I saw a lot of cool products at NAB but one genre of camera really stood out, the small form-factor action cam. These cameras have been made very popular by the extreme sports community but are starting to find their way into all sorts of video productions. Mainly because they are so small and they can fit in all sorts of unorthodox locations, allowing for some very unique camera angles. What’s even better is that many of these cameras are recording in 720 and 1080 so there isn’t any sacrifice in resolution when mixing cameras.
One of the big players in this market is GoPro, makers of the HD Hero and Hero 2 cameras, which can record in 1080p 30 or 720p 60. The camera is only about 2.5″ x 2″x 1.5″ (approx.) which is really small. It comes with a waterproof housing and can be mounted just about anywhere using one of the 14 different mounting options. So you can lock this thing down to the deck of your surfboard, hang it off the side of your car, or strap it to your chest for some skydiving action, all for around $300 per camera.
Just how big is the small action camera market? Well, not too many years ago, GoPro had a small booth on the fringes of the trade show floor. This year they had a monster booth that was front and center with all the big players like Panasonic and Canon.
One of the newest innovations for the Go Pro cameras is their new Wi-Fi Backpack that attaches to the back of the camera and let’s you trigger the camera with a Wi-Fi remote, view video on your smart phone, even control 50 cameras at once with just one remote. That’s a whole lot of functionality in a little package.
So what can you do with little cameras like this? Well, check out the videos below for a little sample.
Of course what you do with your small camera is completely up to you but you can see that the possibilities are wide open for this type of technology. I don’t have one yet but I am thinking of grabbing one or two for some creative video projects. You can find out more about the GoPro products on their website and the cameras are available from multiple retailers like Amazon and others.
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