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Trek Pack v2 Shooting

How to capture tours, useful checklists...

Before You Leave the House

This part is written from bitter experience -- turning up, excited to start filming, and realising I’ve forgotten something.

Now I perform the following checks before leaving home:

  • Are the batteries fully charged and is one in the camera? Have you packed a spare?
  • Do the MicroSD cards have enough free space for everything you plan to shoot? Are they both in the camera?
  • Is the monopod in/on the pack (including GoPro mounts and screws)?
  • Have you enabled GPS mode? Is the time correct for your location?
  • Is time-lapse mode on the correct interval for the type of transport you will use to shoot?
  • What is the weather like? Have you checked the best source of weather information available for the location?

You should also consider safety. Have you got the right gear for the environment? Are you prepared for changes in the weather? Are you going out with a friend? Does someone at home know your plans? Have you packed water and food?

Capturing a Sequence

  • Make sure to remove the lens caps on the camera before shooting
  • Before shooting, make sure the GPS is locked on (this can take a few minutes, depending on your location).
  • Avoid capturing in the rain and in low-light situations. The images will turn out much worse than what you see with the human eye. (This particularly applies when you're in a car.)
  • Be prepared for questions. Many people will be intrigued by your Trek Pack. We encourage Trekkers to share what they’re doing with others, and why. Many people will, rightly, be concerned about their privacy. Be prepared to explain how your photos will be used.
  • Make sure you comply with local laws around public photography too. Generally don’t shoot on private property or around children, but make sure you know what is and isn’t allowed beforehand.
  • Above all, enjoy the outdoors!
Timelapse Mode

Required Settings

The camera must have GPS turned on to position your photos. Go to preferences > Regional.

Turn GPS to On.

You can now select timelapse mode.

Press the mode button until Timelapse is shown.

The GoPro MAX’s timelapse mode can be used in Timewarp video mode and timelapse photo mode.

Select timelapse photo mode.

You can also select between single lens HERO capture (photo icon) and 360 capture.

Select 360 capture mode.

Optional Settings

Photo interval

360 timelapse photo mode allows you to capture photos at either 2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 second intervals.

This means you can start the time-lapse and let the camera capture photos at the designated intervals automatically.

As a rough guide, set to a 5 second interval on a mild day (16°C), a fully charged battery can support up to 2.5 hours of shooting.

Ideally to create a tour that’s easy to navigate virtually, you want to capture photos no more than 5 metres apart.

Below are recommendations, based on our experience, for the best timelapse setting for the mode of transport you’ll be using.

Timelapse setting (secs) Sport
2 Downhill sports (skiing, MTB, etc), cycling, kayaking (downstream), walking, paddleboarding
5 Hiking (uphill)

Generally it’s better to capture at a higher setting (you can always remove unnecessary photos later) -- the trade-off is battery. More photos = the faster the battery drains.

Protune

You can play around with the ProTune settings -- they’re particularly useful in low light settings.

Usually the default settings will suffice for most environments.

Beware of over stylising photos if you plan to upload the images to online services. For example, the Google Street View policy states:

Stylistic adjustments (such as applied filters) are acceptable, provided that these stylistic changes are minimal and are not appended elements such as borders, text, collaged images, etc.

Video Mode
Required Settings

The camera must have GPS turned on to position your photos. Go to preferences > Regional.

Turn GPS to On.

You can now select video mode.

Press the mode button until Video is shown.

The GoPro MAX’s video mode has a number of settings.

Click the pill to modify them;

Now set the following;

Select 5.6k resolution

Select 24 FPS.

You can also select between single lens HERO capture (photo icon) and 360 capture.

Select 360 capture mode.

Optional Settings

Protune

You can play around with the ProTune settings -- they’re particularly useful in low light settings.

Usually the default settings will suffice for most environments.

Beware of over stylising photos if you plan to upload the images to online services. For example, the Google Street View policy states:

Stylistic adjustments (such as applied filters) are acceptable, provided that these stylistic changes are minimal and are not appended elements such as borders, text, collaged images, etc.

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