Fast manual photo mode

[Stefal]

Hi!

I've built a custom 360 rig some years ago, and I'd like to create a new one, but with some Gopro Hero. On my current rig, the maximum shooting frequency is around 0.5Hz. I would like a faster frequency.

On the current Hero, the maximum frequency for photo timelapse mode is 2Hz, but when I capture photos manually as quickly as possible, it's much slower (0.5Hz or less).

It would be great if there was a mode that allowed me to capture photos manually much more quickly. Coupled with a good shutter sync between each cam.

[dnewman-gpsw]

Labs is not on GoPro HERO. Only Black and 360 models have Labs.

[Stefal]

Sorry, when I say GoPro Hero, I mean in contrast to 360 cameras. Of course, I'm thinking of the models with Labs firmware available.
But it's true the small camera lineup could have been good candidates with their small sizes.

[dnewman-gpsw]

Confused, what camera do you want a faster photo mode? And why can't you use video?

[Stefal]

If I would build a new rig today, I would probably use 6 x Hero Black 13.
I try to not use video mode because:

• the image quality is lower
• for stitching the 360° image with Hugin, I need jpg files
• Extracting images from video with all the required metadata is hard (gnss timestamp, ...)
• keeping all the camera in sync is not possible for now
• My ultimate goal is to control the frequency of photo capture based on the speed of movement, using a sensor on the bicycle wheel. It would be difficult to do with video.

I see one advantage with video : gyro data are available, unlike photo.

I had started making a rig for a bike, but the capture frequency was too low, so I gave up. I only use it on foot.

My main usage is "street view" like. (I build backpacks with the Gopro Max too)

[dnewman-gpsw]

It would generally be easier using video, as you no longer have sync issues, or frame cycling limitations. The scripts need to extract JPGs with automatic GPS spacing, and inject timestamps, can be mostly created by AI chatbot these days. There are ways to no have quality differences between JPG and video, e.g. BITR, NR01, GCMP and TONE controls. Plus we have I-frame only encoding coming to HERO13 soon, independent HEVC encoding per frame at 10-bit, vs 8-bit JPEG, video wins.