Bring your GoPro on your white water rafting trip!
Bringing your GoPro on your white water rafting trip is a great way to capture your adventure. We encourage these rugged cameras designed for the outdoors over brining a cell phone that is pricey and can be lost to the river gods quite easily.
Here are some tips & tricks for bringing your GoPro on your rafting trip:
Know your GoPro
Getting a new toy is really fun, but sometimes they take a little getting used to. If you are planning on purchasing a new GoPro before your rafting trip, give yourself some time to play with it before you come rafting.
- Make sure you know how to turn it on & off
- Calibrate your voice controls (if your model has that feature)
- Be sure you know how to change the modes (photo/video/slow)
- Test the zoom feature and know how far out you need to be for group shots etc
- Take some long videos and test the battery life
Where to mount the GoPro
The most popular and easiest method is to mount the GoPro to a helmet. Helmets are provided to all our rafting guests for a white water trip on the river, so you do not need to bring your own. We recommend bringing the vented helmet strap as our helmets have the proper holes to mount this and it holds the camera tight on the helmet. Curved adhesive mounts also work – some of our helmets may have them already attached, but we recommend brining a fresh one to ensure a secure bond.
Usually someone in the raft will wear the helmet with the GoPro mounted to it. Other times we can rig a single helmet (with GoPro) to the front of the raft pointing back at the rafters in the boat to capture expressions going thru the rapids. It can also be faced down river to get the action from that angle.
Battery Life
We have found that most GoPros can take a 3-4 hour video on 1 full battery and 1 SD (128GB+) card. For our 1/2 day trips this is sufficient and you do not need any back up. On longer 1 day trips and overnight adventures, you may want to bring some additional charged batteries and SD cards. Please remember that multi-day trips will not have anywhere to charge batteries or download media.
Other Tips/Trips
As rugged as GoPros can be, they still sink if they fall in the river, so be sure to secure your toy in a floaty device.
When you meet your guide, let them know what your intentions are for capturing media. Do you want to get awesome action shots, do you want to take an underwater video? Your guide knows the river well and will be able to help you take the best photos and videos while also staying safe.
send us your videos!
We love seeing the videos our guests put together after their rafting trips. We have seen family summer vacations, corporate group get togethers, youth groups, couples, Instagram influencers and more. If you share it on social, please be sure to tag us!
For a FREE RAFTING TRIP (yes, you read that right) send us an mp4 copy of your video! Email info@tributarywhitewater.com and we will send you a dropbox link to upload your media, in exchange we will give you your next rafting trip for free (1/2 day or 1 day trip, good for 1 space).
Watch our videos!
Check out our YouTube channel for fun rafting videos, interviews and more!
