Shooting a GoPro with your teeth and a quarter

When I shared the video of the GoPro falling into the rattlesnake pit yesterday, I mentioned how most of the footage we see these days from action cameras is kinda boring.

18-year-old professional kayaker Rafa Ortiz, who was described by Red Bull as ‘The Mexican kayaker who seeks the gnarliest whitewater’, is definitely not in that group.

With his life philosophy being ‘die exhausted’, Rafa is no stranger to extreme action and he makes sure to take his GoPro with him. Problem is, how do you trigger the camera to capture that one awesome shot?

In this next video Rafa shows us his solution – a bite remote trigger, and how to make one.

As Rafa explains, you’ve got two options when it comes to shooting with a GoPro. You can either get one photo every half second in ‘time lapse’ mode, or get 30 frames a second every 3 or 6 seconds in ‘burst’ mode. Easy enough, but how do you trigger the camera when you don’t have a hand to spare?

Here are Rafa’s three quick and easy steps to capturing that one special shot, with your teeth:

Step one

Pair your GoPro to your remote

Step two

Place a coin over the record button on the remote and attach it using tape. Wrap the tape around the remote more than once to make sure it doesn’t fall off and to make it softer for your teeth.

Next, attach a string to the remote and tie it to your clothing. In Rafa’s case it is a life jacket but whatever you wear is fine; this is just to make sure you don’t lose the remote.

Step three

As you approach the area where you want to capture the photo, place the remote in your mouth. When the time is right and the action is at its peak, take a bite and trigger the camera.

Rafa says you must spit the remote immediately to ensure you don’t damage your teeth or swallow it, which are extremely valid points. It will also look plain weird.

The bite remote trigger is Rafa’s solution to photographing himself kayaking, but it could work in countless other situations. The only time I wouldn’t recommend this method is when having a loose remote tied to your body could be dangerous. Skydiving would be a good example of this.

Got your own GoPro triggering hacks? Share them with us in the comments!

[via Gizmodo]