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e

Object Culture

A Revolution in Mind-Blowing Video Made Possible by the Design of the GoPro

By Rain Noe - March 28, 2011

Following the invention of photography, it must've been staggering to see printed images of places you'd never been to. Similarly, when motion pictures were invented, people paid to watch footage of steam locomotives—a few seconds of silent action, no narrative story—just for the thrill.

Now, years later we're seeing another image-capturing revolution, this one based on the physical design of the actual camera. I'm talking about the wearable camera as pioneered by GoPro. Simply by engineering the camera to be small and rugged, then designing a bunch of little plastic gewgaws to connect it to a helmet, a tether, your wrist, your chest or even a surfboard, they enable us to capture and share physical experiences in an unprecedented way. For conveying a raw feeling of holy shit, nothing beats the POV or near-POV footage enabled by a GoPro.

Wanna see what I mean? Queue up this video and fast-forward past the filler to 1:30:

A more comprehensive amount of holy shit moments spread across a wider variety of activities is in GoPro's 2010 highlight reel. The whole video's worth a watch but you must, must see the footage that starts at 5:00—it's so real it simply doesn't look real:

Oddly enough, my favorite head-cam footage is this, where they strap a GoPro to a duck-hunting dog. Action starts at 0:20.

Object Culture

Rain Noe

Rain Noe is a writer and industrial designer based in New York City.

10 Comments

KGB

8 years ago

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Good to see another KGB posting here :-)
In terms of the camera: I was thinking of picking up the Contour...but now this one piqued my interest.
Any review comparisons out there that anyone have run across?
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suntzutzu

8 years ago

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oookay.. resending comment since my previous one wasn't published. there are better designs for POV cameras than contour and gopro. just take a look at Liquid Image action sports goggles, and they really make bar, body or helmet mounts obsolete. the competitive advantage of many camera mounts included in he package isn't that competitive anymore.
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jose goncalves

8 years ago

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I'm waiting feedback from support GoPro team... Look these...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC32c8pTPNo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5VCbLjEcUY&feature=related http://www.vimeo.com/21678532
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KGB

8 years ago

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ContourHD.

First loser.
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Kostas Designer

8 years ago

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I guess it's a matter of time to see the next revolutionary hard-core video that'll use this GoPro thing!! ;o)
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Scott

8 years ago

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GoPro has superior image quality. It is rare to see a Contour video that doesn't have pink streaks (noise initiated from direct sun on the sensor?) shooting through it, one that's not shaking more than I'd like, one where I didn't wish the person had aimed his camera a little further up or down, or one with a combination of those. I own a GoPro, so I am somewhat biased, but research before purchase led to both my decision and my reasons for being biased. As far as I'm concerned, the results are what matter most.
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pragonetti

8 years ago

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That Contour is very nice looking like the lipstick cams that I wanted before, but the cool thing about the GoPro is it comes with all the mounts shown above (maybe more). These are so cool! This is link to my videos http://www.youtube.com/pragonetti88
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pragonetti

8 years ago

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I have been racing cars for a long time and I always wanted to film myself. They say you learn a lot from it the problem is 1) the cheapest camera was $1000 2) it had to be hard wired in and 3) I have a couple cars I race so I could only pick one. Last year I bought the GoPro with the rollcage mount. Now I just hook it on to my rollcage and film. It is great and I can let friends use it and we can see what we are doing definitely. But since it is portable and easy to use I use it with motorcycles, snowboarding and go karts. Thank good someone finally made a reliable inexpensive camera that shoots HD and can go 170mph! As a designer the interface could be a little easier but if that is my only complaint it is not a big deal. The URL attached is my videos.
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john threat

8 years ago

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I used the go pro on my wild high speed cross country new york to l.a. off road chased by cops adventures. I swear by these cameras. I might shoot a music video next month with them.

You can check out the trailer for the adventure here:
http://vimeo.com/20568513
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Michael Westover

8 years ago

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It's a nice camera, but the ContourHD camera has a better design, IMHO. Much sleeker and low profile. The new model adds GPS as well. www.countour.com
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