GoPro Karma Grip Tips and Tricks

In this episode Mark Wallace gives us some tips for better GoPro Hero 5 audio, compares image stabilization between the GoPro and a GoPro with a Karma Grip. He also shows how to hold and calibrate the Karma Grip and shows how to quickly create a time lapse video.

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Learn more about the latest GoPro systems and the must-have accessories to help you achieve stunning shots:

• GoPro HERO10: First Look With Austin Keen
• First Look: GoPro HERO9 Black with Tom Jauncey
• Best GoPro Gimbal Stabilizers
• The Best GoPro Accessories

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Related Products at Adorama:

GoPro HERO5 Black
GoPro Karma Stabilizing Grip for HERO5 Black
GoPro Pro 3.5mm Microphone Adapter for HERO5 Black or HERO5 Session Camera
Audio-Technica ATR3350iS Omnidirectional Condenser Lavalier Microphone
Cullmann 50081 Magnesit Copter Multi-Tripod with CB2.7 Ball Head

Photos by Mark Wallace
http://www.markonabike.com/
http://www.markwallacephotography.com/

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Mark Wallace: Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of Exploring Photography brought to you by Adorama. It’s the camera store that has everything for photographers like you and me.
On this episode, I want to talk to you about why I think the GoPro HERO5 is the best GoPro ever made and some things that you need to know about when you start using your HERO5 or if you’re considering buying one.

Also, I want to talk about this guy right here–this is the Karma grip that I absolutely love. But again, there are some things that you need to know about when
you’re using this guy, specifically the audio, how you can hold it, and what it is not meant to be used for and so we’re going to get into that. First, let’s talk about the audio quality of the
GoPro HERO5–we’re going to get to that right now.

This has some pretty interesting features. Built-in to it, there are two different types of microphones. There’s one that’s built for lots of winds, so if you’re in a moving vehicle or running down a ski slope or something like that, and then stereo and the GoPro will automatically switch between those two things based on what it thinks is best, or you can override that and tell the GoPro Hero5 to only use stereo or only use wind, which is awesome. You can also use an external microphone, a wireless microphone, or lavalier.

There’s a bunch of different options. The way that works is, with this guy right here, this is the external audio interface. It also allows you to plug in an external battery. It’s got USB-C that lets you plug that in, so that’s pretty cool. Except you can see that this thing is pretty huge. I mean, it’s almost as big as the GoPro itself. So there have been a lot of complaints about the size of this thing. So if you’re doing a vlog or something to try to figure out how that mounts, is something that, I don’t know, it’s not one of my favorite things about this camera. Well, let me talk to you about how this works.

On the side of the waterproof case, this case doesn’t need any kind of enclosure, it’s totally waterproof. There’s this little door and you open that door and you can take this off. Now once you do that, then your USB ports are exposed right there and this can then plug in. Now you’ve got this big dongle that’s plugged into your USB ports and then you can plug in an external microphone. So I’m using a Dörr lavalier mic. There’s a bunch of different lavaliers or external mics that will work. You can use a non-powered, a powered–there are a bunch of different options for this so that’s really nice.

Once you have this, now you have the ability to get the camera away from the audio component. Your audio is going to be much, much better. I think that’s pretty cool. The other thing that’s pretty cool about this is it allows you to put it in the case and there’s a little cutout here and so you still have access to plug in this through the case. So if you’re in a car or something that works really nicely. One of the things that I think is a failure that GoPro hasn’t addressed yet is if you want to use an external microphone with the Karma Grip, you can’t. I’m not sure why.

On the bottom here you have your USB port that you can charge and do all kinds of things but when you plug in an external microphone, well, guess what? It doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t work at all. I talked to GoPro about this and they said, “Nope, it doesn’t work.” So maybe that’s coming with the firmware update. I don’t know, but for now, Karma Grip, no external audio, that is a negative in my book.

Now I have the external microphone hooked up to this camera and you can hear that it is much clearer than the built-in microphone. The nice thing about this is if I want to stop and maybe put it on a table or something, I can go quite a distance from my GoPro HERO5 using this long cable and it is absolutely going to sound perfect. If I was going to do this
in real life, I’d probably have an external wireless microphone, so you wouldn’t have a cable.

