Question about GoPros to take pictures. (1 Viewer)

[jim_slim]

Does anyone have a GoPro they use to take pictures of birds? If so, what model do you have and recommend? What accessories is needed for birding?

 

[4 The Birds1]

We have a GoPro, but I cannot see how it would be useful for bird photography. It has a very short focal length (wide angle lens), so you would have to get really close to a bird in order to take a decent picture of it.
A camera with a long focal length lens (tele lens) would be better: it will allow you to take pictures from further away.

 

[Mono]

I can think of several possible bird related uses for a GoPro. If you have a feeder you could mount it give a close up image and then use a Bluetooth trigger to get take stills or video. You can also mount a GoPro to a spotting scope to take more distant images.

Neither of these would be the best solution to achieve the stated aim they are more something you could do if you happened to have a GoPro for other uses.

 

[4 The Birds1]

You can also mount a GoPro to a spotting scope to take more distant images.

Neither of these would be the best solution

You are right - I tried. (instead of tackling a more important but unattractive job...)

I am afraid that at least for my combination (GoPro Hero 12 and ATX95) this does not work very well:
It is difficult to get a good view, there is significant vignetting. See attached picture.
Looking through the scope, the house takes up approximately 1/3 of the field of view (this is at max scope magnification x70).
With the GoPro this is reduced to less than 1/6.
I will attach 2 further pictures to a separate post. These are pixel peeped / zoomed in to show the image quality compared to a mobile phone camera picture taken through the scope (Fairphone 5, its camera is nothing to write home about). Both handheld.

 

[4 The Birds1]

Zoomed in pics to show similar field of view in order to compare resolution / IQ.
GoPro Hero 12 vs. mobile phone camera Fairphone 5, picture taken through spotting scope (FP 5 picture was taken at standard 1x phone camera setting, no zoom used during acquisition of picture).
Both taken handheld without adapter.
Mobile wins.

 

[4 The Birds1]

I just spent some more time googling GoPro & bird feeders.
Looks like this is a better use case for a GoPro.
There are some videos online of humming birds on feeders with pretty good image quality.

In the process I discovered that with the help of "GoPro Labs" one can access motion detect function and other additional features. Very cool.

So - Thank you Mono and jim_slim for sending me on this detour / voyage of discovery!

Whether buying a GoPro specifically for this purpose is money well spent, I am not so sure. I don't have any experience with bird feeder cameras, but It looks as if there are other, dedicated camera/birdfeeder products which are cheaper and have superior solutions for power supply/battery life.

Now, I'll be off to do the boring job.