Go Pro lens change

Has anyone tried purchasing a different lens for their Go Pro? I've read a few forums saying it's a fairly easy job to fit, but I was wondering if an aftermarket lens is worth a try? All in all, I've been extremely disappointed with the Go Pro. The way it handles sun glare and colour is impressive, but I feel the lens they have used is just too much of a compromise and most of the footage I am getting is in no way indicative of the actual flight conditions.

I'm looking at going for a 2X zoom to try and remove some of the fish eye results and get a better impression of speed and turbulence. I also need some more zoom because I've resorted to using a head strap for outside footage... but the plane is just a speck unless I do a fly by.

I'm really at a loss to understand why so many people are recommending the Hero 3 cameras. I've found it difficult to get a secure mount on foam models, limitations with the distortion across all the screen ratios and less importantly, I'm seeing massive performance impacts on my glider when using it (admittedly, my glider is a bit under powered for such a heavy camera and I'm willing to sacrafice performance for some good video!).

Max
 

xuzme720

Dedicated foam bender
Mentor
I don't know if it will help you but I seem to recall someone having an issue with their GoPro in that the focus had been set wrong. Once they fixed that, the image improved dramatically.

I did find a couple of vids on lens work...
One for Hero2

and one for Hero3

You might want to try one of these to see if you can get the focus better before going the new lens route.
 
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Yikes, there's a few more steps to a lens change than I anticipated. I might just leave the camera out of the water proof housing and wait until the next crash, then I won't have to remove so many parts before fitting a new lens.

My camera itself is fine... everything it does is within specification, I just imagined the picture quality would be much like my old Olympus 12mp camera in terms of 720p video. The fish eye lens on the Go Pro just misrepresents the background and height until your virtually on top of an object.

Maybe I'm just disappointed that it hasn't captured any of my brilliant piloting. OH! I just realised... it's not the camera.