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I'm looking at getting a GoPro or similar, mainly for recording kayak trips. My local Clas Ohlson has the Hero 7, 8 and 9, with the 7 being about half the price of the 9. I find the options somewhat bewildering.

The kayak has a near-permanent list, which varies depending on exactly where in it my fat ass is located. I understand that some models can compensate for that automatically and level the image? What about stabilisation, etc.?

If I buy a 7, am I going to be disappointed? Should I be looking at another brand altogether?

Realistically, how many hours of operation am I likely to get out of these things with a standard (probably knock-off) battery?

Does anyone here have experience of being out in the wilds with one of these things for extended periods, and if so, how do you go about managing batteries, footage, etc.?

Advice on mounts, etc., is also appreciated. It's an inflatable kayak but I do have a firmish rubber attachment point (currently has a totally useless grab rope going through it, could probably take a decent bolt). Selfie stick on that, head mount, chest mount? I can imagine the chest mount being full of hands and paddle and not being much use, but have no real idea...

I have had 5, 7, and now 9, all black. (Get that version.)

Stabilization on 9 is noticeably better than the previous versions.

Batteries do not last long. You will probably get 30 mins a battery. We carry a bunch extra in dry bags.

They are waterproof and cases hurt the sound, if you want sound. But I've also had one get water under the lens from splashing despite the waterproof nature of them.

I have also owned knock offs. They tend not to hold up as well as an actual go pro.

Bring a couple of good cards. Our Hero 9 Black ate out pre-wedding photos and gave us a "files have been permanently corrupted" error. Only time that has ever happened, though.

Also hard to get a good mount with an inflatable. Head mount is your best bet.

Thanks for the advice, Lucas. So 9 Black then. Ouch... that costs five or six times as much as the kayak did

Only time I ever had a corrupt CF card was when I spent an evening in perfect light at TLV after managing to convince someone at a small Israeli airfield I shouldn't even have been able to get into to let me take photos of the planes there. It only ever happens with the stuff you can't replace.

That battery life is a shocker, I was hoping you could just slap it on your head and forget about it for a few hours, then deal with the footage later. Oh well.

Just came across this, it's beautiful, and even the chest mount doesn't look terrible. He does have a proper hard kayak so mounting to the boat works for him:



That audio is not coming off a GoPro, though.

I see guys filming their adventures in Canadian-style canoes and lugging a Pelican case full of DSLR, GoPros, mics, batteries, cards... Can't argue with the results, but I never want to get to that stage. Tech nightmares sound too much like work.

shanwickoceanic wrote:
The kayak has a near-permanent list, which varies depending on exactly where in it my fat ass is located. I understand that some models can compensate for that automatically and level the image?

Depends on how fat the ass is! Even a 737 won't trim up if the wing fuels too far out of balance!

Not a GoPro user personally but there are an awful lot of them mounted on boats, so I'm almost certainly being recorded by at least one as I type. One thing I hear constantly is that you need to clean them daily if you're heading into saltwater. Opening the waterproof case on a GoPro that hasn't been cleaned off after a dip in the sea is pretty much a €400 mistake every time, or so I'm told.