dog harness

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Here are my top 5 favorite GoPro Mounts and Accessories for travel and adventure photography.

If you are looking for a super simple way to capture water sports, time lapses or just have a different perspective for your images and videos, read on…

My personal GoPro journey started when I got the GoPro Hero 2 in 2011.

My husband, Andrew and I were starting to get more and more into scuba diving and I wanted to have an easy way to capture what we were seeing underwater. Of course, I could have gotten a housing for my DSLR camera, but it wasn’t really something I wanted to invest that much money in. In order to get quality housing for the camera, it had to cost as much as your actual camera. We don’t live near a beach so I was skeptical to pay thousands of dollars for something I could only use one or two times a year.

Plus who has time to mess with lighting, flashes, and settings when you’re just trying to scuba diving for fun. All the fishes would have swum away by the time you had your focusing correct.

turks and caicos, gopro, polarpro, fiftyfifty, under over camera, dome, caribbean, school of fish, underwater, travel, vacation

Captured with a GoPro Hero 5 and the Fifty/Fifty Dome by PolarPro

So as an alternative I always had an underwater point and shoot cameras that lasted half a year. Or I would buy a separate underwater housing for point and shoot cameras. Even then the cameras never lasted as long as I thought they should have since they had been underwater. So that was reason number 2 why I didn’t want to risk the same thing with my DSLR camera.

But when the GoPro first came out, I remember being amazed. This tiny camera fits in the palm of my hand, it takes amazing pictures, AND I could take it underwater! Slap on an underwater housing with the red filter (to neutralize the color) and my underwater images were AMAZING! I was hooked ever since. Unfortunately, I can’t find any of those images of those early on videos. If I happen to stumble upon them one day, I’ll update this post. But this is not to say the quality of images will be the same as a DSLR camera underwater. This was just the easiest, solution for me. The DSLR images will be far superior.

I loved having a small adventure camera to go underwater or carry around with me and not worry about dropping or messing it up. Just the way that they are built they seem so rugged that can take falls, scrapes or pretty much anything you throw at it. Perfect to take anywhere if you just want to throw it in your backpack quickly.

Since the evolution of the GoPro cameras, you don’t even particularly need underwater housing anymore. The GoPro is waterproof and as long as you’re staying above 33 ft (10m), you should be good to go without any kind of underwater housing. But with housing, you can go down to 196ft!

The best part about GoPro cameras is all the different mounts and accessories that go along with the camera. OMG, the possibilities are endless and SO MUCH FUN. 

I may have had the GoPro Hero 3 as well. Now I’m at the GoPro Hero 5 Black. I love this little camera.

So with all my adventure camera experience, here are my favorite mounts and accessories that I have used to capture some of my favorite travel images and videos:

Side note: In my opinion, I would skip out on the Accessory Kits you see on Amazon. There’s just so much in them and I’m pretty sure you won’t even end up using half of the screws and mounts that you get with them. It will just end up as a pile in your closet.

After using your camera a few times, you’ll get an idea of what kind of images you’ll want to capture and just purchase those mounts or straps that will help you accomplish that idea.

 

Head Strap

GoPro Head Strap and QuickClip

You may feel a little ridiculous walking around with this thing on your head but the unique perspective is my favorite part. I love how it keeps you hands-free PLUS you can include your hands in the shot. That way your viewer can see exactly what you’re doing. Perfect for any kind of tutorial videos or just giving your viewer a little more personal view of what it’s like being at your travel location. I used to use this strap a lot when we were scuba diving but now I use it for fun photo walks or on long hikes in mountains.

Click here to view the head strap on Amazon.

Here’s a video example of what it’s like with the head strap perspective. Start at 0:44.

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I’ve spent that last few weeks or so getting ready for my next trip. And by getting ready I mean getting new photo gear! How else would you prepare for travel? HAHA!

My girlfriends and I will be leaving for a few relaxing days in the Caribbean next week and I can’t wait! It’s been so long since I’ve had a proper beach vacation. My legs are as pale as a ghost and I’m not even exaggerating. So knowing that I’ll be in the water a lot, I got my hands on a GoPro Hero 5! Shoutout to my friend, Larry for gifting me his. He wasn’t using his and I casually mentioned how I was in the market for a GoPro so the next time I saw him he hooked it up! I appreciate it so much, Larry.

Since then, I’ve purchased all kinds of mounts for the tiny camera. One for my backpack strap, one that floats in the water when you’re using it, and looking into a couple more. I love versatility you have with the camera. I used to have the original GoPro which has basically just turned into my brothers camera now. He’s really into cars and sometimes on the weekends will go driving on racetracks. He has borrowed it a few times over the years but the last time he borrowed it, I never bothered asking for it back. He was using it way more than I was so its his now.

PS If you haven’t seen this already, Frankenstein made a GoPro video a couple of years ago! LOL.

This image was taken at Leesylvania State Park in Prince William County, Virginia at sunrise. My camera settings were F8 at 0.3 seconds ISO 200 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 17-40mm wide angle lens.

Man, I really need to update my gear list. Note to self!