Thought this was a pretty cool catch from one of our camera angles as you can see the bird was coming into the decoys.
We love em. We use 3 gopros for all kinds of angles. Heres a quick look at what we did with one of our hunts this year. I have it set so the video starts at 1:19. We got some cool angles of the jakes coming in to our decoy: SBO Short Films: Redemption - YouTube
Yeah I watched that the other day you guys did pretty good with he second angles even the trail cam. We had a gopro on the decoy and that was the only angle that didnt get any footage since the bird never came infront of it. What gopro do you guys have and do you have a problem with the battery dying fast?
A original gopro, Hero 3 Silver and Hero 3 Black. If we have the bluetooth on its dies in 45 minutes or less. Otherwise...lasts forever.
yeah that was our problem and you cant turn it on and off from the app. So you basically have to turn it on and leave it on kinda sucks
I run 2nd angle at the decoys with a GoPro. Here is the key to the battery life. Get an external battery. Specifically get a Tracer TracerPower.com Tracer Lithium Polymer Battery Packs They are built bullet proof. They come with a "cigarette lighter" plug in. Then get the GoPro male cigarette lighter plug along with a USB cable. The battery will power your GoPro in wifi standby mode for weeks ... literally. I run mine on sun up to sun down hunts in February in the snow while goose hunting and still have power left at the end of the day. Here is my old Hero 2 w/ wifi back pack plugged into the $100 Tracer battery shown in that link. I use it on a Hero 3+ now and the nice part is that only one USB cable is needed with that set up. Here is a video from last week with a 2nd angle of a Tom that I shot.
Thanks!! going to have to check those out for sure. I like that you can control everything from your phone but the batteries dying so quick sucks
The next problem you will face while using a phone is that battery dying as it continually communicates with the wifi in the camera, even while idle they are both burning through battery. So you need to take along one of those external phone batteries that you can buy most places. I have a Motorola one that is about the same size as my Droid RazrM that goes with me on every hunt. That way I can re-charge my phone as needed or I can even recharge the wifi remote that came with my GoPro. Keeping one of those batteries on hand at all times is a life saver while hunting.
Yeah we found that out on saturday as it sucked my phone two times. Sunday was a quick hunt so didnt get to test it really. If your turning the wifi on and off on your phone might save battery to you think? Its one more thing you have to turn on though
Another question you ever have problems with loosing wifi signal? We typically only have it about 15ft away. Any tips with that?
I personally use the wifi remote that comes with the GoPro. I have the app on my phone and switch to it to check framing if in doubt when I set up, but I don't like using the app because it just dumps my battery, especially if I am in a spot that gets a cruddy cell signal. The combined wifi and searching for cell service will kill my phone in under 2 hours. The GoPro remote just sits there in the off position until you turn it on so there is no battery being drained by the remote. The Tracer battery is running the wifi in the camera so your power supply out there is solid. I keep the wifi remote on a lanyard around my neck so it is at my finger tips at all times. I've found this to be the best set up for my needs. As far as distance, when I had my Hero 2, I had terrible wifi signal problems. It seemed like 20 yards was about the max and it really depended on line of sight. With my Hero 3+ I have tested it out to 30 yards and have had no issues even when line of sight was obstructed. I have a friend that has run his out past 75 yards. On turkey set ups, my decoys are at 8 yards and my camera is 3-4 yards beyond the decoys looking back at me and has served me well. The field of view is so wide that even at that close of distance the blind might as well be 100 yards away.
Here is my current Hero 3+ set up with the Tracer. I bought a Pelican Storm iM2050 case for it all this year. I love this set up. Everything is organized and secure at all times. I keep a couple USB cables under the small Joby tri-pod and an extra GoPro battery (no real need for it though) under the camera itself. The Hero 3+ camera is in a Hero 3 skeleton case with no lens cover. I painted the outside of the case and Joby with an ultra flat paint. I just use a lens cover that I bought for a couple bucks off of Ebay to keep dust off the lens until it is ready to run.
Will not having very good cell service cause you to loose you wifi signal. Cause like I said we only had it about 15ft away and it cut out on us a couple times. We have had second angles before but new with the gopro's. (we have the 3+)
Cell signal and wifi are two different things. One doesn't impact the other. However both drain your phone's battery big time. I have to often turn off my phone's data if I am in a cruddy location, but I could still run wifi if I wanted to. Like I said, I personally like the wifi remote that comes with the camera. Setting changes are kind of clunky through the remote, but I like the simplicity of operation through the remote vs a smart phone.
yeah we where talking about it after basically killing my phone twice to use the remote. Thanks for the input definitely going to have to look into a few things
I don't film but I've been putting one of my MPE5s on a tripod and set up over my decoys. Now only if a tom would cooperate!
I would but the MPE5 only takes 10 second video with no audio. Not sure if its worth putting it to video and instead get some sweet pictures.
I would maybe put it on video mode and make the delay in between videos as short as you can. I have no experience with covert cameras so not really sure how they work. I know the Siman guys used one for a second angle in there video they posted this week and I was impressed with how clear it was
That was a way higher end camera than the MPE5. The MPE5 is a great low budget camera- which is good considering being in high school doesn't make me too much cash If I had a better camera like the Red 40 or Black 60 (which is what I think Siman was using) which takes better video/audio I would put it in video mode for sure.
