GoPro accessory woes

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Conza

Conza

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Conza_No1
So I've bought a GoPro, it's been mostly great, bought the motorsport edition, been recording all of my car trips with it hanging inside my windshield upside down looking at my instrument binaccle and out my windscreen (so right in front of my face, but you adjust).

I bought the LCD and Battery BacPacs, one to frame up my shot, the other to get a 'claimed' 5 hour battery life, they say nearly double, so one battery lasting 2.5 hours means 2 should last 5 right?

Nope, according to my research, and several other users on the internet, an extra full battery with the BacPac only makes it last an extra 1 hour and 10 minutes longer. so let's see 3.666667/2.5 = 146.6667%, or in other words, double, according to the GoPro website.

Worst part is, what I'm filming is my car's fuel tank and trip computer, I want to see if I could make it to 700kms on a single 55litre tank, but when the battery died, the GoPro was just 'bip bip bip bip bip' and then dies, no prior warning, not even a little 'bip...bip...bip...' or something, to indicate, hey I'm low on battery, please charge me, instead, alive one moment, then 5 bips of death.

So yeah, pretty irritated by it, I wasn't far away from where I started my trip, so turned around, and now the battery pac is charging, it's been on for about an hour, still at 1 bar.

The battery pac fortunately redeems itself partially by doubling as a battery charger, so when one battery runs out, pull over, swap the batteries, keep recording with the spare and charge the dead one, but still, a 4.5 hour battery life would've been tolerable, this is just really dissappointing.

I got exactly 3 hours 22 minutes and 28 seconds of recording or 21.4GBs at 1080p, so here's a tip for anyone else, don't bother getting a 32GB SD card, it will never be filled, I'd reccomend two 16GBs instead, which on continuous recording will make 4 x 34m 40s recordings and take 4 x 3.66GB, and leave you with 14 minutes of battery and ~1.4GBs of space. I have 2 x 32GB at class 10, and I have no idea if C10 made the difference, but inbetween its files on long trips the lap in recording was not noticable, strung two clips together, couldn't tell there was a pause.
 
^Thanks for the heads up. I ordered my Motorsport edition a few days ago, but package is stuck as an other ordered item is missing.

Best choice for an action cam though after a bit of internet columbo'ing
 
I've also found battery life pretty poor on my GoPro. Bit of a pain, but better really to use it for short bursts rather than long journeys.
 
I got two 16 gig cards as well, it's really all you need. When I have it in the car, I just charge it with the A/C outlet while filming, so no need to worry about battery life.
 
What if you change it to 720. I know that'll save space, what about battery? Less processing... less battery usage?
 
good point, but I don't think my images will be legible at any lower resolution, however your reasoning is sound.
 
My wife was thinking about buying the battery pack for her GoPro, so will have to let her know about this.
 
That wouldn't actually surprise me considering that you're recording on 1080p. As Bottoz pointed out you'd probably see out your five hours recording if you drop the resolution which is probably where the "claimed" battery life comes from.
 
I struggle to think ^this^ is it actually, I'm using a single battery this time, without constantly recharging it, so if I get 2.4-2.5 hours, then I think its down to the efficiency of the batterypac, which appears appauling.

Funnily enough, I am taking the batterypac with me, as a housing for my spare full battery, so when the other battery does go, I'll have another one and can continue on and home. The ultimate (sort of) will be when my car charger arrives, so then battery A will die, swap with battery B and then charge battery A in the batterypac while using B, and on and on it goes, but I don't think its necessary unless I had unlimited SD cards and needed to do more than 4 or 5 hours in a single trip, which I don't forsee.

I bought mine for $62.5 from these dodgy guys claiming to be Australian, who actually import their products from the US, and it did come with an extra battery *looks up stand alone battery price* ah ~$8 so I paid $55 odd for a charger basically, which is quite a lot, since I have it I'll use it, but otherwise charging two batteries in the GoPro, keeping the spare with you and then just swapping them when one dies is almost as good.
 
Conza
So I've bought a GoPro, it's been mostly great, bought the motorsport edition, been recording all of my car trips with it hanging inside my windshield upside down looking at my instrument binaccle and out my windscreen (so right in front of my face, but you adjust).

I bought the LCD and Battery BacPacs, one to frame up my shot, the other to get a 'claimed' 5 hour battery life, they say nearly double, so one battery lasting 2.5 hours means 2 should last 5 right?
Click to expand...

I assume you take the LCD screen off after you aimed it? My GoPro lasts around 3 hours on 720p on a single battery.
 
The battery life last longer on lower quality recording. 1080p will only last about an hour on longer. I bought 2 extra batteries to use with a 32g card. So three batteries, once on charges I swap them out until all are charged.
 
Carlos
I assume you take the LCD screen off after you aimed it? My GoPro lasts around 3 hours on 720p on a single battery.
Click to expand...

Correct, framed it up, then added the Battery Pac (after fully charging both batteries and turning the device off between changing accessories), but the framing was only for a few seconds. I think I'll have better luck running them in series not parallel.
 

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