Self Filming My Hunts

This year I will try filming my deer hunts for the first time. A generous friend let me borrow his Gopro and several accessories to go along with it.

Any advice from others that film or have in the past would be greatly appreciated.

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Kentucky Boy,

I have self filmed myself for a few years and here is what I have found….
Go pros are great, 1080i hi def, silent, water proof.
Down side I have found in a set up like you have. When you are filming a deer (aiming your bow) you are most likely going to disappointed when you watch it back. The super wide angle lens and no zoom on the gopro lend itself to very close action footage. A deer you are seeing at 30 yds. will look like 60 yds on your gopro. You might see a giant buck in the distance, but on the go pro you might not be able to tell even if it is a buck at all, depending on how far away it is.

I still use the gopro. But I mount it to the tree and point it down at my self. That way when I want to I just hit the wireless remote button and it records with no movement at all. This angle records your movements and your shot, and most importantly your reaction.

I then have a small digital video camera that has great zoom. I take that camera and stick it on a SPOTTING SCOPE WINDOW MOUNT, and that I clamp on to a 3 way swivel bow hanger. This gives me a great working camera arm at a very cheap price. Maybe $50 into the whole set up. But this allows me to zoom in on things, and also you can pan right/left and up/down very fluidly. And when you stop the mount will hold that position for the shot.

Hope this helps. It has worked out very well for me.

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The newer GoPros you can select a narrower field of view, not sure if that’ll help though.

I have it set to 1080p 30 fps narrow. I also picked up a Lumenok to help follow my arrow flight this year. This should also while filming if I get the chance to shoot a deer.
I’ll be going hunting this weekend and will see what happens.

I love this do it yourself camera arm. I’m tired of the one I’ve been using. Way less cumbersome and weight.

I would find the setting with the greatest fps (frames per second) I mostly film my duck hunts/wing shooting with my go pro on my gun barrel and I always want to go with anything above 90 frames per second, whether its 720 or 960 kills battery quicker but end result is better. Smoother motion, especially where you are looking to have your go pro mounted. Take some time and film yourself shooting, then watch your clips and it may help your follow through after the shot. Which is usually the downfall to mounting the camera on the bow, but regardless having a camera in the woods is better than not! Plus once you get addicted to filming you may want to play with some edits and the practicing clips add some variety to your video! Also, you can pick up a cheap optical zoom camera for less than $200 nowadays and the $40 Gorilla camera arm and you can film everything, then use the go pro for second angles and close up shots.
Good Luck!

I used the camera last Saturday and it was fun to try it but I don’t think I will bring it with me in the future. The deer were smaller than I was hoping for and I did have to adjust my shoot style to keep the deer in frame after the shot.

I will put full attention on harvesting an adult buck or doe and not worrying about being a camera man.