Go Pro

The gopro has a fixed lens but you can select from different image areas – wide, med, and narrow. It essentially crops and may do a little distortion correction. I'm not familiar with any optics that will offer a 170 degree diagonal field of view that does not produce barrel distortion. The gopro can produce some cool scenics. Sometimes it's apparent liability is it's greatest strength because you can get some very unconventional shots. My avatar is a gopro shot.

You can select in the menu different fields of view wide, medium and tight.
A Dslr would be the optimal choice if you want a lot of control.
A gopro is an option, I like it for its simplicity, toughness and tiny size.

Do the gopro's still have no screen to view the image? In the recent past you had to buy a separate piece to see what you are taking a picture of.

Billy,

Do yourself a favor and follow Philip Tschersich's link to some of his videos. Fabulous stuff, and shows what you can do with a GoPro if you want to spend a bit of time.

“Do the gopro’s still have no screen to view the image?”

Still no screen. You can add an LCD bacpack “viewfinder” or see a live feed preview on your smartphone via an app, or just snap away. You will learn what the camera produces pretty quickly, and with a 170 deg FOV you won’t miss much. It’s not the perfect camera for everything (forget any wildlife shots or architectural photography), but it’s amazing for some stuff. And they are bulletproof.

Thanks, Doug. Here is a link to my vimeo page: Philip’s Vids on Vimeo

Philip… very cool vids…

thanks so much for sharing those…

Billy

I have a GoPro 2, and I often take it with me on my trips.
I like that it has the protective, waterproof case – typically just put it in my front pocket, then take it out of the case to shoot. I get a lot more video this way since its handy.
You can pair it with an UltraPod (small tripod), and take all kinds of shots.
I agree with others that, like any camera, getting different angles, finding a 'story' to tell, and editing your footage goes a long way to making any video better.
One consideration for any HD camera is to make sure you have a computer that can edit & store the footage.
Good luck