I’m currently working on a really fun film project for Canadian based pet food company Petcurean. We wrapped a few days of shooting in Amenia, New York and West Lebanon, New York (at the Red Robin Song Guest House). Dave is mainly shooting high speed on a Sony FS700 while C.J. is shooting on a Canon 5D MKII. I’m handling GoPro shots.
This is the first time I’ve really taken the GoPro iPad app out for a spin and I gotta say I am really impressed.
Ease of Use:
First and foremost is the ease of flipping through settings. Even if I wasn’t using this to record and preview this would be a valuable asset to quickly change my record settings or quickly go from video to photo mode. Kudos to GoPro for building such a great interface.
Range:
It seems that the iPad’s range is more consistent and greater than the iPhone app but I haven’t really done any side by side controlled tests to verify this. As you can see in the above live preview image Mia is all the way out in the yard in the the red vest. The signal does drop when she runs to the side or back of the house but when she’s back in plain site the signal eventually returns. It’s not perfect but I am impressed. Although there are a few seconds of delay it is good enough since I can just run out and make corrections to the camera angle if necessary.
Note: You do not need an existing Wi-Fi access point. The GoPro itself becomes an available Wi-Fi access point that you can connect to in your settings.
ProTune:
Currently the app does not support preview in ProTune mode. I find this a bit disappointing because I was planning on taking advantage of the increased quality level for these shoots. It’s more valuable to me to get the correct framing so for now I will be shooting 1080p @ 60fps with ProTune off.
Extras:
I definitely made sure to get a protective case for my iPad while in the field. The Gumdrop case seen in the photo is holding up well. Ports are all accessible and touch screen still works great with the cover.
Dave posted some fun behind the scenes photos here:
“SNOW DOGS 2: PART II, CHICKENS RIDE GOATS”
“SNOW DOGS 2: SNOW MORE MR. NICE GUY”
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Keith Hopkin and C.J. Gardella