I've recently modified my old Hero3 with a "Back-Bone" mod kit, It's call the "Ribcage" and sells for around $250. What it allows you to do is run just about any lens you can find on the your GoPro, You do lose the ability to use the waterproof housing but it does give you some awesome benefits when it come to being creative. The kit comes with everything you need to do the mod and they have video and pfd documents on their website that walk you through the process step by step, It's relatively easy but take you time. The bits are mostly machined out of metal but there are the odd plastic bits but they all seem top quality. Out of the box you can run any C-mount or m12 lenses but there are numerous adapters available to suit most lenses. I got myself a Canon EF adapter with iris control so I can use my current batch of lenses I own from my DSLR. I shot a little bit of video yesterday just to see what it does, I like what I've seen so far and think it's got potential to get some really good footage. More experimentation to come though, I'm going to see what 720@120fps can capture.

Anyways take a look and see what you think....

... you can get a NEX 3/5, with a metabones for equiv. and the quality TOTALLY blows this away in a slightly larger package.
I'm all for modding, but I think you've invested in something that doesn't, never has, never will have good image quality, what size is the CMOS, 7mm?
It's like those brackets that can align any CCD/CMOS with any lens... you can buy them for astrophotography.

I hope I didn't rain on your enthusiasm...

this is a nex6, metabones, teleconverter, and lens i took to wa last christmas. it does make a nice compact system for travel but the NEX-eos/metabones adaptors don't allow phase detect autofocus (only contrast detection) and are too slow for real sports use, so i have to manually focus everything. i put pocket wizards on it to take the pix with the flashes taped to the windsurfing mast

all the pics in this thread are from it

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Western-Australia/sailing-buddy-in-Geraldton/#1418726

i'd like to hear how you go with the backbone gear

Select to expand quote

FlySurfer said..
... you can get a NEX 3/5, with a metabones for equiv. and the quality TOTALLY blows this away in a slightly larger package.
I'm all for modding, but I think you've invested in something that doesn't, never has, never will have good image quality, what size is the CMOS, 7mm?
It's like those brackets that can align any CCD/CMOS with any lens... you can buy them for astrophotography.

I hope I didn't rain on your enthusiasm...

^Exactly.
Or if you want native EF control an EOSm sells for about $230 dollars body only on ebay (250 with 18-55 or 22m pancake). You can also adapt basically any lens to an EOSm through adapters ($10) sold on ebay... The quality of EOSm is far superior to a Go-Pro and can even be hacked to shoot video in 720p RAW if you want. If you get this camera definitely download magic lantern so you can increase the bit-rate (I get up to about 70Mbps).
Go-Pro is great for a POV camera or to put places that a normal camera is too big, but to use the camera like you are describing (and for the price) is kind of pointless in my opinion.

Thanks for the feedback but I think you guys missed the point, I wasn't out looking for a new camera and decided the best option would be to buy a Hero3 and a backbone kit and use it as a primary camera. If I wanted to buy a new camera I'd just go and buy a gh4 or a7s, But since I have an XA-10 and swag of Canon lenses that I use with my current Canon DSLR I have no need for another camera. Since the Hero3 is now obsolete due to the release of the Hero 4, I thought I'd do something fun with it rather then just give it away hence the title "GoPro Hero3 modification". The image quality will be fine for the few web vids I do, I'm not professional and not after broadcast quality and rarely upload over 720P anyways. The NEX does look like a nice little camera though, The photos on haircuts link are rather good.

Haircut, Once I get some windsurfing footage I'll send you a link of the outcome.

Cheers.

Thanks for the feedback on our posts, but I think you missed our points... you spent as much on a little cage for a Go-Pro to turn it into somewhat of a real camera, when you could have spent that same amount on a real camera and done so much more. I really don't see the drawcard of what you are doing, besides tinkering around (which I admit is a lot of fun). Maybe you will have to spell it out for us.
p.s.
GH4 and a7s are great cameras respectively (although a7s has some flaws for the price IMO), but they are no $230 EOSm or NEX. You simply can't compare a GH4 or a7s to what you are doing, or what we were suggesting you could have done for the price. Our ideas were an alternative option given the budget you spent on the cage, your alternative is a dream.