GoPro Basic Mounts Guide

Once I decided to buy a GoPro on the US Trip, I researched a lot about the mounts and accessories that I should buy there, but I can’t find a decisive enough guide (for me) that explains all the bits of the accessories. Now I’d like to make one. Hope this helps!

All the parts that I’ll explain are in this photo. Curved and Flat Adhesive mounts on the top left (thanks Lordreddition for pointing out that it’s on the left than on the right), J-Hook and flat buckle in the top middle, followed by the tripod mount and the vented helmet mount. In the middle row, the short strap from the Head Strap, small extension arm, short pivot arm, long pivot arm, long bolt, short bolt, and the white plug. The rest of the head strap assembly is at the bottom.

First thing first. Bolts. They come in two lengths of the ‘handle’ (the black plastic), long and short. You need the long one to secure the camera and the short one is sufficient for fixing the arms in place. They are 5mm bolts.

Arms. Extension arm, short pivot arm, and the long pivot arm. Extension arm gives you a little bit more reach with the camera facing the same side. Pivot arms makes the camera faces 90o from the ‘base’ mount.

2 Pivot mounts make a long extension arm with a Z-axis rotation. The ‘Side Mount’ sold by GoPro consists of 1 short pivot arm, 1 long pivot arm, 1 long bolt, 1 short bolt, a flat buckle and a curved adhesive mount.

If you have a BacPac extension and use it like the third picture, you’ll find out it can’t go full flat on its back, so an extension arm is needed. Every BacPac comes with 1 of these extension arms, and the Front Helmet Mount consists of 2 of these extension mounts, 1 long bolt, 1 short bolt, a J-buckle and a curved adhesive mount.

If you are wondering what the adhesive mounts are, the left one is the curved adhesive mount and the right one is the flat adhesive mount. Both have a one-use 3M VHB high-strength tape to stick it virtually anywhere. The curved one has a rectangular foot print with tapered corners while the flat mount has a more ‘oval’ footprint.

Their best friends are the flat and J-buckle, displayed here attached to the adhesive mounts. The left one is a flat buckle on a curved adhesive mount, the right one is a J-hook buckle on a flat adhesive mount. They offer different angles for recording.

J-hook buckle in different positions.

The white plug’s function is to reduce vibration produced between the mounts and the buckle. It only works with the flat buckle.

The head straps’ main function is to mount your GoPro on your forehead. It consists of 5 parts; a short (top) strap, a longer (side) strap, the front piece for your camera, the back piece for putting them all together and the long bolt (not shown). The straps are made of elastic fabric with rubber linings to keep them on your head. It is fully adjustable to fit a wide range of circumference.

This is the vented helmet mount. It uses buckles to mount the cameras. I often use it as a more flexible pipe mount, by crisscrossing the strap. The padding is removable and can be put on again.

This is an example of me using the vented helmet mount to mount to a fence.

I bought an extra Head Strap to use the long strap so I can use it as a Poor Man’s Chest mount. Too much wobble for soccer.

I assembled this using a tripod mount, a J-Buckle and a 5mm bolt and nut. Enables me to make a narwhal mount using PVC pipes with ¼ 20 screw on each side and use another tripod mount on the other side.

The breakdown of my fence setup.

I hope you enjoyed the guide, please comment for advice or any other tips you have. Thanks!