POV Camera : A good alternative to GoPro?

[Nobody]

Greetings all, I haven't searched the site so, if there is already a thread on this, my apologies.
Well, I do have a now old GoPro POV (I think it's a Hero3+ Silver edition), with which I shoot some clip every now and then, when/if I remember to charge the battery, when/if the battery holds for a while (at low temp it now drains incredibly fast).
Of course a GoPro of that age could mostly shoot only POVs video, so no video of oneself unless a second person is present are possible...
Now, I see that the rage is now to 360 cameras, not POV specifically anymore. I see a lot of people talking about Insta360X like @tball here

Can you MA me skiing off-piste without poles holding a selfie stick?



I got a new Insta360 X3 camera and took it out on a selfie stick for a couple of hours over the weekend. From that, I have more video of me skiing than my entire skiing career, granted it's without poles. I am pretty comfortable without poles after years of skiing with our kiddos sans poles.

I wonder if more skiers will do this as 360 cameras become ubiquitous. It's super easy to shoot a video this way.

No need to be too kind. Anything you notice I should work on or think about while skiing?

Is it a road that you'd advice to follow?
Or a smartphone attached to a gimbal (with extensible pole) like the Insta360 Flow would be enough?
Tia for any indication/answer/pointers

 

[textrovert]

If you are looking for 360 cameras, you really have 2 main options currently -
GoPro Max (released in 2019)
Insta360 One X3 (released in 2022)

Hardware wise, even though the Max is 4 years old, it is still rock solid. Its form factor is more traditional, vs. the candy bar form factor of the Insta360 One X3 (which makes the X3 awkward to helmet mount).

Software wise, Insta360 has the better app (both mobile and desktop), with more "bells and whistles" features. One of the biggest missing software features in the GoPro app is the lack of auto-tracking of a subject. You have to manually keyframe to make sure anything you are following stays centered.

The accessories of both work for either. I have a GoPro Max and use the Insta360 selfie stick and unicorn mount occasionally. Most of the time, I just have it directly mounted to my helmet.

Example with selfie stick-

Example with direct helmet mount- You can swing the view back on yourself, even with direct mount. Of course, helmet becomes oversized, but still an interesting view.

Example with unicorn mount on helmet- with this extended pole mount on helmet, the helmet does not look as big and is more natural

 

[textrovert]

I had the original GoPro Fusion (2017) and then the updated GoPro Max (2019). After recording with a 360 camera, very hard to go back to regular action cam. The flexibility of "pointing the camera" in post when creating the edit becomes a must-have. Also the ability to create whatever aspect ratio you want without any crop in.

Only reason to stay with regular action cams is if you need high resolutions or slow motion. With 360 cameras, although the sensor is 5.6K resolution, that is being used for the entire 360 view. By the time you punch out a flat video, it is only 1080p (with upscale to higher res only).

One other advantage with GoPro is their $49 annual subscription, which is totally worth it. You get unlimited cloud back up, full damage/lost camera replacement, and 20% off at the GoPro store online.

 

[Nobody]

Very interesting, so the "invisible"selfie stick and unicorn from 360 are compatible with your GoPro (or with any GoPro, I guess the second) . The stick/unicorn invisibility is done post-prod, right?
Pricewise, I see that alos, they're both roughly comparable....
As for the "auto-tracking" that's what got me interested, was looking at an advertisement for the Insta360 Flow gimbal and in the sw features of the app that was mentioned and demonstrated...

 

[kevblah]

I have the GoPro Max and used it extensively this season and can highly recommend it. Get the new Enduro batteries from GoPro - they are designed to hold up better in lower temps. I use mine attached to the front of my helmet or attached to a Insta360 selfie stick. The Insta360 pole is WAY BETTER than the GoPro ones.

 

[msutherland]

I have the GoPro Max and used it extensively this season and can highly recommend it. Get the new Enduro batteries from GoPro - they are designed to hold up better in lower temps. I use mine attached to the front of my helmet or attached to a Insta360 selfie stick. The Insta360 pole is WAY BETTER than the GoPro ones.

do you have to have a special adapter or will your GoPro Max connect directly to the Insta360 selfie stick?

