When a GoPro camera isn’t enough

If you’re into wilderness excursions or extreme sports, you might want to capture your adventures on film. Videos of you climbing rugged rocks, skiing down a powdery mountain, biking through a mountain trail, or hiking through a forest can be wonderful mementos of your expeditions. It can be tempting to leave the work to a film-it-yourself camera like a GoPro. Keep in mind though, if you want top-notch videos, the kind that you’ll want to proudly share with friends, family, and strangers alike, it can be better to leave the job to a professional video production service.

 GoPro Limited control

While GoPro cameras have opened up filming to a number of new thrill-seekers, they don’t offer the sort of control over recording images that other camcorders or digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) do. Typically a GoPro will handle technical settings automatically. That makes the cameras easy to use, but the results don’t always live up to expectations.

The best videos of rock-climbing, skiing, and other wilderness adventures incorporate multiple angles and varying levels of focus. A GoPro, by contrast, only offers a single angle of view (albeit a very wide angle) and does not allow users to adjust the focus. A professional video production services will be able to capture your movements from varying angles and with variations in focus to provide variety to your footage.

It’s harder to make adjustments with a GoPro

The aperture setting on a camera will control the amount of light that enters the lens. A drawback to the GoPro is that it sets the aperture automatically, meaning you won’t be able to make adjustments to increase or decrease the depth of focus in a particular shot.

Likewise on a GoPro, you cannot make adjustments to the shutter speed. Being able to change the shutter speed on a camera gives you some control over how movements will be captured. Fast shutter speeds will produce crisp images, even of action, while slower speeds will blur the movements of subjects in the shot.

Vary your visuals

GoPro videos will have a fisheye appearance to them, meaning that edges of each shot will be curved. This isn’t a bad look, but if you want a video of your adventures that offers multiple visual styles, you won’t be able to capture them with a GoPro. Having a professional videographer will open up a wide range of creative options. A videographer capturing your movements will be able to shoot with different lenses and be able to make adjustments on the go.

New perspectives

Using a professional videographer to film your excursions in the wilderness will give your videos greater scale and scope. Filming with a GoPro will limit you to only a first-person perspective of your movements, whereas a videographer will be able to capture all of your movements and all the beauty of your surroundings. There may be some amazing landscapes in the background of your activities that you might not notice while you’re busy skiing or hiking or rock climbing. A videographer can capture the shots that you might not have known ever existed, and they will likely be higher quality also.

If you are interested in having your next outside adventure professionally filmed, contact Costal Productions.  Located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, I specialize in filming the region of Northern Ontario and Minnesota.