pricing of go pro hero 2 HD outdoor edition

[davidpet]

Does anybody know what places that take Mammoth passcash charge for this camera, if they carry it at all? I'm buying the MVP soon and am trying to determine whether to buy passcash (with the 20% bonus) to cover the camera or if it's cheaper to just get it on Amazon.

[JohnLemieux]

Does anybody know what places that take Mammoth passcash charge for this camera, if they carry it at all? I'm buying the MVP soon and am trying to determine whether to buy passcash (with the 20% bonus) to cover the camera or if it's cheaper to just get it on Amazon.

The mammoth retail stores charge $299 for the Hero2 outdoor package

[davidpet]

nice...they're actually competitive with Amazon. Although I just found out the ugly fish-eye distortion can't be turned off (I assumed it would in the narrower 2 FOV modes)...so I don't know about this whole concept anymore.

[JohnLemieux]

nice...they're actually competitive with Amazon. Although I just found out the ugly fish-eye distortion can't be turned off (I assumed it would in the narrower 2 FOV modes)...so I don't know about this whole concept anymore.

The gopro is not a camera for general use. It's for PoV shots, and in this situation the fisheye works well.

[davidpet]

The problem is when you watch video of someone going down a slope, you have no idea what the curve of the slope is because it's so distorted. If I"m going to mount something on my helmet to approximate my vision, I want it to simulate my vision (without drugs). Even a normal wide-angle lens would be ok too, but the videos I've seen of the gopro are very extremely distorted.

[davidpet]

found a thread online where somebody swapped out the fisheye lens for a normal lens for $50. might be worth looking into. although it sounds tedious to reset the focus manually using a 1080p tv (that wouldn't even be high enough res for the still image mode).

[JohnLemieux]

If I"m going to mount something on my helmet to approximate my vision, I want it to simulate my vision (without drugs).

Rectilinear wides actually do this worse than hemispherical (fisheye) lenses for most situations. Rectilinear wides keep straight lines straight but distort the apparent volume of objects (volumetric anamorphosis) by making it look like the corners have been stretched out. Fisheyes do the opposite, and keep volumes looking normal but distort lines (it's impossible for one lens to accurately represent both). In a natural setting where straight lines are rare anyway, are brains are much more prone to picking up on skewed volumes (especially in moving video, where rectilinear lenses make it look like things are being sucked out from the center of the frame to the corners as you move).

Rectilinear wides can give awesome effects in video, but ask yourself; does this look natural?

found a thread online where somebody swapped out the fisheye lens for a normal lens for $50. might be worth looking into. although it sounds tedious to reset the focus manually using a 1080p tv (that wouldn't even be high enough res for the still image mode).

I would highly discourage this. A normal lens will be such a narrow FoV for a helmet camera that the footage will just look like the blair with project.

[davidpet]

I guess the video from the Contour HD, which advertises itself as not being fisheye, does look a little odd, like the video you linked. It's like for stills it looks natural but in movement it's dizzying. Maybe I should go the route of correcting the distortion in After Effects or Premiere Pro. People seem to have success with that online although I've only seen single frames and not moving video, so I don't know if they corrected it in a way that looks natural during movement.

[davidpet]

found a couple of videos of the fisheye "corrected" in AE. It doesn't work.

[brahm]

you can get a flat housing lens for them, they make them for under water usage since the fish can't focus correctly under water.. or yuo can just crop off outer edge which is where the image is the most distorted.

[TheSnowman]

In Go Pro 2 to get rid of the wide fish eye style you shoot in 1080 narrow setting. Works great if your looking for the non fish eye type shot. I have used that setting for head shots over and over again.

[davidpet]

Does anybody know of footage online that uses the narrow 1080p setting? People on youtube and other places all seem to use the widest setting all the time. I wonder if the average person actually doesn't know it's distorted and that's why. Kind of like how the average person doesn't realize what's wrong with watching a 4:3 source stretched out to 16:9 on a tv. What do you mean that's not what reality looks like...people always look like mushrooms!