What are the Preferred Settings for GoPro 8 for Bicycle Ride

IanVG · February 13, 2021, 2:47pm

Hi all, new mapillary user here from OSM. I recently rented a GoPro 8 and bought a bicycle mount to do some documentation of my city (Athens, Georgia) and I was wondering what the best settings would be for the best images on mapillary. The gopro is brand new (so a new battery) and I have a 32 Gb micro-sd installed. I know that I should use the timelapse mode with a spacing of 1s per picture, but what other settings do other, more experienced users recommend? I’m not planning on connecting the gopro with my phone, as my phone battery dies pretty fast.

In addition; what kind of equipment is nearly critical to invest in for, let’s say, a 2 hour bike ride with constant recording occurring? Any advice, guidance or feedback is appreciated!

ligfietser · February 15, 2021, 12:28pm

I use the following Time Lapse settings:
Lens: Linear
Interval: 2s
Format Photo
Output: Standard
Zoom: 1.0x

Protune settings:
EV comp 0 (sometimes -1 or +1)
White balance: Auto
ISO min 100
ISO max 1600
Sharpness High
Color GoPro

GoPro’s GPS is off, I found it very unreliable and use my phone to track the GPS and match it later with the photos with Javawa FotoGeoTag. The battery dies very quickly so use a powerbank. I recommend the Ulanzi G8-7 battery door because it has an USB hole. This is a must if you want to connect your Gopro, otherwise you have to ride with a battery door half open or without a door (and losing your battery while riding).
I also noticed that the GoPro writes the wrong date/time stamps into the Exif data. So I need to convert the DateTimeOriginal tag from the FileModifyDate stamp with exiftool. To set the exact date, I use the QR control app on my phone and scan the QR code with my GoPro to set the exact time. On the bike I use a GoPro remote control device (€25 at Aliexpress) to start and stop the timelapse while riding.

IanVG · February 15, 2021, 1:37pm

Thank you so much for all the great information! I am currently having some trouble using the mapillary app to connect to the Hero Black 8. What application (if any) do you use to connect to the gopro while riding? Thank you again!

ligfietser · February 15, 2021, 2:01pm

I don’t use the mapillary app. My workflow is:

Adjust the time settings with the QR control app
shooting timelapse pics with the gopro,while recording the gps track with osmand on my android mobile.
After riding I geo reference all photos with Javawa Fotogeotag.
Then I’ll check the exact location of all photos on JOSM (Java Openstreetmap editor) and in the meantime improve Openstreetmap with the images I’ve shot.
Sometimes I reallign the photo locations if the GPS signal is too way off.
Sometimes it happens that the date stamps of my gopro are completely messed up and then I have to use exiftool to correct the DateTimeOriginal stamp and georeference the images again (step 3).
If everything is done, I use the webuploader to submit the images to mapillary

Forgot to mention, if you haven’t got a remote control, you can switch on voice command to remotely turn on/off the camera and start/stop taking timelapse pictures.

IanVG · February 15, 2021, 3:17pm

Hi! Thanks so much for your speedy reply. Does Javawa Fotogeotag account for compass angle? The GPS signal for my 8 Black seems to have worked pretty well (within a few feet) but the compass angle for all pictures are 0 degrees. Is there something you can do to account for that?

Edit: I’m using the GoPro app instead of QRcontroller (which I am having some trouble using) to manually set the time and date. Hopefully it sets the time on the GoPro camera to the second and not just the minute.

ligfietser · February 15, 2021, 3:23pm

It uses the track direction, and you can set your gopro images pointing forward, backward or any other direction compared to the track direction.

IanVG · February 15, 2021, 3:55pm

Hi, I am having trouble using the Fotogeotag (as some of the options are in Dutch and ik spreke kein Dutch ) and also having trouble syncing the start time of the waypoints and the gopro pictures. So, for the time being, I just normalized the pictures via the mapillary website once I already uploaded the pictures to mapillary. I just did this and it seemed to work pretty well for me. In addition, the gopro gps works significantly better than my phone, so that was a point of consideration as well. Anyhow, thank you for all your help!