History of action cam

I would continue to research this. As all articles on my tiny blog, it will be updated when new info appears.
Besides my interest in tech, I love collecting vintage trading cards. So I like futuristic but also vintage stuff, so this is something that really interests me.
You guys will laugh, but I just bought the first GoPro 35mm, and will do a brief overview of it once I manage to shoot some cool photos and develop a film :)
 
Hi guys,

After some research, I published an article which has more photos an info on action cam evolution.

http://pevly.com/action-camera-history/

If you have any more info or you found a mistake, let me know, I will gladly update it.

shared this on our Facebook page but notice the page info is missing, maybe something you want to look at

Pevly.jpg
 
Oh, thanks for letting me know Rick, I will investigate what might be the issue (probably the 3 layer caching my hosting has). Will try to fix it asap.
 
Also I changed the picture as it just showed your logo by default which didn't really give any clue what the content might be
 
What a great idea :) I always find the history of things interesting. Much of what we take for granted or never think much about has an odd or complex background. You could probably fill a book with what you're going to discover. I have a book which details the history of the lowly ubiquitous screw, without which none of our modern inventions would even be conceivable much less possible.

I have to wonder what exactly defines an 'action cam' which we now think of as a tiny self-powered digital device but which obviously didn't start out that way; much of life relates to what is possible at a given time and with the trend toward miniaturization one day we will see action cans that outperform today's best the size of a pencil eraser or smaller which cost nearly nothing- we just don't have that technology yet but one day we will.

Phil
 
I came across this during my research @dashm but I completely forgot to include him. Will do that today for sure, thanks once again!
 
Last edited:
@Dashmellow Updated the article with brief info, if you know more, just let me know and I will add it, thanks a lot once again. The list looks awesome now, and hopefully over the time we can dig out more interesting setups.
 
@Dashmellow This one could take 10 seconds video in burst and had no sound if I am not wrong. It took ages for people to persuade Nick Woodman (GoPro founder) to go digital. It was first digital GoPro.
I think I might create a page with all GoPro cameras, like a timeline or something like that. Might do it for other brands, I think it would be more suitable there, as I am not sure how to categorize it. But its mentioned in the article quite briefly at the end :)
 
@Dashmellow This one could take 10 seconds video in burst and had no sound if I am not wrong. It took ages for people to persuade Nick Woodman (GoPro founder) to go digital. It was first digital GoPro.
I think I might create a page with all GoPro cameras, like a timeline or something like that. Might do it for other brands, I think it would be more suitable there, as I am not sure how to categorize it. But its mentioned in the article quite briefly at the end :)

I saw Nick Woodman interviewed on TV and he talks about how this camera had really terrible image quality, especially compared to today but that people were so thrilled with how you could use the original Hero that they could barely keep up with the demand. Apparently, there was such a craving in the marketplace for a camera that could be used like this that it sold itself no matter how crappy the images looked.

He also spoke about how his biggest fear was that a big player like Sony or Panasonic would jump in and overwhelm his resources, manufacturing capacity and technical expertise at the time but they completely failed to comprehend the demand that existed for something like this and therefore missed getting in on the ground floor, allowing him to become the first mover thereby providing him the opportunity to develop and eventually dominate the market.
 
I really liked that previous article on action camera evolution got neat interest and involvement of members who made me make article way better.

I did a video and wrote an article about first ever GoPro. It was so excited while doing it, took me an entire Saturday, but really proud of it.

If someone wants to read more about first GoPro ever ► http://pevly.com/first-ever-gopro-camera-hero-35-mm-full-story/

YouTube video

If you guys have any feedback, feel free to let me know. I do not mind critics at all. It helps me improve.
 
Last edited:
Bs_AYPk_CIAAChi9.jpg

I think you'll find that that is not the first man on the moon, but the second. Only Neil was carrying a camera so this would have to be Buzz.
 
That's fantastic @Pavle ! One thing I would say is that he actually lost a LOT of money in the dot com bubble as well.
 
I was aware of that @JooVuu , but it was impossible to find out exactly how. I tried to include facts, instead of speculation.
In one interview he said that because he previously lost a lot of other people money in dot com bubble, he decided he will not start a business with other people money.
As you probably know his family borrowed him 30k to start a GoPro.
Thanks guys for your comments, really appreciate it.
 
Interesting story.

Found Woodman's email. Sent him the link to the article.

He replied back saying he loved the illustrations and was amazed how well-researched the story was.

From few of his comments, I can really say he read it.
So stoked that "mad millionaire" read the article :)

I am 100% sure its him. Unfortunately, for privacy reasons, I do no think it would be a good idea to share a screen shoot of an email.
 
Last edited:
I have a book which details the history of the lowly ubiquitous screw, without which none of our modern inventions would even be conceivable much less possible.
In this case there should be also mentions to duct tape, velcro and those elastics with hooks in each end (don't know how they're called in English), without which it wouldn't be possible to attach cameras to helmets or moving objects. :)
 
Back
Top