GoPro Settings
The settings best suited for your capture.
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GoPro Settings
There are a few key settings you need to make sure you do for motorcycling that is different from the standard. Let’s run through them.
Resolution and FOV
On the motorcycle, you want the widest frame of view you can get so that you can see both your POV with the handlebars and the point on the horizon you’re riding towards. The viewer, for the primary view, needs to get the relativity of your and the environment.
I use the 4:3 aspect ratio on 4K with Wide-angle. The reason I use 4:3 is it gives me options in Edit to move the frame if it’s not where it should be. In 16:9, if it’s not in the right position, you can’t do anything about it afterwards. Another option is 16:9 SuperView which is basically the 4:3 squashed into a 16:9 frame. Personally, I didn’t like it and I could do that in post anyway filming in 4:3.
The one thing to consider is that if you want to edit in the mobile as well, make sure the resolution you’re shooting in is editable in the app, depending on your phone or tablet's capability.
Also, consider the amount you want to capture and the size of the card you have. 4K may take up too much space and 2.7K might be a better option.
Frame Rate
I personally shot in 25 FPS for a couple of reasons. One is that all my devices including the drone, shot at 25 FPS so they’re all the same and then they all work nicely together in editing. I also don’t use a higher frame rate because slowing it down to half speed doesn’t really look that great. The reference points aren’t conducive to slow motion. Having said that, if you’re shooting B-Roll off the bike, slow-mo works nicely. Just remember to switch it back before you put your helmet back on.
Protunes
Colour
This will simply depend on whether you want to edit the colour when you’re producing your video. If you are, most definitely set your colour to Flat. If you’re not, leave it in GoPro Colour. Shooting in Flat means you’ll have a lot more room to capture a greater range of colours and contrast. It’s not as flat as LOG but it’s still better than GoPro’s standard colour.
Audio
Using the audio option in Protune will create a separate WAV file alongside your MP4 video files. Using this will create more work but in another section, we’ll cover the full audio workflow if you want to use this. You can batch all the files, so it’s not an extraordinary amount of extra effort but it is extra effort nonetheless. However, for me, I feel audio makes a huge difference to telling your story. The easier it is the hear your story, the more pleasurable it is for your audience. Well worth the extra effort.
High, Medium and Low are your options. You’ll notice on the audio file in the video file, when it’s quiet the volume is turned up automatically by the camera and then when it’s loud, it’s turned down. Technically it’s not volume as such, it’s editing the audio by amplifying what it’s captured.
In High setting, it creates the separate WAV file but applies all the same audio editing, which includes switching off microphones if the wind noise is too great in one. In Medium, it does the same thing but doesn’t cut for wind noise and then in Low, it doesn’t edit the audio file at all and leaves it as it was captured.
Low is my preferred setting as it gives you the most dynamic range in the audio in editing. It does mean that each file needs to be matched for loudness but I’ve found that on the bike, at full noise you’re already starting to reach the limits of the microphones.