GoPro Tree Mount
I’m fortunate that I live close to an ancient forest that covers over 566 Km squared. The forest has many species of trees. Trees such as oak, ash, beach, cedar and silver birch. It’s these trees that I use with a GoPro tree mount. It provides an interesting point of view shot as part of creative video content.
In this article I’m going to share with you a number of ways I mount a GoPro and other action cameras to trees and branches. All of these techniques don’t harm the trees in any way at all.
The tree mounting techniques I use cover a range of ways. They are suitable for mounting to a variety of tree trunk girth and branch sizes.
Let’s now take a look at the methods I use with supporting pictures of each practice.
Tree Strap & Clip Mount
First off, I’ll introduce those who aren’t familiar with trail cameras or game cameras as they are also known, the tree strap! This is a piece of nylon material with a metal buckle.
A strap is usually around 2 metres in length that’s used to attach trail cameras to trees. The company Browning offer a quality strap that I have used in this example.
You can source a tree strap on its own without a trail camera as a low cost accessory from many online stores. This provides a basic low cost means to attach an action camera to a tree with the additional use of a clip mount.
I’ve used the official magnetic clip mount from GoPro in this example. As you can see from the picture.
The clip mount allows you to rotate the camera 360 degrees and pitch the angle through 90 degrees.
Medium Sized Trees
I’d suggest using this method of tree mounting for medium sized trees of up to 2 metres in girth.
It’s just a matter of wrapping the tree strap around the trunk. Then threading the end through the buckle and tightening.
This method doesn’t harm the tree in any way. The strap is easily removed once you’ve recorded the video shot or captured photo.
Bungee Cord & Ultra Long Selfie Stick
I like to capture as many different camera angles when I’m filming content for an action video sequence. Having many different angles in a video edit adds to the production level.
This method allows you to record a high up, top down shot. This technique captures the action from around 4 metres off the ground. I’ve included a frame grab from a video clip recorded of me walking under a tree using this method.
Selfie Stick
To gain the elevation I’ve used a 2.7 metre ultra long selfie stick made by a company called Telesin.
The stick has a tripod mount at the top which screws onto a ¼ inch thread. This allows you to attach a GoPro to the selfie stick.
With the GoPro attached to the stick and angled at approximately 45 degrees downwards. Extend the stick to fully open.
Voice Command
I use the voice command GoPro feature to start and stop recording video clips when the camera is out of reach. It’s a good idea to have beeping switched to ON so you know for sure the camera has responded to your voice command.
Bungee Cord
I’ve used an off the shelf bungee cord here in this example The cord is 30 cm in length with a spiral hook at each end.
You can purchase cord without the hooks and have it cut to a desired length. After which you attach a pair of shock cord spiral hooks.
Prepare the selfie stick and GoPro as mentioned using the techniques I covered earlier as a starting point.
Then place the selfie stick around 1 metre off the ground and parallel with the tree trunk. Use caution in raising the stick ensuring you don’t hit any branches.
Smaller Trees
As with the tree strap method, wrap the cord around a small tree trunk with a diameter of between 50 to 80 cm. While doing so, hold the selfie stick close to the trunk. Then it’s just a matter of connecting the hooks.
The bungee cord will hold the selfie stick in place while you walk, run or cycle through the frame of the camera shot.
Fence Mount
This method uses a purpose designed fence mount that’s used to attach an action camera to a chain link fence.
This is ideal for mounting the camera to small trees up to 1.5 metres off the ground. You could use longer shock cord for larger trees using this method.
The important thing to note here is that I’ve used a J-Hook style buckle. This type of buckle allows you to pitch the GoPro downwards. Personally I recommend using an official GoPro J-Hook, as their more durable compared to 3rd party variety’s.
Jaws Flex Clamp Mount
Lastly, we come to one of my favourite mounts for action cameras, the jaws flex mount.
This clamp style mount will attach to almost any object under 50 millimetres in diameter. In this case I’ve used the jaws flex mount to attach to a large tree with branches.
I’ve used a single gooseneck in this example, however you could use a second or even a third gooseneck for added flexibility.