But you can see how this would work great on a motorcycle, or maybe on a different kind of vehicle, or in a shop, or if you’re doing a vlog, woodworking, that kind of stuff, you can have an external microphone that works just fine. So it’s well worth the money to spend. It’s about $100 to get a nice lavalier microphone and get awesome audio quality. Now what we’re going to do is, we’re going to check the image stabilization and audio.

This is something that might be useful if you’re a vlogger or you want to record yourself. So this again, field of view, ‘Wide’, image stabilization turned on. This has image stabilization turned on with the gimbal. This is set to Auto so it’s going to switch between Wind and Stereo. But this camera, I’ve set it to stereo only because I know that that’s what I want. So GoPro start recording, we’ll start this guy. Now we’re just going to walk and talk. So hey everybody, here I am in beautiful Frankfurt, Germany on one of the most amazing streets ever because they’ve got coffee, they’ve got schnitzel, they’ve got all kinds of really amazing things.

Let’s see what that sounds like with just the audio here. So here’s my Stereo audio, this is this camera right here Stereo only, and then this is this camera right here, with the gimbal with Auto audio. So we’ll see how that sounds. What we’re going to do now is, we’re going to compare the image stabilization on a GoPro with the image stabilization on a GoPro Karma Grip, so both of these are set to a Wide field of view, 1080p, 30 FPS and so we’re going to start right now.

So GoPro start recording, I’ll start this guy and now we’re going to walk down this street and you can see side-by-side what it looks like with image stabilization and image stabilization with a Karma Grip. When you get your Karma Grip you need to be able to hold it correctly. You’re thinking maybe like this? This is not the correct way to hold the Karma Grip. You need to hold it either horizontally like this, or at a 45-degree angle like this. That will give you the full range of motion. So either this, or this, but never this. If you do this you’re going to get the best results. Now with the HERO5, the time-lapse ability is built-in, not only is it going to shoot a bunch of stills but you don’t have to put them into After Effects or Premier or something to make your time-lapse video. It comes out ready to go and it couldn’t be easier with the touch screen.

So let me show you how this works. So I go to my Mode button and say I’m in my time-lapse video and then down on the bottom, I’ve got all my options. So I want to set this to a one-second interval instead of five seconds. I can choose my field of view, Linear looks pretty good. Once I have that, I can choose different options. I’m just going to go with the normal time-lapse video.

That’s all there is to it. I am ready to go and so I’m going to shoot a time-lapse video on our way to our next segment. So follow me. In addition to holding your Karma Grip correctly like this or like this, one other thing I discovered is that it is not meant to be a vehicle mount. I learned that by accident. So I sort of mounted this to my motorcycles pannier, just sort of stuck it on like this, and I took a little trip through Barcelona.

What I found was, as I was zipping around the corners, my GoPro started to tilt more and more and more until it was almost at a 90-degree angle. I thought, “What is going on here?” So I looked on GoPro’s website and sure enough, it says clearly; this is not meant to be a vehicle mount. So if you’re looking for a vehicle mount, you can do that with a GoPro, just not with the Karma Grip. One of the things I’ve learned about the Karma Grip is sometimes the GoPro can be a little bit off level and the way to solve that is to calibrate the Karma Grip. It’s really simple.

So you have to make sure that the whole thing is turned off, so I’ll turn off my Karma Grip. There it is, it’s turned off. Then all you need to do is find a flat level surface, like a table or something like this and make sure that you put this with the buttons up and then you just press and hold the Tilt Control for 8 seconds. Once I count up to 8 seconds, what’s going to happen is, this is going to start going through a bunch of gyrations and it will calibrate itself so that it is totally level. So if you see that your GoPro is a little bit off on your Karma Grip just do this calibration and things are going to be fantastic. I’m going to let this go, it’ll take a little while. It’ll do this a couple of times.

Once it finally shuts off the buttons, the little lights are going to stop flashing then I know it’s all good and ready to go. There you have it, the GoPro HERO5 and Karma Grip, it’s a match made in heaven. I hope you learned a few things that will help you get the most out of your GoPro HERO5. Don’t forget to subscribe to AdoramaTV. It’s absolutely free.

And also, check out the Adorama Learning Center where you can see articles about the HERO5 and editing and all those things. Plus, you can see articles written by me. I’m writing articles for the Adorama Learning Center twice a month. Don’t miss it, it’s absolutely free. Thanks again for joining us and I will see you again next time.