I've been getting asked a lot how I shoot myself when i'm going on road trips solo
and also with Candy when we go on road trips together
and the solution to all this is GoPros.
I use three GoPros now but before when I first started this, it was just two GoPros and you can totally get away with it with two GoPros.
So you have one GoPro facing towards you
so it could be like me and it can also be your passenger as well
and then you need a dash cam and that's the one that's facing the road
and then I have a third GoPro now where I put in the back so that I can shoot Kuma in the back sometimes too
because Kuma always travels with me now.
This is the GoPro HERO 9 and this is what I use to shoot myself.
This is the newest GoPro that I got and I really like it because now they have this front display so you can see yourself in frame.
It doesn't give you like the whole picture, but it'll at least show you that you are in the middle of the frame.
It'll also give you information on your battery life, how much storage you have left on your SD card, what mode you're on
like camera, time lapse, etc.
and also what resolution and frame rate you're shooting at.
This camera is mounted on a GoPro windshield mount and these work great.
It never comes off. I've never had problems with it. Once you lock it in, it's really locked in there so I highly recommend getting one of those for your GoPro.
I usually shoot at 2.7 k because I don't want to shoot 4k because it just takes up too much space on my hard drive.
If you want to shoot 4k, go for it but 2.7k works out great for me.
And then if I want to take stills of myself, I up the quality to 5k because the GoPro HERO 9 shoots 5k now
so then you can just make some poses and just grab stills from that because it's 5k so it's like excellent quality.
And then sometimes, I'll shoot a time warp of myself as I'm driving.
I'll just get a quick 10 minutes worth of me just driving, drinking, or doing whatever
and then kind of use that in my editing timeline.
I also have this metal case that i use with the GoPro HERO 9 so I can easily slide out the GoPro when I need to
because the GoPro is notorious for running out of batteries fast
so with this metal cage, it's easier to pop out the GoPro if I need to
and then I could just slide this over top because it's magnetic too, so it snaps right in.
And then I'm ready to go with the GoPro again.
This is the GoPro HERO 8 and this is my dash cam
and this I shoot usually at 4k time warp
and time warp actually shoots really great footage.
I was actually surprised when I saw the footage when I came back from my recent road trip
because the sky looked absolutely gorgeous when I was driving in some parts of the country.
This is also in a plastic case.
The other one was a metal case, but this one is a plastic case
but again, I can easily pop this out,
switch the battery, and then pop it back in.
These cages are actually really nice and good for driving on the road
so you can easily change out the batteries.
I just wanted to note that the GoPro HERO 9 and the GoPro HERO 8 are two different sizes.
GoPro HERO 9 is the newest one that's come out and it's definitely bigger than the GoPro HERO 8.
It's bigger -- size-wise, you can just tell that it's bigger, it's thicker, it's heavier,
and the screen in the back, the GoPro HERO 9 is bigger as well.
Another thing that they're bigger in is the battery size.
The GoPro HERO 9 battery is bigger than the GoPro HERO 8 battery.
This actually results in a longer battery life for GoPro HERO 9, so that's great
but the downside is that if you have these two cameras, you have to get two different battery chargers
or you can charge through the camera as well, but I usually have a different charger so that I can charge a whole bunch of batteries at once
and unfortunately, I had to get another battery charger, but that's what you get with GoPros I guess.
And then last, this is the GoPro HERO 6. This is my oldest GoPro
and I use it to shoot Kuma in the back
because I want to shoot her sometimes when she's kind of moving around or looking out the window or sleeping.
She's mostly sleeping.
So this clip is by GoPro and it actually came with the the GoPro HERO 9 bundle that I got this year
but it works out so well by just clipping it on to the back of my seat here
and then capturing footage of Kuma.
And I can like adjust it up or down easily or like right to left easily as well.
I usually shoot a 4k time lapse or 4k video on this camera as well
because I like to get high quality footage of Kuma sleeping.
The trickiest part about recording yourself on a road trip in the car is the audio.
GoPros don't really record great audio. They're kind of notorious for that.
There is another solution with GoPro audio.
You could get these Media Mods which I have and these work great.
This is the GoPro HERO 8 Media Mod
and this is the GoPro HERO 9 Media Mod
and it enhances your audio recording um much better
and it's great when you're recording outdoors. It does do a great job recording audio
but when you're driving, there's so much wind noise in the car that it still doesn't do that much of a great job
so these are great for when you shoot outdoors but when you're shooting in the car, it's still not that great
because you're fighting against all that wind noise in the car.
Just to show you how one of them attaches to these Media Mods...
so this is why I don't have the cover right now is because I usually attach these Media Mods to the GoPros
because there's a plug in here and you plug it into that.
And that's how it plugs it in and then it becomes like a whole new thing.
So the best solution I found was to use this uh Zoom H1n Digital Recorder
and in the beginning, I would put it in the middle here on the bottom
and kind of just support it with some kind of cushioning that I have like whatever i had like this or something like that.
Just to keep it still.
And then I would just record at the same time I'm recording myself when I'm talking to the camera.
So this method, you have to sync the audio because there are two separate audio files
but it's not that hard.
Once you get used to it, it becomes like natural to you.
But to go a step further, I actually wanted to enhance my audio again
so I got this windshield mount where I can put the digital recorder up on the windshield
so that the mic is directly facing towards me
so that it picks up my audio way better.
This method of going up top in the corner will only work if you're going -- if you're recording yourself.
So if you have two people, like me and Candy, then you would put it in the middle
but if you're on your own, then you can put it to the top here and record yourself.
So that was my solution to find the best way to record audio.
I'm sure there's tons of other ways to do it but for me, this is what worked out best.
I have seen other people use like lavaliers to get the best audio quality, but I just don't see myself attaching a lavalier to myself like all the time and then recording.
It would just be like too much work for me.
Maybe if you're with two people, it'll work out better but if you're driving solo and trying to record yourself, it's just not going to be that easy
so the easiest solution with the best audio quality was this zoom H1n mic.
Another reason why I love using GoPros when I'm traveling solo on a road trip is because they have a great GoPro app
where I can control all my GoPros through this one app.
All I do is I go to that camera sign up there and then I already have all my GoPros registered on here
so all I have to do is swipe to switch GoPros
and if I want to control the GoPro HERO 6, which is in the back,
I just hit 'Control Your GoPro'
and it takes a little bit of time
but see, there's Kuma!
Kuma's back there. She's been waiting patiently while I record all this.
That's how I can see what Kuma's doing while I'm driving, so it's kind of like a baby cam.
Here, you can switch to video, camera... and you can also look at your settings
so that's time lapse video and then if I want to go to camera
I could switch the settings here...
Oh, not there.
This is the settings right there.
Okay, so then you can change the resolution, frames per second, all that good stuff here.
And then if I want to switch the GoPro and look at what else I'm viewing...
so let's control the GoPro HERO 9 and this is the one that is facing me...
just click on 'Enable Preview'
and then join
Okay, so there I am and there's Candy right next to me.
Hi!
That's the way I control all my GoPros and I love this GoPro app. I use it all the time.
So that is my solution on how to shoot myself and with Candy when I'm going on road trips.
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