Can you fly through and record on a Go Pro? Advantages, disadvantages? Help please...

helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
Hey, just about to buy a Go Pro camera and I want to fly through it to save some weight. I currently fly through a small camera and record through a Go Pro knock-off. I'm always looking to save some weight, can I fly through the Go Pro and record at the same time, what happens if the Go Pro runs out of memory during a flight, anything? Are there are any advantages or disadvantages? Anything I should know or buy ahead of time? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
From what I understand there is no problem except the camera is not good with adjusting to light like a CCD. So if you fly into the sun it may take a second for the screen to come back. I think the latency is not an issue. Give it a shot, it wont be horrible and certainly is simpler to do. Just dont fly so far away.
 

kloner

Aerial DP
i did it for a long time. The advantages are one camera, disadvantage is it has it's own battery and if it dies, your camera will shut off. it does video and live output fine, but the picture every few seconds does not work so well using livefeed

I'll throw in the cable you need with the camera.
 


helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
i did it for a long time. The advantages are one camera, disadvantage is it has it's own battery and if it dies, your camera will shut off. it does video and live output fine, but the picture every few seconds does not work so well using livefeed

I'll throw in the cable you need with the camera.

Thanks! Yeah, I was wondering what the pitfalls were and didn't want to "find out on my own" lol... I'll give it a shot, the battery life thing scares me but I'm willing to bet I can build a power board for it to run off my 4S/3S setup... Should be interesting, I wonder how much wattage the camera pulls? Or is it just very small batteries. My current camera will last a full day of recording for 10 minutes every 45 minutes of charging time. Thanks for the help!
 



helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
I put that plug for the rear of the camera to power it with and to get the live feed from it. I tried it once and swore was getting interference from it, but it did work. you have to shut off the camera before unplugging the flight pack or it'll loose the footage and it can only have 5 volts max..... needs a seperate bec

http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=74&products_id=1091

hover on water,,,, that's sweet

Wow, very nice...now I don't have to "make one". Looks like what I need. I was thinking of powering the camera off one of the servo pins on the receiver, it'd be that board you sent and one of those servo extension wires hacked up to one wire, or whatever it turns out I need. I'm sure that camera could care less about "dirty power" so no reason to spend money on an expensive power regulator or filter I'm thinking. Should be interesting...maybe I'll start a post on that if I decide to do it.
 

kloner

Aerial DP
just remembered the main disadvantage. when you have a camera isolated on ear plugs recording jello free sticking something on teh cam that isn't isolated, even though loose will induce jello into your film...... just having something hanging off the camera does. There touchy sums a biches to keep jello free
 

Hey, just about to buy a Go Pro camera and I want to fly through it to save some weight. I currently fly through a small camera and record through a Go Pro knock-off. I'm always looking to save some weight, can I fly through the Go Pro and record at the same time, what happens if the Go Pro runs out of memory during a flight, anything? Are there are any advantages or disadvantages? Anything I should know or buy ahead of time? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Works good for me too, It seems that the Gopro Hero 2 doesn't like to be connected to the video downlink while recording (Maybe it's just mine...) What I have to do is to turn the camera ON, turn the video downlink ON, connect the modified 2.5 mm video downlink to the camera. At that point I see through the camera on my 7 in monitor (thanks to Kloners' advice) and finally I press record on the camera. All is fine from this point. Maybe you camera will behave but this is how I got around a funny behaviour she sometimes display. A female for sure....
 


RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
I'm using old and battered GoPro on two of my FPV quads as the pilot cam and recording at the same time and also displaying OSD data, works fine. On the one that gets the most use I added a battery backpack, effectively doubling the battery life so concerns about running out of battery power are nonexistant. You can also leave the GoPro OSD turned on and you'll be able to see the battery status while you fly so either way it shouldn't ever be an issue as long as you remember to check the battery icon once and a while to see where its at they tend to fall off quickly once they get down to one bar.

One advantage is you get a better field of view from a GoPro than from a dedicated FPV camera, the big disadvantage is they suck in low light conditions and when you're flying towards a bright light source like the sun. I've gotten used to it so I just fly through it or turn a bit so the contrast returns. It is much easier to fly with a good CCD FPV cam as the view tends to be more consistant but a bit narrower, my other 3 FPV multis all have good quality FPV cams and those are the ones I rely on regardless of conditions.

This was the first FPV flight with my QAV500, the one I use the GoPro on exclusively and also the one with the battery backpack. Video here was a bit twitchy as I hadn't got the gains dialed in yet when this was recorded but other than the overlay of OSD data and a bit less resolution over the downlink the view in the goggles wasn't significantly differrent from what you see here...


I'm uploading one of the ground station recordings of the QAV in flight for a comparison, it will be up on YT shortly and I''l put the link here...

Here's what the GoPro looks like as an FPV cam through a set of Dominator goggles...



Ken
 
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