GoPro for Motorcycles - Experiments for Optimum settings 

Yes, glad you like it... I know it's super nerdy, but yes, some of us obsess about video quality.

Hey there I looked at Superview, but the barrel distortion on the horizon bothered me a bit, Even in wide view, sometimes I will apply a filter to correct the distortion in post. Regarding white balance, I experimented with putting it in manual mode, but now I run it in auto, I find the auto settings are good. I typically find that the surroundings aren't really tricking the white balance (at least for me)..... I often find myself riding in condition that's change (Sunny day = 5500K, Overcast 6500K), So if I leave it locked then it makes my cloudy riding a tad cool (blue tint). You shouldn't really find that the colours in the scene influence your colour balance all that much. I'm pretty happy with the auto setting. I am getting pretty happy with my GoPro footage now, But after the testing above, I've decided to edit at 30fps and run my drone at 60fps just to give me the ability to do 1/2 speed slowmo when playing back drone footage.

Hey Lee, yes, I noticed that too. It's strange that they won't let you do 4K 4:3 @ 30fps. For Activity profile I have it at 5K 4:3 @ 30fps with wide lens and hypersmooth=Standard For Cinematic Profile I have it at 5.3K 16X9 @ 60fps, Linear+HL, Hypersmooth=Boost.

> Welcome to the OCD club Yup... when it comes to this stuff, I'm always trying to get better results. Actually the more I've been thinking about this (and researching it), I think I'm going to flip up from 24fps to 30fps, that way I can shoot in 60, have no juddering if I drop to 30, but still have slowmo options if I want it.

@@brentbat here in Norway we have PAL region, so i shoot everything in 25fps and edit on a 25 timeline, works great! Never had use for slow motion footage unless i’m prepered for it.?

What is it about you Victorians and Lockdown? I just got back from Texas and saw that you were in lockdown again. I'm beginning to think you guys love it ;-) (OK touchy subject).... but look on the bright side, it does give you the chance to do geeky experiments like we are doing now. Glad to hear that you came to the same conclusion on shutter speed (1/250s). Obviously a lot of things impact this like the speed that you are riding, and how close you are too trees and heavily detailed subjects. Eg: If you are on a wide road, then the impact of the blur is less than if there are trees right next to you whizzing by.

Yes, I noticed this recently as well when I got a variable-ND filter for GoPro and wanted to fix the shutter to manual. This makes no sense to me, because even if you fix the shutter to a manual setting, the camera should be using ISO to control exposure... so why not offer exposure compensation? Another of the weird GoPro quirks.

There is only 1 reason which may or may not be relevant. When you shoot in 4K but edit at 1080 (which is what I do), You essentially have a lot more pixels to play with in the edit. So that means you can either: a) Reframe shots in the edit that may not have been composed perfectly (which is pretty common with GoPro stuff) b) Zoom into the shot in post production without losing any quality. If you don't think you will want to do either of these, then you can shoot at 1080 resolution and save on file size.

Yes, usually the shutter speeds will adjust to multiples of frame rate. After further reflection, I'm now shooting at either 30fps or 60fps and I'm editing at 30fps timeline.... My target shutter speed is around 1/240sec. Your question is a reasonable one regarding priority (ISO vs shutter). GoPro unfortunately gives terrible feedback to the photographer on anything to do with exposure (no histogram, no exposure meta data recorded etc.). But on most cameras, the way they work is to keep ISO set to a minimum and as the light fades it slows the shutter speed down until it reaches a threshold... could be 1/125sec or 1/60sec, and then it starts boosting ISO. But I don't know for sure how the GoPro algorithm works.

@@brentbat Is your shutter still set to auto?

@@mustbescud Hi there, Yes, I'm still setting my shutter to auto, but I'm now fixing min ISO=100 and max ISO = 200 because I found gopro was increasing my ISO way too early and negating the effects of my ND filters. I'm also making sure I go "easy" on the ND filters and don't use too dark a filter.

