a7 to work with. Obviously most of the time I'm using the Sony for the photographs. I spent a little of time and I enjoy setting up everything and choosing the lenses and settings and having all these control. But of course I'm still using GoPro in some cases. If I am rock-climbing, I'm obviously not going to have my Sony a7 [LAUGHTER] with wide-angle 14 millimeter lens. I'm going to have the GoPro. If I want to take a cool photograph to remember, I'm going to take the photograph with the GoPro. Also I don't have an underwater housing for my a7. Again, GoPro and it takes pretty good images underwater. Underwater it's actually when you have a limitation from the camera side. There's so much you can do post-processing to just bring your photograph from a GoPro to the next level. It's really crazy. It's almost at the end if you do it right, the difference is almost seamless. It's pretty good. Yeah, these are the cases that I mostly use my GoPro still for photographs. Now regarding time lapses, I still use the GoPro quite a lot, actually. Not so much as my main camera, most of the cases because as I said, I have the A7 so there are many shots that I use a long lens for, especially for the time lapses. But the GoPro is still very useful. Sometimes I'm using it as a behind the scenes camera to time-lapse staff. While I am doing the actual time-lapse, I'm doing a timeless with a GoPro recording me of doing the time-lapse and especially with the HERO6, it's nice because with the pro tune settings and everything you can also do night sky time lapses and things like that. It's quite versatile. I'm still using it. Actually. [LAUGHTER] Funny thing I'm also using time-lapses not for visual purposes but for scientific research and I'm using the time-lapse mode to record things underwater. So there's this technique called baited remote and the remote underwater video. Basically you have a little bait and you place it on the seabed and you put the GoPro there and the GoPro just records all the different species of fish that are there so you can get an estimate of how good the environment is at that specific spot. I'm also using time-lapse for that and that brings me back to the main point that GoPro is really just a tool. It's so much more than just a camera and even more than a vlogging camera which is what is being sold for at the moment mainly. Yes. It is too little and now that I'm thinking about it more, of course, used in vlogging and stuff like that. But there's a huge category of silly location that they use Gopro, for example we don't engage as much with it, but FPV drones. FPV drones, they use GoPro as their main cameras. Scientists like you, we know astronauts. I know personally in the medical field, many surgeons as well as of course, our team, but many surgeons use GoPros in their head mounts to actually teach their trainees, teach the residents how to operate. Because back the day when you were a resident, if you wanted to see an operation, you needed to be there. You needed to be there and watch the surgeon operate but now if the surgeon can have a point of view video of him operating this a game changer because the resident, the trainee can get this video, watch it in his house take notes. It's a different type of engagement that I know that now they're tilting those cameras, they're adding lenses to make the field more narrow. Again, I think you can actually change the magnification of the lens through the Google internal right now. Yeah. The internal settings. Yeah. This is obviously digital. Yeah. It's a compromising. Its compromising the resolution, of course. But still, just as you said, it is a tool with a huge amount of implications. This is again, another thing that I love about GoPros and another thing that will make GoPros standing in the field of cameras and it's another category of cameras. Gopros don't compete with those. It's another area, it's another category. We can't really compare GoPros with these large mirror-less cameras. No. It's just another story. Its different fields. Its exactly a different field. One question that I had because I was thinking it before this interview. Which GoPro would you suggest someone to buy in 2022? **** that's a difficult question. Obviously, I haven't had the opportunity to use one of the latest ones other than my GoPro HERO6. If you found one buy the GoPro Hero4. Hero4 Black that was one of the most legendary cameras. [inaudible] had it, it was excellent, it never failed apart from that one time that you tried to do a time-lapse in 4k strategy. [LAUGHTER] That was like the first day. Oh my god. You could fry an egg on the GoPro. Yeah. No, but all jokes aside, that was an amazing camera. It was game changing in the field of action cameras which GoPro invented. Honestly, I don't know. I just keep having the second thoughts about how much fragile those GoPros are today. They have a screen in the back, now they're having a screen in the front. More screens, more problems. Yeah. You would suggest an older camera with a housing rather than the stabilization of the new cameras, for example. I suppose it really depends on what you want to get out of your GoPro. Because if stabilization is a huge thing for you, then get the newest one and get the diving housing in order to feel safe about using your GoPro in the rugged environments that it's supposed to go. I suppose that's my advice and be prepared for the case to maybe break at some point after a lot of hard use, but your GoPro still going to be intact. Honestly, that's what I think. That the case is just so meaningful because it allows you to not hold back in any shot. You have a shot that is risky. You know that if you put your GoPro into that task. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. You need that security in your mind in order to allow yourself to be creative in the way that you want. As an experienced again creator, when I say creator I mean everything; videographer, photographer, everything in the word creator. We've got a lot of people that just finish the scores about GoPros. They are beginners. Now they know the basic stuff, they are equipped with knowledge. What would you advise those people? How would you advise them to move in this filmmaking, let's say, field, in the photography field, while equipped with a GoPro? What would be your advice to those people? Honestly, both [inaudible] and I started with the GoPro. Here we are right now with a 5D and a seven. But it was after a lot of years of training ourselves to get those kind of views and directing our own shots and learning everything about it. One of the best quotes on photography and filmmaking is the best camera is the camera that you have. Exactly. If you have a GoPro, my advice is to not rush anything and say, I want 1D X Mark 3 or a RED or a Sony Alpha 74, whatever. Have the GoPro, use it, use it again. Like get those bad shots, get those bad shots again, and slowly the quality is going to start improving. When you max that out and you feel that you really need now something more, then you can advance. But GoPro is honestly an incredible piece of gear to start filming and photographing and doing time lapses and expressing yourself visually through this tool on this median. Be happy that you have the GoPro and just use it as much as you can. Exactly. Honestly, [inaudible] probably has advised you that already. I'm going to say again too, all you need is to just spend as much time as possible outside using the gear that you have instead of sitting inside and watching tons of videos about sensor specifications [LAUGHTER] and all that things. We all have fallen into that rabbit hole. It has taken us nowhere apart from a waste of time and procrastination. Just take your gear and get out, shoot and really enjoy it and learn from the process. This is really the best way to improve. Use your cameras. This is why you have them. Go out and allow yourself to make mistakes. I think this is the best advice. Don't be harsh with yourself. Don't be disappointed because you didn't nail that shot or you missed the shot. We've all missed shots. This is why we don't miss shots now, because we've made many mistakes in the past, we've made many mistakes and those mistakes led to us the next day being disappointed on our computers. We were like, why did I overexpose the shot? Why did I miss the shot? Why was this video shaky? The next time that you're out with your GoPro, your monkey brain remembers that you made this mistake the previous time so you evolve in this field, and this takes time. This takes time, this takes effort. But those are nice memories. I have nice memories from being 15, taking my GoPro, and then shooting, I don't know, 40,60 frames per second, a 50 minute video [LAUGHTER] to compose a time-lapse, then importing it into my MacBook and my Mac, it catches fire. Something went wrong. Exactly. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Either you realize it or not, you're going to improve. Again, those very small improvements over time compound and you have a major improvement because people underestimate the improvement that they may have in a week, but they underestimate the improvement they may have in five years. So that's how it goes with GoPros and this field. Take your time, go out suit, use those cameras, shoot more. One advice that I have to give that actually did not mention in those lessons is that while shooting, learn how to edit, it is very important. This is the biggest mistake that I see people doing. They buy GoPros. They shoot a lot of videos and they don't know what to do with them. Required in the GoPro., [inaudible] [inaudible] Yeah in the GoPro. 16. Interview With Awarded Photographer Konstantis 03: Then on your phone and it's just a clip. All the magic is on editing. I mean, you learn if you made a mistake or not while editing. This is where you really engage with your footage. You need to start learning how to edit as you start learning how to shoot. A more holistic approach in the whole creative process exactly. Exactly. In this field either if you wanted to do it as a, let's say your camera enthusiast. You need to know how to edit. This is the true magic because you shoot, you make mistakes, you bring them in the editing software, they correct those mistakes, you make a beautiful movie and then you share it or you keep it for yourself or if you want. But in general, if you want to take this with a more professional approach, you're going to be way more useful if you're also an editor rather than just a shooter. There is no such thing as I'm just a video shooter. I don't edit. I think it's very important for people to start learning how to edit with it. This course has one editing lesson. I think this should be five editing lessons. Perhaps we do a course in the future with editing, I don't know. But for now, remember that when you start shooting with those cameras, start editing with those cameras. This is very important. Yeah, I totally agree with this. Whether it's editing videos or photographs, anything really. The editing process is just so important and as it takes a long time to learn how to shoot things, it also takes a long time to learn how to edit things and even more to get your own style in both cases. I couldn't agree more. There's just so many things that you can do to make your content. Bring it up. Just bring out the things that you really want from it. One of my favorite photographs from my first hike in Mount Olympus was captured with a GoPro Hero three-plus and now one of my friends, he has it framed on his [OVERLAPPING] It's really all about the story first and then about everything else. Editing, capturing quality, wherever. As you said, story