After a decade of experience playing with DSLR cameras and GoPro’s, I’ve created a bunch of valuable GoPro tips for beginners to help you step up your video making game with GoPro.

From setting up your camera, to telling a story, to where to find music for your video, these 14 GoPro Tips will help you improve your video production process substantially, and eventually make better videos.

 

Tell A Story

Watch this tutorial to learn how to create engaging videos:

GoPro Tips: 5 Rules for Engaging Videos

Everything goes around a story – there’s no film without one. People are curious and you need to tell a story to catch their interest. And so I ask you: What story do you want to tell with your GoPro?

You need to be able to answer that in a sentence or two. That could be going surfing with a bunch of friends on a sunny Sunday. It’s simple, but it has a beginning, middle and end. That’s all you need. Breathtaking shots can only make it better. So, focus on your story!

Story Structure:

 

  • Introduction: Character introductions, setting and genre establishment.
  • Climax: This is a turning point in the movie. It’s where conflict is discovered and addressed, ideally in a way that keeps your viewer intensely glued to the screen waiting to find out what happens next.
  • Conclusion: Problems are solved, winners and losers, messages and morals, sequels and prequels.

Watch this tutorial to set up GoPro for your summer adventures:

How to Capture Your Summer Adventures (3 GoPro Tips)

 

Plan Your Shots

Most people do absolutely no planning, no thinking, no story, no preparation, nothing. This is why they make bad videos. This is why they make boring videos that fade away with the majority of the content out there. Taking this route makes the likelihood of creating a good video wishful thinking. If you commit to being a little more creative and to trying a little bit harder, your videos will be 10 times better.

How to you plan your shots

  • If you are creating something complex → a storyboard will help you keep things clean and organized. In it you can have every scene you intend to shoot, camera movements, characters and much more. You can use Storyboard Fountain that easily allows you to create storyboards on your phone or PC.
  • If you are creating a simple video → you may not need to note everything down for simple videos. But make sure your shots will have an easy to follow story line with an intro, body and end.

 

Use A Fast SD Card

Using a video optimized microSD card is as important as ensuring the battery is charged before you start a shoot. Some microSD cards are not compatible with higher frame rates or resolutions because of their lower speed ratings.

SD card do you need

In general you need a microSD with a speed rating of Class 10 or V30. The illustration below shows you the corresponding video formats for every video format.

In this article I talk about SD cards optimized for GoPro. Make sure you take a look.

Illustration reference: www.sdcard.org

 

 Stay Always Charged

Battery life may be better in newer models but it’s still not enough to support a three-hour time lapse shoot or an extended 4k production. There are other ways to drain your GoPro battery super fast, but thankfully these few tips will help you optimize your camera and extend its battery life:

  • Only turn your camera on when you want to film by using the Quick Capture function (from HERO5 above)
  • Turn off Wifi, Bluetooth, Voice Control and GPS
  • Keep GoPro batteries warm (pockets work well)
  • Turn off the display (if not needed)
  • Use high capacity batteries
  • Get yourself an extended battery

….more battery life tips in this article…

 

Pick A Frame Rate And Stick With It

Download The GoPro Cheat Sheet [Free PDF] – to see what frame rates you need for your shot in every occasion.

The best way to decide your shooting frame rate is to figure out at what frame rate your final video will be rendered. If there are no specialty slow motion scenes or effects, keep it simple – 30fps is perfect.

If you plan to have a few slow motion scenes, then switch to 120fps or 240fps when needed.

What I tend to do when I’m not sure whether I want some scenes to be in slow motion is that I keep it at 60fps. In this way I can half the speed of whatever clip later in post production (I know it’s not a lot – you’ve got to compromise) while I keep only one fixed settings on my camera.

 

Keep It Short – 10 Seconds Clip

Your shots are too long; way too long! Make them shorter. How many times have you seen amateur films shot from the same angle for five long minutes? It’s painful. I’m not that guy; you shouldn’t be either.

Take a second to think about how long a shot lasts in an actual professional video. It’s seconds! This is why ESPN uses 45 different cameras pointed at one game.

I challenge you to find a TV show or movie that uses the same camera angle for more than 10 seconds. It’s rare. So, why are you?

Challenge! Next time you’re shooting a video, record for no more than 10 seconds, then move. If you have a shot list like we’ve talked about, you’ll have a ton of great angles to choose from. With longer scenes, film the same shot from two or three different angles. It’s way more watchable!

 

Create Interest

Some videographers feel like they need to lay out the whole story in the first 10 seconds. It’s really not necessary. I find it’s better to get the viewer’s brain firing up by opening the door for questions or making them draw their own conclusions about what they’re seeing.

Excellent videos take you on a journey of discovery. Bad videos give you all the answers right at the beginning.

 

Great Lighting = Great Shots

Light plays a crucial role in photography. It’s the one element that can make or break your shoot if it’s not harnessed correctly and strategically.

Some key tips here:

  • Shoot at golden hour
  • Watch your white balance
  • Use color gels
  • Avoid light-polluted settings lens flare

Read the following article to adjust Low Light settings: 4 Recommended GoPro Low Light Setting (HERO 7/8/9/10/11).

