With my birthday approaching swiftly my wife had the daunting task of delving into my realm of paintball dreams in order to extract an idea for the perfect gift. Having played for years, and accumulating gear like the rest of you crazies, I simply don't need much in order to have an amazing time on the field. That being said the world of wants is far bigger than the world of necessity, and I had dropped hints of some such items like muddy footprints throughout the house. Sending her emails about new masks on the market, talking about how nice certain brands of high pressure tanks are, paintball mags left open to a page of goodies, sitting in plain view. For months my spreading of the propaganda continued until finally she gave the tell tale sign that immediately lets me know she is up to something. She bit her lip. Now I know that to some of you, that might not mean much, but for me, there is something very telling about the way she bites her lip, and that day, it was particularly revealing.
My immediate response to this inability to keep a secret was a bombardment of questions designed to get her to slip her secret further. Her avoidance was masterful as she evaded eye contact, and tried to divert my attention to more pressing issues, like our children writing on the walls in permanent marker. Two days later, I picked up a package from the mail, and I knew I had her. It wasn't long before I had convinced her to let me open the package that I was certain contained some golden goodie for my paintball obsession. I was right.
Inside the box was the GoPro HD Hero and a large assortment of attachments that allow this little HD camera to be attached to anything you can imagine. While not specifically for paintball, this little gem can take a paintball point blank and not even studder (found that out accidentally on my first run with it). Attach it to your head, your gun, your chest, your surfboard, there is not much that you can't do with it. The picture quality is amazing, and I have only begun playing with it's seemingly unlimited capabilities. Probably the greatest function of this tech toy is it's ability to film me when I have that one epic moment on the paintball field without holding me back from the action.
I had done a fair bit of research on these type of "helmet cams" and which ones seem to be able to stand up to the rigors of extreme sports, but very few of them had actually been taken into a paintball game. I had surmised that the HD Hero was the best bet for taking a hit, and had the largest range of abilities, and best attachments to get the right shots on the field. So far, I feel that I was right in that conclusion. In all of this however, I have but one concern. when I asked my wife how she knew what camera to get me for this purpose, she did nothing more than bite her lip. Now what does that mean?
