Rethinking the GoPro Chest Mount for Kayaking

Ask any white water kayaker about the best place to mount a GoPro and almost unanimously they will all tell you to put it on your helmet. Oh, and they’ll also tell you never to use the chest mount. Well I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong!

So, why is it that the chest mount is derided in kayaking, yet it’s the go-to mount when filming immersive POV for mountain biking and other sports?

It’s a curious thing. For the most part mounting on a helmet can give very good results, but it does suffer from a few problems. First of all the height. A wide angle lens, such as the one on your action camera, can give wildly different results when it comes to perspective, even if the camera is only moved a few centimetres. Ever wondered why GoPro’s flatten out that huge white water? Firstly it’s because you’re only paddling grade 2, but secondly it’s because of the wide angle lens mounted all the way up there on your helmet. You might not think that it adds much height, but for a wide angle lens it really does.

Helmet cams are also prone to the user moving their noggins all over the place. This can be useful, such as if you want to film some rescue scenarios, but not all. The other problem is that because of the height, above your head, helmet mounting is not all that immersive. It’s not right in there with the action, it’s above it.

This doesn’t answer the question of why chest-cam is frowned up, however. The main reason chest-cam in kayaking is avoided is simple: It’s because most people don’t use it correctly.

When chest-cam is used for mountain biking the camera needs to be set-up correctly. The main points being that the camera needs to be hung upside down and angled upwards to take account of the body leaning forward when riding steep downhill tracks. If the camera was simply mounted the right way up in a sort of ‘default’ way of mounting, you would get pretty dismal results.

Likewise for kayaking we need to modify the default chest mount position. Remember when I told you that a few centimetres makes all the difference to a wide angle lens? That’s what we’re going to take advantage of. The simple fact of the matter is that most kayaking chest-cam shots look terrible because the camera is far too low, and the user hasn’t used the correct mode on the camera.

There’s one rule, no, two alternative rules for shooting POV with a GoPro, or any action camera. Use Superview mode or use 4:3 mode and perform a dynamic stretch in editing. Superview gives you a 16:9 aspect right out of the box (that’s the correct shape for your TV or monitor for the non-techie among you). 4:3 needs some playing with. So if you hate tech and editing faff, go with Superview.

Now that we have the correct mode on the camera, we need to mount it decently. The idea here is to bring the chest mounted camera as close to a head POV level as possible. In this case it means just below the chin, which is similar to where you’d find a GoPro mounted on a full face motocross helmet. But we also want it low enough so your chin doesn’t knock it when moving your head, and close enough to the body that it isn’t flapping all over the place.

First, you’ll need a chest mount. I recommend the official GoPro one because it’s low profile and comfortable. You have two other choices here. You can put the chest mount on first, underneath your BA, and shift the mounting point upwards towards the chin, or put the chest mount over your BA. Some BAs are formed such that the mounting point gets shifted towards the chin level anyway. Some don’t and the mounting point ends up being in the middle of your chest. If yours is the latter you’ll need a curved extension bar to lift the camera up. Why curved? Simple. A curved extension bar means that you can keep the GoPro close to your chest above the top of your BA. This stops it being a pain by flapping around in front of your face, it’s less of a snag hazard, and it’s also better protection for the camera.

So what does it look like when filming? Here’s an example below, complete with some extremely shit surfing on a washed out rapid.

What we’re looking for with GoPro is immersiveness, not just a video record. Mounting the camera in this way will better show waves at the size they seemed at the time (for example in the rapid above, tiny), leave your camera less at risk of being bashed off the mount, and be less of a snag hazard. It’s also more immersive.

The video above was taken using a DJI Action 2 in 4:3 mode, and then dynamically stretched using Davinci Resolve. I’ll be showing you how to do this in a future video.

Final thoughts

Not all of you will prefer this view. Some of you will be diehards who are dead set against it, for whatever reason. But to make an interesting video requires some variety, so mix it up. Don’t keep your camera in the same place throughout your trip. Mount it on the helmet, the chest, the front of the boat looking back, looking back at your mates, whatever. The more variety you have, the more interesting it will be for the edit.

*Power User Tip: Use the GoPro HERO9 or HERO10 with the Max Lens Mod and horizon levelling in 4:3 mode with a post editing dynamic stretch.