GoPro HD Hero Helmet & Surf Camera Review

We’ve been putting the new GoPro HD Helmet and GoPro HD Surf Cameras to the test under some harsh East Coast winter conditions (we all know how cold it’s been right?) and the bottom line is that these things are epic and quickly becoming popular for good reason. We’ve been getting tons of questions about them and wanted to do a brief review on what we’ve found so far.

At first it was a bit of a love/hate relationship. The cam is sick, no doubt, and I’d recommend it to anyone. The quality is stunning, its super stealth and weighs next to nothing! Just press the button to begin recording, forget about the cam and just get after it!! You get about 90 minutes of continuous video on a 4GB card on f4 setting (it also shoots stills but that’s not really of interest to me), and about 50 minutes of video on f3 (60 fps) until the card fills up. I’d recommend getting an 8 or 16 GB card since you’ll be able to eek out a little more footage, and rumor has it a new super battery will be sold as an accessory giving you even longer battery life.

Unfortunately, the new HD version has some compatibility issues with certain memory cards and had me thinking I had a defective unit. I’d get back from a session only to learn it had failed to capture what would otherwise have been great moments, all along thinking the cam was functioning. Now that I realize which one of the cards actually works and which ones do not, I’m stoked and it’s no longer an issue. I’m over $100 poorer for the trial and error and have a few extra memory cards collecting dust that I now need to sell to try to cut my losses, but honestly, it’s the wasted effort and lost footage I’m most pissed about.

Anyway, I’m just glad to have the memory card headaches sorted out and chalk it up to modern technology, which will always have its glitches, especially when you want the latest and greatest. What I’ve learned the hard way is that faster memory cards are only trouble, and your best bet are class 4 cards from Kingston, Patriot, or Sandisk (I us the Ultra II). Forget the class 6 and higher cards. They appeared to work at first, but the cam would then shut off or time out and the cards were causing the cam to malfunction.

OK on to the good stuff!

I’ve yet to install my new Surf Expansion Kit and mount it to my board, but am in the process of doing so and we’ll have more info on this in our next segment. By now you’ve likely seen some insane footage circulating the web, and some guys getting sick results with board mounts. So far, I’ve had great results by mounting it on my Gath Surf Convertible Helmet (both top and side mounts utilizing both the 3m sticky mounts and the included helmet strap/mount). We’ve also been experimenting with some mcgyver-inspired setups, including Waist and Back mounts that are still being refined. My only real complaint now is the lack of consistent surf to get proper footage and test stuff out, but such is life on the East Coast.

The GoPro HD Camera makes your average session that much more fun and challenging, and I can’t wait for my next chance to use it.

For now, here’s a few frames from a couple recent NY and NJ sessions.

Oh yeah, and of course, I got mine at AtlanticBodyboards.com!

1. 

   Bruce T says:

   April 26, 2010 at 5:22 pm

   Sick shots Bob.
2. 

   Miguel says:

   May 16, 2010 at 10:54 am

   Good job on the go pro review.

   I was wondering, how hard is it to mount the camera into the gath helmet?

   Do you have to do any extra holes in the helmet?

   Thanks!
   Miguel