@@brentbat Ty, I'll definitely try this out. Currently running on a gopro 7. I've just seen the prices on some used 9's and I might just upgrade soon and use that for my pov. Thank you for your informative videos

Hi Col, You are right, unfortunately the GoPro doesn't indicate anywhere the exposure settings it is using (which is frustrating). But what I do is use my light measuring application on my iPhone to measure the ambient light and calculate what the exposure would be. I can force a specific ISO (like 100iso), I know the aperture (f2.8), so based on the light levels, I can measure what the shutter speed would be for a correct exposure. Check out this video for info on the app I use on my phone ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0-u0b57xvl0.html

So a question for you... why do you edit at 60fps? Why not shoot at 60 and edit at 30fps... that would be silky smooth (because it's dropping every second frame) and would allow you to do 50% Slowmo. If you are editing at 60fps, you lose the ability for slowmo. I put up a 60fps timeline (shot at 60fps) and I really couldn't see any difference compared to the 24fps timeline in terms of perceived quality, detail etc.

@@brentbat I can show you the difference in 30 and 60 better with a couple vids: the skydio shows it best. 60fps: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HOn0pBdcrsw.html 30fps: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8CoyLQo8QHI.html Both are good videos IMO but you can really notice the difference in the second video when the drone pans, there's a stagger to the video. I don't get that at 60.

@@RidefreakTV I hope you don't mind me continuing the discussion/debate... but I've got a few questions. First of all, thanks for sharing these two videos. They are both lovely videos, so congrats. 1) With the first video, correct me if I'm wrong, but you are shooting and editing at 60fps. When you do this you lose the ability for silky smooth slow-motion. I think you will be much better off Shooting at 60fps and editing at 30fps. You won't get any judder because it will be dropping every second frame in the edit, but you get a huge advantage, if you set your speed to 50%, then you will now use every frame that you shot at 60fps and your slow-motion will be WAY smoother than it is now. Give it a try, pick any of your 60fps footage and drop it into a 30fps timeline and pick a good action sequence and run it at 50% speed and it should look much smoother than a 60fps edited at 60fp slowed down. 2) In your reply above you said that video 2 was shot at 30fps, but the video was edited at 24fps (according to RU-vid), This clearly results in bad juddering due to the dropped frames that aren't regular. That was evident on the tests being run. 3) It looks to me like you don't shoot with ND filters. Any reason for that? Based on what you do, I think the killer combination for your videos (because you do use slowmo) is Shoot at 60fps with an ND16 on the drone in sunlight, and then edit at 30fps.

@@brentbat That was probably the reason then, I thought it was 30 when it actually was 24, that explains the staggering I was seeing. It's my understanding that if I film and edit on 60 FPS there's no dropped frames until it gets to into RU-vids codec. Truthfully though, if you look at the picture quality of the first video along with it's smooth slomo I don't think that can be improved enough to notice it with your eyes, not enough that I want to try and chase that down and truthfully it looks better then about 95% of the non-pro content on YT, it was also an ideal day light wise. I have ND filters for the drone and sometimes use an 8 on it, I ran into issues with the 16 when the drone flew from bright sunlight into a darker shady area and lost the subject, as soon as I switched back to an 8 it didn't have that issue. The main cam is used for subject tracking when it's in close so the 16 affects that in drasticly changing light conditions. It works fine if the drone is using gps tracking though. I've had them on the GoPro but I've also had them knocked off by branches, I run a case on my Hero 9 to protect the lens, riding in tight amongst other riders on dirt bikes throws up allot of rocks, in the case of the H8 it ruined a non replaceable lens so I now use a case. Those thin plastic protectors that stick over the lenses are garbage, I've cracked a lens right through one of those with a thrown up rock. Anyway I've not gone to the trouble to try and research something that works with the h9 case. One thing that is mentioned over and over across the board is to upload at the highest quality you can. That doesn't specifically address frame rate but 60 fps compilations haven't lost any frames before youtube getting their hands on them. I don't feel there's any quality downside to uploading 60fps video. I agree if you are uploading at something less then frame rate and dropped frames becomes a big deal.

