If action sports is your thing, here’s a photographer’s viewpoint of why it’s a no-brainer to go in for an action camera
With action sports and activities becoming an increasingly likely event on a holiday today than ever before, you really wonder if the normal point and shoot or a DSLR camera would suffice for such testing conditions. In fact, add to the fact that most of these cameras are pretty bulky and almost impossible to be tucked away in a corner, recording stuff while someone goes on about their adventures is highly unlikely.
This is where GoPro has made a huge name for itself. A brand loved by all manner of adventure sports freaks, their tiny cameras can be worn around the chest with a band or even placed comfortably on the helmet leaving you free to capture your entire journey up that rocky mountain or coming skydiving from an aircraft without a hint of a problem.
End of the day—however handy or small—GoPros are cameras that cost a sizeable amount, almost equivalent to about Rs 30,000 on one, which can be a bit daunting. So if you are sitting on the fence, here are some reasons that should help justify spending your hard earned money on a brand new, and sometimes shiny, Go Pro.
Mounts, Housing and Accessories: Action cameras are ultra portable. They can be mounted anywhere and get you videos from angles you could not imagine from a DSLR or a phone. They provide you with what is called live action images—the sort any regular camera would struggle to capture. Even for a hobbyist, an action camera will be that one piece of equipment they can take with them at several places, including an amusement park for a swim, or on a cycle or a motorbike ride up the mountains. These mounts and accessories put the action first.
Experimenting with Frame Rates: Every video you watch is made up of multiple images. We usually consume video shot at 30 images a second. 1080p at 30 or 60 fps is what you would get from semi professional DSLRs or smartphones, though most of the high end smartphones today are capable of shooting at much higher frame rates. But what if you wanted smoother videos or wanted to slow down a sequence? That’s where the higher FPS makes a major difference. Action cameras like GoPro live up to its name by having frame rates as high as 100 fps at bearable resolutions of 920p or 720p to freeze up the action without sacrificing the video quality.
Higher Resolution: 4K is a bit of an unsolved mystery—while all of us want 4K playback capabilities on our monitors, tablets, televisions and even mobile phone, there is a distinct scarcity of good content at this resolution. DSLRs are yet to catch up, with virtually everything but the most expensive mirrorless cameras having built-in 4K recording. Action cameras will provide 4K, 2.7K and 1440p recording while costing less than what you’d pay for the same capability in mirrorless cameras.
Relatively easy to operate and a simple user interface: Action cameras generally have one power button that cranks the device on or off. You may not even have a playback display to worry about, which simplifies using it. There is no focus ring or zooming, no aperture settings, no shutter speed settings and the like: GoPro connects wirelessly to a smartphone or a tablet and all the settings are accessible there. And with built-in WiFi, you can share everything on social media almost as soon as it’s shot.
Great battery life: A DSLR would usually run out of battery much quicker than a GoPro, hardly delivering over two hours of 1080p/30fps recording. On the other hand a GoPro can last through three hours of continuous video recording on the same settings. And where does the smartphone stand? Well, you need to tweak your phone to an extent that it's unusable: turning off/dimming the screen, putting it in airplane mode, basically disable everything that makes it a phone and you may get about 1.5 hours of continuous shooting time.
So go ahead, pander to the action junkie in you and snag one of these action cameras.
The author, Saif Khan, is a photographer and videographer who works with Price Baba and Rhythmic Focus. He can be reached @SwizzleKhan
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