My volleyball video equipment
I first started attempting to record my daughters club volleyball matches in 2016. I would place myself into the tech junkie category and have been the weekend warrior for video editing family movies for many years. This article is what I have learned over the past couple years to trying to record her matches. This will not be an in depth review of the equipment, more of a list of what I use and where to buy it if you would like to use a similar setup. After 2 years for me this has been the most functional, highest quality, lowest cost setup I could find.
My Equipment
GoPro Hero 4 Silver – $200
GoPro Smart Remote – $76
Cowboy Studio 9 Foot Light Stand – $29
Emart 6 Foot Light Stand – $17
Smart Tree Selfie Stick – $20
Smarttree 2 pack batteries for gopro hero 4 with charging station – $24
Sametop Tripod Adapter for Gopro hero 4 – $8
SanDisk Extreme PLUS 32GB microSDHC – $25
Computer – For editing video. I built my own setup that I thought was good for video editing. If you use want to edit you just need a PC that meets the requirements for the software you want to use.
Software for editing – Adobe Premiere Elements
The Camera – GoPro Hero4 Silver
I chose this camera for the best mix of cost, durability and ease of use. I picked the Hero 4 because I like the LCD screen on the back. I can easily see the volleyball court and get my shot setup fairly quickly. You can buy extra batteries that are easily swapped out and there is plenty of storage with removable micro SD cards. I use the hard protective case because multiple times a ball has nailed the tripod, the camera goes flying, but I just stand it up and keep on going.
GoPro Smart Remote
For ease of video editing for highlight films I try to start and stop each video clip at the whistle and end of play. This way all of the clips are numbered in sequence. My daughter can then go through and watch the clips and write down the number of the clip that she may want to use. It makes it a whole lot easier and faster when it comes to putting together a highlight reel.
Cowboy Studio 9 Foot Light Stand
After a bit of research this was my first tripod. I was looking for something with a small footprint that would go high. This has been a great tripod. It worked perfect until we went to nationals in Florida. It would not fit in my luggage so I had to take it apart and cut part of the top off.
Emart 6 foot Light stand
This replaced the 9 foot stand. it fits in my back pack folded and has a smaller footprint but is not as heavy duty. The selfie stick screws on top to go another 4 feet higher. It also fits in my backpack.
Smartree Batteries
I get about 1 match of recording out of a battery. So I plan to have enough batteries to record the number of matches for the day plus one. So for 3 matches I will pack 4 batteries.
Sandisk Micro 32GB SDHC
My biggest and probably only complaint about the Gopro is that I try to start and stop recording at every whistle using a Gopro remote. What can happen from time to time is a disk error. I thought I had solved that problem with this card but it recently started happening again. This is still the card I tend to use. I usually have 2-3 cards with me. If I have a problem with one I can just put in another one. A number of factors impact how much storage you would need.