GoPro New Wrist Mount for Swim Photos

GoPro has made two new mounts and they're pretty good.

I'll write about the bike mount here and include some video, but one feature they share is the ability to pivot.  That's great, because the shot can be adjusted on the fly.

Actually, the 'wrist' mount is one mounting plate, which pivots, and a series of mounting straps which attach to the plate by velcro.

They're sized to go around your leg, arm and wrist.  Skiers, boarders, downhill MTB riders and more will like the arm and leg mounts, but it was the wrist mount which grabbed me.

I fixed a Session camera to the back of my hand and went for a swim in Loch Sunart, snapping the shot alongside and those below.

First the good.  Every time I drove my hand forward and right throughout the catch part of my stroke, the camera and mount were subjected to a lot of water pressure, yet they performed flawlessly.  The pivot allowed me to adjust the camera position so it was pointing at me during my arm recovery phase, allowing the shot above.

However, the auto iris reacted too slowly from being under water to suddenly emerging into the light.  I guessed this might be the case, and the shot above was slightly posed, with a much slower arm recovery than normal.  The camera was shooting time-lapse at half-second intervals, so I had a lot of images to look through, yet this was the only one which worked.

Both the shots below are pretty good too, but I could have got them hand-holding the camera mounted on a floaty.  It would have been safer, because of the float and because I can tether it to my belt.  It would also be more versatile.  So while I like the new wrist mount, and it will be great for certain situations, it's not quite as great as I'd hoped.