is the most important aspect of a video. Not just a GoPro video in general. It is hard to fix it your mind in this fact, but it is true that story comes first. Stories getting everyone says this gear gums, secondary to a story. Where do you stand on this? How do you build your story process? What are your thoughts on this statement? I couldn't agree more. It absolutely is the most important thing and you see it mostly when you start your process because you're photographing these nice things and you have this ideas and you put them on the visual medium and then later on as you start to get more and more equipment and you forget. It's important to always remember that the story is the most important. Now I think that usually the story is there. The story is there and you just have to find a way to get across it to convey it to the viewer, to your audience whatever the audience is. More romanticized opinion would be that the story will come to you and it will go smoothly. Many times that's not the case though. The story, you have to work very hard in order to get it out and show it in the way that makes you really express yourself. It takes a lot of thinking and I think no matter what camera you're using, it's nice to always have a notebook and write down ideas. [OVERLAPPING] A shortlist is very useful. You've used it, I've used that. Everyone has used it. You guys should use it. [LAUGHTER] It's really useful to keep track of how you want to tell the story and if something comes up during the shooting and you see, this doesn't really work or you see something that could work even better you can always move to different directions from there. But having a spine to your project and actually having a shortlist gives a spine to your project around which you can build the rest of it and tweak whatever you want and improve it and eventually get your point across. Totally. A shortlist is an absolute essential. If you want the restoring, you don't want to capture just random sequences in a more chill scenario. For example. If you're outside the vlogging, you don't want to have your shortlist. For example, film 30 seconds talking and then film with events. But if you're going into more targeted suits, I think that they shortlist is an absolutely essential. Another tip which I actually mentioned in the lessons is to shoot more. When I say more, I don't mean more lengthy videos. You don't want to have two and three minute recordings every time. You want to have your recordings with GoPro being 10 seconds 20 seconds max. I mean, when I say shoot more, if you really want to convey that story, for example, you're outside shooting mountain bikes. Don't only press the record button to record this back flip of the mountain biker. Record yourself packing the gear, going in the car, driving to the location, the mountain bikers fixing their mountain bikes, then them climbing up the mountains. Record of course, the conveyor story to convey a message, you need to record it first. To shoot more, worst-case scenario, you have to press three buttons in post-production and delete those videos. But best-case scenario, something that you didn't see at the moment becomes very helpful as a means to convey the story in post-production. Shoot more, you will never regret it. Especially if you're shooting in low resolutions. This is not going to damage your battery, not going to drain your battery, is not going to fill up your SD card more. You have no excuse for not shooting more. The worst thing that you that can happen to you is go back home and realize that you have less footage than you actually thought you did. Exactly. It's always good to whatever you're doing, do a bit more. It's always good to have this safety net. One thing that I want to mention here is that the more you shoot, the more you view the world from inside your camera. This takes from the experience. I mean, you're not 100 percent there, you're 90 percent there, and 10 percent on your GoPro or even bigger percentage on your camera and your GoPro. I felt that. I felt that a lot while shooting with my cameras but at the end of the day, those videos that you capture, those memories are locked there. They're locked in the videos and when you view those videos 5,10,20 months, afterwards, you just really feel like you're there. Yes, you sacrifice a small part I think by having your mind on your camera and getting the perfect shot than the correct exposure notes, stuff cameras but it's really worth it. I think afterwards. I agree. I think there is this different aspects that I tend to view it as well. You do do this sacrifice at the moment but many times it's your camera and your creative process that takes you to those places in the first place. [NOISE] You want to shoot this amazing sunset from that beautiful mountain and you have to hike two days in order to get there. In the process, you've viewed all those amazing landscapes, and you find yourself sitting at the edge of that cliff, getting a wonderful time lapse of one of the most stunning sunsets that you've ever seen. That's a small parenthesis of why I like time lapses so much because you set it up, it starts recording, and then you just enjoy the actual view. But whatever the case is, many times you go to those places and view things with your own eyes, and no one can take that away from you. On top of that, you also have the camera recording and it locks everything and makes it future proof. Yes, exactly. Now that I'm thinking about it again, sure, engaging that much with your camera. Not only in time-lapse because in time-lapse you don't engage that much, you just press a button and leave the camera there, but actively shooting videos to try to create a vlog or a video or a travel video. Yes, you're going to lose a small percentage of the experience, but you can actually get the chance and use your