9 Tips for Better Action Camera Footage & B-roll while kayaking / GoPro - Kayak Hipster

here's nine tips for hiking with action cameras over the years there's a lot of little things that I've been doing that have been making my time with like cameras a little bit easier in terms of getting better footage but also enjoying myself a little more and not being so dependent on filming it but I want to mention that a lot of these are just my preferences they're not right or wrong so the first thing that took me a little while to get is framing I'm a big fan of the rule of thirds if you don't know about the rule of thirds in photography and videography usually if you put things along the vertical or horizontal thirds and makes for a more interesting composition so what I like doing a lot is if I mount my camera on the kayak or if I'm using in certain ways I'll mount it so that I can be in the third and then I can have plenty of space to either one side or the other so that people can paddle alongside me I just find that to be a little more interesting than just a camera pointing straight at me I also like pushing it away from me either in the front on the back just enough to see other people and then to see the scenery because a lot of times if it's just a close-up of myself I just don't find it to be as interesting however if I'm gonna be doing certain things where I am the center of focus let's say if I'm surfing and I wanted pointing right at me I might Center the camera for that because my expression or the waves hitting me will be the most important thing happening if I have it mounted let's say on my helmet or I'm taking a picture while holding it a lot of times I like having it centered because the wide angle on these cameras will distort things quite a bit so I like centering it in a way so that that distortion doesn't really take away from the photo a lot of times if I catch the wrong angle or there's a kayak that is really warped or someone that's over on the edge it just doesn't look as nice and along with framing and what I just started talking about is changing locations of your shooting if you shoot all day and it's exactly the same position it probably won't be as interesting as if you change locations so for example well I'll use lots of different mounts I'll have a suction cup that I like putting in different places on the kayak I have a clamp that sometimes I climbed in different places you can ask stickies either mounted on your helmet or on the kayak itself and one thing I really like doing is I have this shoulder mount I'm able to reach the camera very easily I'm able to record action and then I'm able to open it take it out and then shoot with it and then clip it back into place so I just find this to be very versatile you don't need to go crazy trying to get angles nonstop that's one of the mistakes that they used to do in the beginning trying to catch every single angle but maybe getting a couple of different angles as you stitch them together might make for a little bit more interesting of a video rather than just sitting in one position the entire time tied with that I want to get to the next point which is you don't have to capture everything as I mentioned before that was one of the mistakes I used to make and then I come home I would have tons and tons of material and then I would use this much of everything I caught that day I have figured out the things that I like shooting just like in my drone video where I explain some of the angles I like shooting and as I mentioned before that's all preference it just depends on what you want to capture I like capturing when people are putting things away in the kayak I like showing once we get somewhere because I think that gives you continuity throughout the video and then I like having a couple of different clips while we're out on the water and I also don't let the camera run too long either because really one of the things that I was finding is that I was not really having as much fun as I should because I was worrying about filming rather than just enjoying myself and then thing one thing that's happening a lot lately is most of my buds have their own camera so at the end of these events we usually do a data dump everybody shares all the videos together and then everybody uses whatever they'd like to use now a question that comes up often is what frames per second settings should I shoot at should I shoot in slow motion and then have very large files should I shoot at 24 frames per second and make it very cinematic should I shoot at 30 can I even known as a difference for me when I got started with action camera so you to shoot at 30 frames per second I really liked how it showed action and you got to get to see everything but as the years went by I found myself going more and more to 24 frames per second I just think it has a nicer feel if you're slowing footage down you're shooting at let's say 60 or 120 frames per second those extra couple of frames for 3224 actually allow you to slow that footage down even further so 60 looks better when slowed down at 24 then 60 slowed down at 30 the same goes from 120 you get to slow it down just a little bit more and so I find that I just really enjoy the way that looks test all the different settings and see what you like shooting at when it comes to slow motion if I know that I'm gonna be doing something specific that might look really cool then I'll set the camera up for 120 frames per second if you know that there's gonna be a chance of you slowing down but you want to shoot throughout the day 60 frames per second is usually a nice compromise because it'll still look nice and you get a bit of slow motion if you wanted to throw it in here and there so many devices nowadays can shoot 4k video but R is it really necessary for K spectacular for establishing shots or vistas or things where the background is not moving very quickly however if you see a kayak moving very quickly in a paddle flying in at 4k or lots of water and waves moving around I actually like shooting some of those things at lower quality because I think it just looks a little better once again preference things that have a lot of movement I like shooting in either 2.7 K or even 1080 so what I'll do is I'll usually shoot a little bit bigger compress down to 1080 upload to YouTube a lot of new cameras are coming out with stabilization fantastic stabilization and the same goes for gimbals there are a lot more affordable and there are a lot smaller so they're easier to use but when should they be used this one also i think is preference but i'll share what i have found that i think looks better when i'm editing my videos if it's mounted on your helmet or its handheld definitely use stabilization because it'll just make things look really smooth it'll make you look like you're gliding it'll look fantastic however if you mount a camera on something that moves a lot let's say your kayak on your bow pointing back I think it looks crazy with stabilization on because the stabilization is actually trying to counteract the movement of the kayak I found that to be very counterintuitive and the reason I think is if it's on the kayak it's really nice to see that even though everything around the kayak is moving the actual kayak is stationary relative to the camera so I find that if it's mounted on the kayak you want stabilization off let's say you're in the car and shooting out the window stabilization on you're walking around stabilization on helmet shoulder stabilization on but it's up to you definitely test and see what you like best this next one is crucial and I've mentioned it every time I talk about mounts and that's tethering your gear down always have some kind of bungee or a cord or something that's going to hold it down in case the mount fails and then if I'm going to be playing in rough water where I'm gonna be in a location where there's a chance the camera could get knocked down I'll actually put a tether on the camera itself or at least on the mount of the camera because sometimes that could fail and then your mount will still be on and the camera will be gone so tether your equipment down every time you go I tether it down from my helmet down to one of the straps and as you see here if it's on my shoulder it's also tethered down to my PFD I have found that if I make a video using only action camera footage becomes a little bit hard to watch it's always good to try to mix in at least one or two clips from something else now it doesn't have to be a fancy camera doesn't have to be anything this is where I think phones with video capabilities are very useful because just shooting a little bit on your phone here and there and mixing that in will change the way the video feels in the video looks let's say while you're sitting having lunch or while you're packing your gear it's always nice to have a little bit of a change try it next time take out your phone shoot a couple of seconds here and there of just some other stuff and mix it into your video you'll see how much more interesting your video becomes if you have a whole bunch of action camera shots mixed in with a couple of shots taken with something else and lastly this one's a little bit of a cop-out but I really wanted to mention it don't be afraid to play the test use all the different settings see what works for you do you like color grading color correcting okay then go flat on your colors do you like spending time speeding things up and slowing them down play with all the different speeds see what you like if you like surfing see what speed you like slowing things down too so that the water looks really cool stabilization no stabilization different frames wide medium narrow points of view test all these different settings and see what works for you one thing I'll mention about why medium and narrow you've got to be careful with those settings because a lot of times in the narrow setting yeah you'll get something a little bit flatter but you're getting less of the sensor so the quality of the image the quality of the video won't be as good most action cameras also have time lapses play with those see if you like 2 seconds 5 seconds 10 second intervals try them at night see if you can get really cool cloud movement overhead or if you want to get the tides coming in and out because it might turn out that after months of shooting stuff at a certain way you might like something completely different and the setting was just 2 or 3 taps away so like I said several times this is all about preference these are things that have worked for me you might use cameras differently if you're hiking if you're riding your bike if you're on a motorcycle or you'd go in a car but when in a kayak for me these are things that have worked so hope that was helpful if there's anything you do differently or anything you want to add let me know or if you want to ask any questions please comment below subscribe if you'd like I'm always trying to put these videos out and as always loop door guy hipster thank you for watching see you next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Kayak Hipster

