GoPro HERO 7, 6, 5 Black VLOG Setups - SmallRig & Ulanzi

I have been trying to find the perfect GoPro Case for vlogging and ended up buying couple of these because of mistakes I made in the buying process. As most of you already know the biggest problem with GoPro is the mic quality because of that water resistance. They have been improving that in every iteration but it just doesn't seem to get up to the quality of an external mic. Therefore I wanted to figure out how to overcome that problem and lets just say the road has not been easy.

Products
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GoPro: https://amzn.to/2PgYARd
GoPro Case 1: https://amzn.to/2sMMqrV
GoPro Case 2: https://amzn.to/384SU5z
GoPro Mic Adapter: https://amzn.to/34QL25B
Mic Small: https://amzn.to/2riBP7J
Mic Lav: https://amzn.to/389nBGE
Mic Big: https://amzn.to/2Lnt574
Mic L Piece: https://amzn.to/2PadKb4
Mic Wireless Transmitter: https://amzn.to/2qpPQQC
ND Filter: https://amzn.to/34OZ6fT
Tripod Mini: https://amzn.to/2Pc5tna
Smallrig Ballhead Mount: https://amzn.to/364wUpK

first I bought ULANZI V2 GoPro Camera Cage.
+ Small-
+ Light
+ Cheap
+ You can nicely tie the gopro audio adapter
+ Hot Shoe for a mic
- No possibility for an ND filter
- Finding a suitable mic is hard for outdoors
- You need to remove the whole usb doorfrom GoPro when using it

And to be honest the ULANZI is quite a nice little package for who wants to get things going with a gopro and need to up the audio. It costs around 15usd on amazon.co.uk and it does what it promises

Then I bought the SmallRig GoPro Cage and I will explain the reasons why I bought it later in this video.
+ You can nicely tie the gopro audio adapter
+ Hot Shoe for mics
+ 9x 3/8 screw holes so you can attach extra things on it
+ Possibility to attach straight into a tripod without gopro accessories
+ Supports ND Filters
+ Very Strong build
- Slightly bigger
- Slightly heavier
- 3x more expensive
- Finding a suitable mic is hard for outdoors

Now both of these products are great and they do exactly what you would expect them to do. They hold a GoPro, Mic Adapter and a Mic just nicely in a small light-weight package. But as soon as you start recording you will understand the real problems.

Problem #1
--
The microphone. In all product shots of these both cases they present you with RODE VideoMicro. The idea is great that it would work with this MIC but the real problem is GoPro's insane Field of View. In other words RODE VideoMicro is always on the shot. So you need to push it up by quite a lot. And no the ULANZI's little "hotshoe step" is not enough. We're talking major extensions.

I then tried buying a smaller Mic but now we are back to bad and unreliable audio quality. It might work indoors alright but when you go outdoors its just not gonna cut it.

After awhile I bought this hotshoe to 1/4 piece and it actually does the trick very nicely. But it makes the setup quite a lot bigger.

If you want both of setups to work with RODE VideoMicro. Then you need an extension. If you are able to find a good small mic then... let me know which Mic :D:D

Problem #2
--
The ULANZI is great but it doesnt support ND Filters. This is why I upgraded to the SmallRig Cage. I want to be able to have a bit of that motion blur outdoors so having an ND filter was important to me.

The SmallRig Cage supports this which is great. But we are presented with another problem yet again when we press record button. With a wide field of view you can see the actual sides of the ND filter. On the top corners you can see those black corners. As the stabilization works its magic they might become bigger or smaller.

Of course the solution here is to use a more narrow field of view which is a bit of a bummer because sometimes its just cool to see everything around you. Also there might be some filters that are not as thick as my Variable ND Filter. Just make sure you can test the ND Filter before you buy it.

Conclusion
--
If you want to up the audio of a Gopro for vlogging keep in mind GoPro's very wide field of view. It will generate problems with most of these GoPro Cases.

Or you can buy a GoPro Hero 8 and hope the Media Module is high quality. We don't know yet.

If you really want the highest quality vlogging setup with a GoPro, I might consider buying the SmallRig case, GoPro Audio Adapter, RODE Lavmic with RODE wireless transmitter. But now your budget is growing by a margin. But at least your audio is very high quality now and there isnt any hairy things on your shot.

I hope this helped you understand more about my struggles and maybe you can get few steps forward without making the same mistakes I made. These are all possible setups and you will be able to get the job done nicely. What is the best suited for you. I'll let you do the final decision.

I've posted links to all the products below so you can easily find them on Amazon.

Please leave a like if this was helpful. Have a great day.

Thank you.

Music from: https://www.bensound.com/

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