​@@RidefreakTV Hey Ridefreak, Yes, you are correct, if you shoot 60 and edit 60, you won't drop a single frame. But if you shoot 60 and edit 30, it won't matter that you are dropping every second frame, you won't notice anything. I don't believe the eye can really see any difference between 30fps and 60fps. However, I will challenge you on the quality of the slowmo. And you can test this for yourself. Pick any bit of footage that you have shot on 60fps where you have done some slowmo. Then drop that same bit of footage into a 30fps timeline and set the speed to 50%, and you SHOULD see quite a difference.... It should look even more amazing. I agree with you that your footage is already amazing (better than 99% of content out there - Pro or non-pro). But this WILL make it look better. Just humour me and spend 2 min to test it for yourself. By the way, in my opinion the best stuff I've seen there is Adam Riemann... if you haven't seen his stuff... you should. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y8IwmpZvGYA.html Oh... and by the way... that edit was in 30fps ;-) On the gopro lenses, I hear you. On my 9 I've got really good Freewell ND filters that snap on and won't fall off, but my GoPro 8 is a disaster... Boy GoPro screwed up with that lens design. I use a cage, but I've lost a ton of NDs on that and have given up. Anyway, enjoy your riding.... I have 1 more week in Quarantine and then I get back to my Husky 701. I'm also going to be back in the US to ride the Idaho BDR in July which I'm looking forward to. 8 Days!

Hey John They should work fine. One thing I’ve found since doing this videos is not letting GoPro crank up iso. So set min iso=100 and max iso=200 I’d start with an nd8 in cloud and on the off chance it is sunny try an nd16. They should be good settings to get going with.

@@brentbatCool Thankyou I'll give it a go

Hey Firstlight, glad you enjoyed the Geeky content. I hadn't heard of the Firefly and went and checked it out. I see that it comes with two lenses... Yes, the 90 degree would be good for more cinematic shots of a rider in front. You are right, everything is a compromise. I find that by setting two profiles (1) POV and (2) Cinematic, I can flip between the Wide lens and the Linear+HL and that seems to help. These little action cameras are good, but they are a compromise compared to cameras with proper zoom lenses.

That's why filming with a Skydio 2 is so good. I don't, but I use drones to complement my ground level angles. Hollywood has always used elevation (booms & helicopters in the past) to show 3D

Hi Orpaztron I'm not sure what you are using for editing, but I can only speak with confidence about Premiere Pro. In Premiere Pro you choose the framerate of the timeline when you create a new SEQUENCE. This is separate from the project settings and flows through to the export settings. What editor are you using?

​@@brentbat I'm using updated Premiere Pro. Actually I'm in the middle of an editing course and we have not yet reached it :)

@@orpaztron OK... Great... So you use Premiere Po... So let me explain. You create a project, import your camera video, and then before you start editing, you create a sequence... When you create a sequence, you will probably use one of the presets. This is where you essentially choose the resolution you want to edit in, and also the frame rate that you want to edit in. So if I'm editing in 24fps, I'll choose ARRI > 1080p > 23.976 I'm actually going to edit my next video in 30fps and see how that looks. The reason I want to try that is because if I shoot at 60fps, I can edit at 30fps without any juddering (because it's dropping every second frame in the edit, so it's smooth), but the benefit is IF I want to use Slowmotion, then I can do silky smooth slowmo at 50% speed. Still in two minds.

@@brentbat thanks for the detailed explanation. I try to understand why it's important to set a frame rate in a timeline than to set it at the movie export stage. Presumably the intention is not to be precise in cutting on a single frame and there is a better reason.

@@orpaztron When you are editing, you are making time-based decisions on when to change shots etc.... You MUST establish the frame rate in order to edit. Otherwise you can't work out where to cut accurately.

Hey Steve, First of all, I'd say "If it ain't broke... dont fix it".... So if you are happy with iMovie, then keep doing what you are doing. I checked out your channel and watched a couple of vids... You are getting great quality, your editing is good... so I'd say don't change anything until you feel you are hitting limits with iMovie. From a feedback perspective, the only comment I'd make is to perhaps tighten up the editing. I normally only keep a shot on screen for about 6 seconds, and then I edit to another shot unless the action prevents me from doing that. People have short attention spans, and a tighter snappier edit will keep their attention. The key question to whether you upgrade is how much you enjoy the video production and in particular the editing. If you really enjoy it and find it creative, then you will want to upgrade at some point, because you can do SO MUCH more with something like Premiere Pro, but it is a steep learning curve initially. Luckily there are so many great online training resources to help you (if you have the time). But if the editing doesn't excite you and inspire you... then keep it simple. Enjoy Brent

@@brentbat Hi Brent, thanks for taking the time to respond. I haven't hit the limits of iMovie yet so i'll stick with it. Thanks for the constructive feedback too. I'm looking forward to your Husky adventure when you get out of lockdown. Cheers, Steve

If I were to guess I'd ay it is the HEVC format that is the problem, why don't you turn that off.