Views: 40,505

Rating: 4.9595218 out of 5

Keywords: kayak, sea kayak, kayaking, sea kayaking, kayak tips, kayaking tips, kayak hipster, kayakhipster, learn to kayak, gopro kayak, gopro kayak tips, kayaking with gopro, gopro 4, gopro 6, gopro 5, slow motion kayak, slomo kayak, tips for filming kayak, kayak camping, kayak trip, sterling illusion, rockpool isel, kayak mexico

Id: x4sWyzA_IWI

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/KayakHipster]

I put together a video with 9 tips that have worked for me when it comes to getting action camera footage while kayaking, not GoPro specific. I include ideas of mounting spots and why/when you might want to mount them in different locations — or with different mounts. As well as camera settings, slow motion use, and stabilization. And a reminder to TETHER YOUR GEAR TO YOUR KAYAK!

I hope it's helpful.

Cheers!

Disclaimer - video has ads.

[u/CaptainMiserable]

Awesome video, subbed.

[u/the_visalian]

Thank you so much. I got a nice camera for Christmas and I've been trying to think of ways to avoid the usual "random guy with a GoPro" type of footage. This helped a lot. Subscribed for sure.

[u/Captain_Flashheart]

I like!

I've got a couple of questions still..

I know you did some longer trips in 2017 so I figured you've come up with something for this- how do you manage batteries on sustained trips when you're left without a laptop? I've been juggling power banks but I ended up getting so annoyed at day #3 that I completely stopped using my GoPro.

Do you carry a remote for when you have the camera on your back deck? Or do you just call the bloke in the sweet-looking black boat to help out? ;)

Thanks for another great vid!

[u/[deleted]]

That was fantastic, thank you,

Any advise for somebody who just wants to stick their toe in the water, as it were? Besides, all of our lakes are frozen right now :-)

I'm thinking $40 Go Pro knockoffs - can I do cool stuff with them?

[u/Tony-01]

Thank you! Great tips!

[u/[deleted]]

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