 

[textrovert]

do you have to have a special adapter or will your GoPro Max connect directly to the Insta360 selfie stick?

You can either use a 1/4" tripod to Gopro adapter OR use this:


I tried both and like the folding fingers with the 1/4" connector better. Guarantees that the camera axis is always in perfect line with the pole and cannot get accidentally knocked off axis.

Works perfectly with the 360 selfie stick:



Also, if you are interested in a unicorn mount, this is the one I have and it works well:

 

[kevblah]

I have the folding fingers with 1/4" adapter and it works perfectly as mentioned above.

I'm not able to see the link to the unicorn mount, can you DM to me? I'm curious to try it.

 

[textrovert]

I have the folding fingers with 1/4" adapter and it works perfectly as mentioned above.

I'm not able to see the link to the unicorn mount, can you DM to me? I'm curious to try it.

DM sent

 

[Nobody]

I have followed your inputs, and purchased the Insta360 selfie stick (the basic one, although it costs , here on Amazon, double the price you have in the US) and an unicorn mount similar to the one shown (not the same).
Mounted m,y old GoPro Hero 3+ Silver...results are...meh, at best. But I think it's the operator, not the equipment. Both the selfie stick and the unicorn mount are of very good making, and stable.
Unfortunately I had to use the unicorn with an elastic head band gopro adapter, not having available any of the adhesive mounts for GoPros...the resulting connection was a bit too wobbly (looking at the raw footage I got a bit..seasick) every movement I was making was causing the unicorn and camera to swing, and ended up flying off from my helmet while skiing , not to mention that my neck's mucles became sore after a while...
Next in the wish list is the purchase of an Insta360 X3...but it might be a loooong project, given the price...even a GoPro MAX has roughly the same price tag here...

 

[textrovert]

One of the big benefits of a 360 camera is that the stabilization is almost perfect. You can horizon level + world lock and no mater what you do, the FOV punched out of the 360 sphere will remain locked on. This is possible without and resolution loss/crop in as it has the entire 360 image to move around in and compensate for the shaking. The only "error" I notice is gradual horizon level drift that can happen in tight arced turns (probably centrifugal force throwing the sensors off. Easy to correct in post with a few keyframes to bring back to level.

 

[Nobody]

What about the vision angles (both horizontally and vertically)? Are these significantly wider than the one of my old GoPro Hero 3+ Silver? Or is it just me as a lousy operator who couldn't manage a decent whole image of me with, say, neither the unicorn mount (which is about 30 cm long) nor with the selfie stick?

 

[textrovert]

The FOV in a video created from 360 source is completely up to you at edit time. The wider you go, the more fish-eyed it gets, of course.
In the extreme, you can create video with a "tiny-planet" appearance. I mostly try to keep it with a tighter FOV so it looks more natural.

There is also the effect of FOV impacting resolution when editing from a 360 video. The wider you go, the more resolution you have (more pixels from the 5.6K source image being used).

Found an old post with example of the FOV extremes, moving from tiny-planet to standard to a reverse-tiny-planet.

 

[Nobody]

So , most likely it's my hand position and how I keep the stick that cuts my legs off of most clips...

 

[Nobody]

As usual, need to work on my "technique" to improve results. It doesn't help that the battery is short of juice and lasts a very short time, then I need to wait till I get home, download the clips to the pc and check results...
Ah, well

 

[Freaq]

Here are three runs from my third day of my third season since three years ago. Captured with Insta X3.

Since this is a thread about cams it should probably be pointed out that the video quality was quite good (IMHO) before it went through the free version of that editing software, obviously pretty crappy as it appears now on youtube.

 

[Dwight]

This is used with Insta360. Not my video.

 

[cantunamunch]

. Not my video.

You were looking at super-budget rigs a couple of years ago. Did you ever upgrade?

 

[Dwight]

You were looking at super-budget rigs a couple of years ago. Did you ever upgrade?

I personally used the Go Pro knock off and when I do use it, it works well enough.