Tips for making awesome sports videos with your GoPro

If you have a GoPro and a child that plays sports, you've probably thought about using your GoPro to create videos of their games. Whether your kid is hoping to play in college or the pros, or you just want to share a few highlights with family and friends, nothing captures the moment like video. Following are five tips to help you create awesome sports videos using GoPro cameras.

#1: For large fields, go 5K!

When you record a sports game using GoPro's wide angle lens setting, the first thing you'll notice is that the players become absolutely tiny when they move to the far side of a large outdoor field like a soccer pitch. It's almost impossible to follow the action with such a zoomed-out view.

The good news is that the latest GoPro cameras have incredibly high resolution, so you can zoom in on the action. If you plan to manually steer the camera, you can increase the camera's digital zoom or select a narrower digital lens. If your GoPro will have a fixed mount, you can use a video editor to zoom in on the action after the game. Depending on where the players are on the field, we recommend zooming in by 30-100%.

Whether you're using GoPro's digital zoom or lens settings, or editing the game footage after the fact, the image becomes increasingly distorted the more you zoom in. We've found that when recording in 4K resolution on a large field, you can follow the action, but you often can't make out player faces, jersey numbers or clearly see the ball as the zoom level approaches 100%.

5k (left) delivers noticeably better quality on large fields vs. 4K (right) when zooming in to follow the action.

To minimize distortion due to digital zoom, we recommend recording in 5K resolution. Fortunately, GoPro shines in this area, offering multiple cameras with 5K resolution or better (that's more than 5,000 pixels running horizontally across each frame!). The 5K+ resolution of Hero9/11/12/13 Black models delivers almost twice the pixels of 4K (>15 Megapixels vs. ~8 Megapixels). So when you zoom in you still get decent image quality.

While 5K is essential for large fields, for sports played on courts, like basketball and volleyball, where little or no digital zoom is required, recording in 4K works well. In addition, at younger ages soccer, lacrosse, flag football and many other sports tend to be played on small fields – 4K recording is also fine for these cases.

#2: Use a tall tripod

Sports just look better from above. You can see the formations each side is using, the runs players are making and generally follow the flow of the game much better. We highly recommend filming sports games with your GoPro mounted on a tall tripod. Even a height of 10 feet makes a big difference, but as your tripod approaches 20 feet your footage takes on a pro-style perspective that truly makes the action shine.

Tripods above 20 feet tall are typically quite expensive – you can expect to pay $500+ for a 24-foot carbon-fiber tripod. The collapsed length of these tripods is over 5 feet which means they won't fit in the trunk of most cars. On top of that these large tripods often weigh over 15lbs – not so great if you have a long walk from the car to your field!

For tripods of 20 feet or less, there are much more cost-effective options ($350 or less) and the collapsed length is typically 5 feet or less. The weight also decreases rapidly with 20-foot tripods that weight under 8lbs!

Given tripods above 20 ft have a much greater cost, weight and collapsed length while only gaining a few additional feet in elevation, we recommend a 20-foot tripod.

#3: Two cameras are better than one

Of course, there's one challenge with putting your GoPro on top of tripod. How do you make sure it's pointed at the action? One simple solution to this problem is to use two cameras, one pointing at each side of the field.

Because GoPros have a very wide-angle lens, you can cover the entire field or court with just two cameras. That allows you to put your full attention on the game and then create video highlights afterwards using video editing software.

You may be tempted to try to record a smaller field or court with a single GoPro using the widest possible digital lens settings or the Max Lens Mod. We don't recommend this, because the widest horizontal field of view (FOV) you can achieve is between 140-145 degrees. You may have seen a 177-degree FOV in Max Lens Mod advertising – this is accurate, but it is a diagonal FOV, not a horizontal FOV.

As a result, you'll need to shift your tripod away from the field or court to keep the entire playing surface in view. As the Max Lens Mod is limited to 4K resolution, such as shift can significantly reduce video quality and may be difficult or impossible to achieve depending on the layout of the field or court.

#4: You're gonna need a bigger battery

In 5K mode, you can record for up to 90 minutes with the GoPro's internal battery. Depending on the sport and age (and the potential for overtime), you may need to film for two hours or more to capture an entire sporting event. To ensure you don't run out of power, you can replace your GoPro's internal batteries during a break. That's doable but introduces the hassle of charging and swapping out multiple batteries. Even worse, on tournament weekends you'll need to have a small basket of batteries to record all your games!

Fortunately, GoPros have a USB-C port and can be powered by an external battery pack. GoPro also offers a handy USB pass-thru door to make connecting the battery a cinch.

A 15000mAh external battery will power two GoPros for over 5 hours – easily enough for two long games. That eliminates the need to swap batteries and makes charging much easier.

#5: Make GoPro sports videos the easy way

You may have realized that the above tips require a reasonable level of expertise with cameras and video editing. Everything from mounting multiple cameras on a tripod to editing some pretty big video files. If that doesn't sound like fun, there is an easier way: SeeUsPlay.

At SeeUsPlay, our mission is to make it easy and affordable for youth teams to create amazing sports videos. No video editing required. Soccer, American football, basketball, rugby, lacrosse, field hockey, ice hockey – we've got you covered! SeeUsPlay uses two GoPro cameras, a Rig with an integrated battery pack for mounting the cameras on a tripod, and an App that takes the hassle out of recording games.

Our system is built around Follow AI which automatically creates full game and highlight videos that follow the action on the field or court. Follow AI uses raw game footage captured in 4K or 5K resolution to create videos with stunning clarity. Best of all our system is half the price of comparable competitive options.

Oh, and if you're a GoPro fan like we are, SeeUsPlay gives you one more fun way to use your GoPro!

If you'd like to learn more, please reach out to us!