 

If Audio Matters, Use An External Microphone

One of the GoPro fails is its internal microphone. As mentioned in the full microphone article, the solution to this problem (if audio matters to you) is to get a little external microphone. There are different types microphones depending of what you’d like to achieve. You can find more information about this topic on the full article, and here below are 3 external mics that we recommend for capturing better audio:

EDUTIGE Compact Microphone

This is a mic that is good for recording action cameras, DSLRs, and for use with GoPro editions. It is compact and ideal for capturing audio for YouTube or Vlogs.

EDUTIGE ETM-001 Microphone - Omnidirectional 3.5mm 3-Pole(TRS) Microphone for GoPro, DSLR, Mirrorless Camera or Digital Audio Recorder
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EDUTIGE ETM-001 Microphone - Omnidirectional 3.5mm 3-Pole(TRS) Microphone for GoPro, DSLR, Mirrorless Camera or Digital Audio Recorder
  • Small, lightweight and robust; No extra power supply required
  • APPLICATION: Ideal for recording meeting, lecture, or interview & great for capturing...
  • STYLE: small, light, sturdy, plug-and-play
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Sony Lavalier Microphone

This simple clip microphone has over 1,200 positive Amazon reviews and is recommended by GoPro. It is perfect for interviews as it quickly attaches to your shirt and is hands-free.

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Sony Compact Stereo Lavalier Microphone ECMLV1,Black, Small
Sony Compact Stereo Lavalier Microphone ECMLV1,Black, Small
  • Omni-directional for high-qualitiy stereo sound pick up
  • Included wind-screen to reduce wind noise
  • 360-degree rotation Clip for freedom of attacment angle
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Check Amazon Price

REMOVU Wireless Microphone

Removu RM-M1+A1 Wireless Microphone and Receiver for GoPro Hero4, Hero3+ & Hero3
109 Reviews
Removu RM-M1+A1 Wireless Microphone and Receiver for GoPro Hero4, Hero3+ & Hero3
  • This device fits GoPro HERO3, HERO3 plus and HERO4 only. NOT for HERO 5 and later...
  • Maximum distance is about 40 Yards depending on environment
  • Powered by included Lithium battery, and runs more than 6 hours
Amazon Prime
Check Amazon Price

This is a wireless microphone kit that is inexpensive and easy to use. It is designed for the GoPro HERO3, HERO3+, and HERO4 cameras (not the HERO5 or later models). The kit includes a receiver that attaches to the back of your GoPro camera and a microphone with a built-in transmitter.

To connect your microphone to the GoPro you’ll need a mic adapter. Find the best ones in the article below: 4 Official GoPro Audio Adapter for External Microphones.

 

Stabilize Your Clips

Unless it’s actually used as a filming technique, there’s nothing more dizzying than having to sit through a whole video that looks like it was shot during an earthquake. This is why image stabilization was invented. This is why you need to use it.

Using a gimbal is a fantastic way to stabilize your videos and achieve professional-looking results. A gimbal is a device that mechanically stabilizes your camera, counteracting any unwanted movement or shaking during filming. This ensures that your footage remains smooth and steady, even when you’re capturing action shots or moving through different environments.

In low light, switch the stabilization off to prevent weird jello effects like the one in the image below:

Use A System For Organizing Your Files

Everyone has their own “system” of organization. While I feel it’s important to use whatever method works best for you, I’d like to share the way that has worked for me for years.

How I organize my GoPro files

I keep an event for every shooting for each year. And within the event folder I keep the raw content separate from the editing files and the final exported product.

 

Pick Your Music Before You Start Editing

A common oversight in post-production is not incorporating music sooner in the process. A movie soundtrack can set a scene’s tone or mood. So it goes without saying that a film without music and audio effects might appear (or sound) incomplete.

Free Copyrighted music and sound effects can be found on the Youtube Audio Library.

The good stuff is paid – these are the three best music sites that work for me: Epidemic Sound, Artlist and Audiojungle.

 

Don’t Overuse Transitions & Effects

Editing video with a straightforward cut is the most useful, the most common and the easiest way to transition from scene to scene. But because all projects are different, there are times when you need to up your transition game.

Don’t worry though, we’ve got you covered on that too! Check out our Pro Editing Pack for custom editing transitions and titles…

 

Color Grade Your Footage

Color grading is where you create your video’s aesthetic. It’s an entirely optional process, especially if film realism is your goal. Of course, color grading does help express a visual tone or mood to heighten the narrative. For example, boosted orange and blue tones could be used to enhance a travel story.

Among professional film editors, there are dedicated teams of people just for color grading films – they’re called Film Colorists. So you can imagine how widely used this niche can be.

This is our best selling filter pack which includes 106 LUTs designed by our filmmakers at ProjectGO, for GoPro style videos. We made it available in various formats .3DL/.CUBE/.XML to cover most editing programs on the market.

Once installed, you can easily apply (and customize!) these color presets with a single click in Premiere Pro CC, Photoshop, FCPX, After Effects CC, DaVinci Resolve, and more.

GoPro LUTs Pack to color grade videos with editing software

Our cinematic color grading pack offers over 100 color tones to cover most GoPro activities.

Check out ALL Before/After samples HERE!

gopro color correction underwater footage

 

 

Thanks for reading!

I hope this guide helped you learn all the best GoPro tips for beginners 🙂

 

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