Last year we moved to sunny Spain and since then we’ve spent a lot of time at the beach. Taking my big camera all the time wasn’t best option so I decided to buy a GoPro and I love it! It’s great little camera – small, waterproof and has wide angle lens. It’s not perfect and has limitations, but when you accept and embrace them, you can capture your family adventures in unique and fun way.

I use GoPro Hero 6 Black which gives me option to shoot in Raw.

Light ~ I’ve found that GoPro does especially well in well lit scenarios. I love to use my GoPro when photographing my children in harsh, midday light. I tend to trust the auto settings which works surprisingly well. For action shots I use burst mode, and then choose the best moment (but this mode allows only to shoot in jpg)

TIP

If you like to set exposure for specific area eg. highlights, you can do this by touching the screen for a moment. You will see small rectangle which you can move to any place and lock your exposure.

Composition ~Composition is important with GoPro and can be tricky because of distortion of wide angle lens. I usually place my subject in the center of the frame. The distortion on the outer of the frame is usually too great to make it works for other composition type.

It is easy for your subject to be “lost” in a wide angle shot. So you have to be very close or use other compositional elements like leading lines, symmetry or color to separate your subject from the background.

I like playing with tilt effect especially when I have beautiful sky. By lowering myself (or my GoPro because I often shoot blindly) below the level of my subjects and tilting my camera up to the sky, I enhance the curvature of the fisheye lens and emphasize a beautiful sky.

But if you don’t like this effect and want straight horizon line, you can control the curvature by keeping your GoPro straight horizontal to the ground line. I can also remove distortion in Lightroom.

You can be very close to your subject and get the viewer the feeling of being part of the story.

I love wide angle lens when it comes to telling the whole story. When I shoot straight down at my feet, I just have to stretch my arms and shoot blindly. It’s super easy to get the shot this way with GoPro.

Editing ~ I edit all my GoPro images in LR. Most of the time I shoot Raw to have more flexibility when editing.

I usually remove distortion by using the “Enable Profile Corrections” option in Lens Correction Panel of Lightroom, change aspect ratio for 2 x 3 and then do my standard edit.

Last think to remember when shooting with GoPro is not to expect the same image quality that our big camera can produce. But to be honest, it’s totally ok for me. I know that I wouldn’t get any of this image without this little camera.

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