Using Gopro for textures?

serpent

Looking at buying a gopro hero 3 black edition and curious if id be able to use it to take photo's and use them in photoshop for my 3DS max models.

Has anyone tried this? its obviously possible, im just wondering if the GoPro's still images are good quality since i dont think they have flash and they have a slight fisheye lense.

TLDR; I want a camera for taking photo textures for 3ds max models, and i want a gopro, will the gopro suffice for taking photos for textures?

Sculptaur

Is it possible? Looking at the specs, sure. Is it practical? No, not really. For textures you would be much better off getting a nice DSLR or a bridge camera of some kind.

serpent

Yeah i looked more into it and its certainly not practical, i was just hoping to kill two birds with one stone.

I was going to ask what a bridge camera was but i used google, sounds like the name suggests, just a camera between a DSLR and a generic digital camera, sounds like a plan, bridge it is!

The Flying Monk

A friend of mine has a Gopro and has tried to use it to take stills. It didn't work out so well. While the video is fine, still shots seem to have some sort of filter applied to them that make them unusable for anything. It ended up being that you could take a recorded video and it would be sharper than the built in still shot mode.

There may be some settings to undo this, but we weren't able to work it out. It also doesn't have a screen or a viewfinder, so probably not the best thing for reference/texture shots.

Gilgamesh

I've got a first edition gopro hero and it takes stills fine, nothing special ... in fact a modern phone could do just as good really. I've seen the quality of the Black(and used it for a few weeks) and in terms of video it is excellent but for photo's I still don't think it's anything great.

Unless you are primarily going to use the Black for video shooting and need it for the ruggedness/waterproof etc then I would save the money and get a cheap DSLR. I picked up my Canon 650d for around £40-£50 more than a black would cost and it's far far superior for static shots and still it can do 1080+ video (£400 including 18-55af lense).

mats effect

You would be better with a simple point and shoot for textures compared to a go pro, its really an action sport camera.

It can do very nice stills but not for texture work.

serpent

Thanks for the input guys, i think i was trying to convince myself that i wanted a gopro because they look cool and everyone has one.

Looking more into bridge cams now, they seem perfect, better than a point and click digital camera but not as advanced as a DSLR so i don't have to learn about lenses etc.

I think i might grab a Nikon Coolpix P520 since they seem to be getting the best reviews out of all.