Settings for night trails using GoPro Hero 11 Black

With introduction of “Vehicle Lights” mode, GoPro literally has made light trails a cakewalk. But today capturing light trails has been made easy on almost every mobile.

Settings for night trails

GoPro Hero 11 has three main modes – Video (main mode which opens in centre as default), Photo and Time Lapse mode. Once you enter Time Lapse Mode these are the preset modes visible.

Under Vehicle Lights you will find the following settings.

Trail Length has three settings

• Short – For keeping the light trails short
• Long – For keeping the light trails long but of finite length
• Max – In this settings the light trail is permanent

Finally the last settings you need to keep in mind is the shutter speed. This setting is more to capture the background which might be dark. But for most of the scenarios you can stick to 0.5 seconds. Also note that as the shutter speed increases, the time duration of the clip will also increase, might almost double up.

Must have accessories

Tripod or any kind of stand – Any kind of shake will ensure those light trails are not perfectly straight. Two options are provided as standard GoPro Accessories. Volta Grip not only is a stand, it also doubles up as a remote and battery backup. This accessory is a must have for photographers on the move. Magnetic Swivel Clip can attach itself almost everywhere. But the best option would be to stick it on the car hood. I have found the magnet to be strong enough to easily stick to any metal surface and hold. There is also a remote but you are better off controlling the GoPro with the Quik App either on the mobile or iPad.

Remote – Though the remote would be a good idea, instead of going for the accessory, you can easily control the GoPro via the Quik app either installed on mobile or iPad. Whatever version of iPad, I found it better to view and edit GoPro videos thanks to the better hardware capabilities of the iPad. You can still do recording without the remote by putting a delay timer. That gives you a chance to click the button and withdraw your hand. But that will still induce some shake at the end of the video when you click the stop button on the GoPro. You can cut that part out through post processing.

Final footage and images

Quik app makes it possible to grab a high resolution screen shot from the videos. Even using correct settings you can get a light trail capture by clicking a picture on GoPro.