@@brentbat I only have hevc or hevc h264 as an option, I have the hevc h264 selected, it’s only recently started doing it, Thank you for your reply

@@mickloftus7910 Hmm, can you view your footage in other applications? It might be a Filmora issue (which I'm not familiar with). I'm sorry but I'm also a Mac guy, so I don't know if I can help much.

@@brentbat Hi Brent I can on my gopro but in Filmora9 it says it cannot read it, this happens with my campark camera too on a different card, so basically 2 different cameras and 2 different cards, suggesting its Filmora9 or my PC win 10 Thanks Mick

@@mickloftus7910 Sorry I couldn't be of more help, but I think you are pinpointing the source of the issue. Good luck.

No, my understanding is that cinemas STILL use 24fps today because it most closely represents the way the eye sees. Aussie TV standard (PAL) is 25 fps, but it uses interlaced scanning, so it has 2 fields. Are you editing at 60fps timeline? I think there are several reasons why slower frame rates may be better.... 1) 24fps is "more cinematic", but 30fps is probably better for sport. But for the stuff I'm shooting, I prefer to go for more of a cinematic look than a more detailed sports mode (hence motion blur etc.) 2) When shooting at 60fps, you are pushing the data limits of the GoPro, so some options are not available to you (like 4K-4:3 ratio) which I definitely prefer for POV shots as it gives me more vertical framing options in post. 3) Also, I haven't tested this, but I am hypothesizing that 24fps will look better on RU-vid because RU-vid has codecs that throttle data rate, so if you have twice the frame rate that the eye can't really perceive the difference on, RU-vid is probably going to compress it more. That might be an interesting experiment... Perhaps I'll try that while I'm in Quarantine.

Curious what your editing timebase is set to.

I just checked Nerb... you are editing in 60fps! I might do an experiment to see if there is any noticeable difference between 60fps and 24fps... as I did 60fps runs of the same scene.

@@brentbat Yes, I edit in 60 and record in 60. I record at 60Mbit and usually export at 25Mbit. I dont know if im doing the right thing or not. I just felt the trees were less grainy at 60fps.

@@Nerb1 Well you have given me another experiment to try over quarantine :-)

So do you shoot AND Edit in 60fps? Check out my comments below with Nerb.... I'm going to do an edit on a 60fps timeline with my 60fps footage and then export it to RU-vid to see if it is any improvement in quality. Looking forward to doing that. I don't know many others that edit in 60fps, but perhaps that is something else that is unique about shooting motorbikes with lots of motion in them. Stay tuned.

I'm thinking about... I'm still skeptical about whether editing in 60fps gets you anything extra in quality, but I'm going to test it. I think if you shoot in 60fps, I'd probably be more inclined to edit in 30fps because then it would be dropping every second frame (so there would be no jerkiness in the edited footage), but you would have the advantage of being able to drop into 50% slowmo if you needed to.

@@brentbat Usually the only time I edit in 30fps is when I use the drone and film with 4k 30fps then edit to 1080 30fps. As much as I want my footage to look good,to be honest my gopro 6 is rarely used,sony x3000 has been my choice for the last two years. I filmed the other day with the gopro but footage was OK but audio was garbage and unusable.

Hey Kai, Good question, but I don't think so, and let me explain. my logic. I usually set ISO min to 100 and ISO max to 400. I think once you start getting ISO > 400 then the image quality goes downhill quickly on the GoPro. So that only gives me a total of 2 stops range using ISO. While I like trying to get the shutter speed at 1/250s and getting the motion blur, If I had to make a sacrifice between a longer shutter speed vs a noisier image vs under exposed image...I'd let the shutter speed vary first. While I like controlling motion blur, I don't want noisy or under-exposed images.

@@brentbat yeah that sounds like u got this. I need to try it. Think my nd filters arrive tomorrow. Shutterspeed min-max should be avaible on gopros 😅

Hey Scannorse, I don't really control the amount of ads, although I can stop them from playing through the middle of the video... I'll make that change now.

@@brentbat sounds good. Maybe my comment is more to be directed to RU-vid.