Bonus!

One of the accessories I bought for the Gopro was a wrist mount.  When I did the research, I did it on the camera itself, noting available accessories and focusing more upon the extended batteries than the mounting accessories.  It wasn't a terrible mistake, I knew enough to know that there are many options, especially with the readily available mounts that can be attached to nearly anything.  So when I went to buy the camera I saw the wrist mount and thought to myself "THAT could be pretty useful!".  Unfortunately, upon getting the camera home and trying the wrist mount out I discovered in short order it would be anything but useful in the context of what I intended to use it for.  Unless I want to walk around looking like I am pretending to hold an invisible shield in the ready position with the camera pointing outward, that wrist mount is not going to be of much practical value.

Also of limited value was the LCD screen.  Not only does it drain battery power, but an available app allows me to connect wirelessly via a smart phone, tablet or PC allowing me to observe what the camera sees so that I can set angles and whatnot.  If I am going to be doing action shots in an environment that could be potentially damaging to my tablet or camera, then the LCD screen would be of greater value.  Presently, I don't suspect that is the case.  Eventually I will probably go ahead and get one but now doesn't seem to be the time.

So, having purchased both of these accessories I took them back.  With the money that was returned to me, I bought an extra extended battery, a battery charger (so that I don't need to charge batteries solely via the camera) and the open frame mount.  The open frame mount will give me to access the ports in the camera that allow me to attach external equipment like microphones or power supplies.  This will be vital for filming testimonials and the like.  The limit is that I cannot attach both, which means that I will need to ascertain quickly while on the fly which will be more important and why.  The fortunate part is that because I am doing three mini-documentaries first, I'll be able to experiment with the process enough to learn what is the best for varied scenarios.

Essentially, I am even more excited now than I was two days ago.  I've been playing with the camera a little bit.  I downloaded and tried out the App that allows me to stream video to my tablet and that worked pretty well.  There is a lag but nothing that will be an issue.

There are two more pieces of equipment I think will be useful but I intend to fabricate them myself rather than purchase them.  One would be a mount on a long pole or extendable pole of some type.  This would allow me to get the camera high overhead and observe the surroundings from that angle.  The other is an over-the-shoulder, or what is generally referred to as a "3rd Person" camera mount.  It's likely that the pole mount will be more useful for my upcoming projects than the shoulder mount but essentially, I have the things I need to fabricate it and it may be useful so why not?  Buying them would be a bit ridiculous under the circumstances.  I can't fabricate a camera but given a bit of ingenuity I can fabricate both of those items very inexpensively.

From here on out I am going to be looking for methods to do this inexpensively.  I am, at times, going through sticker shock on the price of the camera and it's associated accessories, even though those accessories were not prohibitively expensive in comparison to other options.  I came very close to buying a Sony camera with interchangeable lenses, it would have worked well for these projects but it wasn't as versatile.  Out of the box, that camera was $600.  With all of the equipment I have presently I exceeded that.  To buy any accessories for that camera, I would have had to shell out much more than I did for the Gopro.

My only worry with the Gopro was actually removed today.  In order to get a wider field of view the Gopro utilizes a "Fisheye" lens.  In viewing, it appears a lot like the world is slightly distended which can be problematic for a documentary.  However, my fears were allayed when I looked on Gopro's website.  Lo and behold, the downloadable software has a way to remove the "Fisheye" effect and render the video as flat...bonus!

However much this blog is not intended to be an equipment review page, I am willing to express my excitement over things and so, here is my excitement!