How good are action cams on macro zoom ?

None of mine have any kind of zoom or macro settings, they're set for very wide angle for capturing a LOT of the surroundings rather than a small portion of the "action".

Pete

I've never tried close ups with any of my action cameras, just never occurred to me, to even try. Thy are are fixed focus, and a very wide angle view. None of mine cost more than $70 though, most in the $30-$40 dollar range, close out or refurbished specials. Maybe one of those $500 GoPro Hero's have some sort of software trick, like cellphone apps. Really sort of opposite of the design intent. Action cameras are for taking in as much of the 'action' as possible, without having to mess with anything on the camera. Just press record, do something crazy and insane, to share on YouTube, if you survive...

There are several apps for cellphones, that do pretty good macro. You can get clip-on lenses cheap, that work good too. Or carry a point/shoot camera, edit in the macro footage later. Find the minimal distance of your action camera's lens, then use soft wear later to crop what you want as a close up, stitch it back in to the video. HD video gives a lot of resolution to play with later. Might still turn out good enough for your purpose.

All I have seen are fixed focus and can't do macro. Any zoom they have is a digital zoom, not a true optical zoom.

Sorry, I have expressed myself incorrectly - the camera has no zoom
function.
I believe it has a macro function and auto-focus.
The problem I find with the camera is that it shoots videos in Quick
Time Movie (.MOV) format. It happens to be not compatible with my
Tablet PC
Through Windows Movie Maker it can be converted though .
Another problem is the camera shoots videos divided in short sequences .
To upload a youtube video,it is necessary to join them together in a single
sequence

I use this free editing/converter software

http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/

It's been sort of work in progress, since I started using it a couple years ago. Does a pretty good job, quick, quite a few nice editing function. Gets better with every update release. I have an older computer, running VISTA. Movie Maker wasn't that great, for what I wanted to use it for, I'm sure it's gotten better. I really don't like Windows, but it's better than Apple, not as restrictive.

I'd be surprised if you camera has a macro function, no screen, no focus, no way to tell the firmware what you want to focus on for a macro view. Fortunately, digital cameras have gotten real small, and cheap. If you really want the macro views, need a second camera for the task. Out in the fields, is really the best place to do it, but can get decent results. I setup a tripod at home, use the timer feature, prefer natural light, when I want clear close-up photos.

HarveyH48 said:

I use this free editing/converter software

http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/

It's been sort of work in progress, since I started using it a couple years ago. Does a pretty good job, quick, quite a few nice editing function. Gets better with every update release. I have an older computer, running VISTA. Movie Maker wasn't that great, for what I wanted to use it for, I'm sure it's gotten better. I really don't like Windows, but it's better than Apple, not as restrictive.

I'd be surprised if you camera has a macro function, no screen, no focus, no way to tell the firmware what you want to focus on for a macro view. Fortunately, digital cameras have gotten real small, and cheap. If you really want the macro views, need a second camera for the task. Out in the fields, is really the best place to do it, but can get decent results. I setup a tripod at home, use the timer feature, prefer natural light, when I want clear close-up photos.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the link