cameras and use your GoPros as a means to live more of those experiences. You know what I'm saying? For example, let's say you bought a GoPro. This purchase will make you go out more. This purchase will make you grab your bicycle and try to, I don't know, go to trails more, do more extreme stuff. This brings us back to the previous point that we had that, back in the day, GoPro really was part of our identity. Be a hero? Yes, exactly. This was their motto back in the day, GoPro be a hero. It still is, I guess. I don't know. But back in the day, I remember, you were holding a GoPro, you have this GoPro in your head, and you felt like a hero. You felt like this was part of your identity. You saw your GoPro in your room and you were like, "I'm going to grab this and I'm going to go out more." This is I think one of the best aspects of this hobby. The fact that you can see something, see the cameras standing there, just grab it, go out, and this just brings more and more experiences, and the rest is history. I agree so much [LAUGHTER]. Back in the day, as a young teenager, God, I thought I wanted to be a mountain biker. Exactly. [LAUGHTER] It was like no. It really does take you places. It's always important, I guess, to pull the camera away for a second and take it all in for yourself always, but the camera does take you places. If you're a creative mind, it's important to just be creative. That's the key message, I think. Final question before we end this discussion. We've seen many companies create action cameras. DJI creates action cameras. Insta360 creates action cameras. Not only 360 cameras, but also GoPro-ish action cameras. It looks like they've stepped on what GoPro does and they tried to improve all the aspects. What are your thoughts on this? Would you leave the GoPro ship to go with another company that creates action cameras? Probably not. Actually, definitely not. I would stick to GoPro because it's been around long enough and they are the ones that started the concept of action cameras and brought it to what it is today. They've been experiencing all the difficulties in the process of making the perfect product from the very beginning. They have been an innovative company and they have always been evolving and creating new things. Regardless of whether I like the new GoPro or I prefer the old ones or things like that, GoPros are an incredible tool. I've said it, and I'll say it again, once you have a GoPro, you're always going to be taking it everywhere with you and you're always going to be using it anywhere. I would stick to GoPro. Now, in regards to these other companies, let's take it from the example of GoPro. GoPro went ahead and build a drone. GoPro is not a company that builds drones. The company is a company that makes action cameras. Now, DJI went ahead and build an action camera. It's a pretty good action camera, but it's no GoPro. It again has, in my opinion, all those fragility issues that the GoPros have, but additional, on top of that, it lacks all the innovation and all the awesome accessories and all. All those years of experience. And all the years of experience of the mechanical and electronic engineers and foundry engineer's down at the GoPro headquarters or whatever? No, I would stay with GoPro on top of any other company. At the end of the day, they have those years of experience that you said, but to the viewers, if we gift you a camera, if you find yourself with a camera that isn't a GoPro, again, the camera that you use the most is the best camera. But if you have the luxury of choice, personally, I think I agree with you, I would stick with GoPro. I would buy GoPro. I'm not sure about the model I would buy right now. I think that I would buy one with the HyperSmooth stabilization, to be honest. Probably, in my opinion, right now the best value for money GoPro to buy is the GoPro HERO6 or 7. Right now they're pretty cheap. I know that some naked GoPro HERO6s without the case for FEV drones retail for about €200. Really? Yeah. It's a no-brainer if you can find a GoPro HERO6 or GoPro HERO7. The stabilization I think is just enough and you don't pay 400, 500 bucks for the GoPro HERO10. I think this is pretty much it. Do you have anything else to add to the audience that are ready to go out in the field and shoot with their cameras? One last thing. Yeah. I mean, go out, record everything, and just, at the end of the day, enjoy it because that's what it's meant to be, and you're just going to find yourself really diving into the process and learning so much through it and just living truly in getting all those experiences. It's an amazing hobby, it's an amazing job, and it needs passion. Just put yourself in it, and trust me, you're going to get rewarded. Nice. Thank you very much for being here, first of all. Thank you for having me. This was very valuable both for me and the audience, and see you next time we shoot again. Boom. 17. Thank you message: Thank you very much for making it up until the end of this course. I hope that this course met your expectations, and I know that many things that we discussed will stick into your head, and the next time that you grab your GoPro, and go out to shoot, you will remember two or three things from this course. Of course, you can always replay a lesson if you want to revisit some of the key features that we analyzed during those lessons. Make sure again to grab your GoPro, go out, shoot, and deliver the class project which I am going to be reviewing, and sending feedback to each, and every single one of you. If you like my teaching methods, make sure to check my other courses, and connect with me in my YouTube channel or my Instagram. Again, thank you very much for sticking up until the end of this course. I feel honored that you listened to me through all of those lessons, and I'm going to see you in the next course.