GoPro

[rman56]

I have been looking at buying a GoPro for a year or so now and was curious if anyone has alot of experience with one? Iam looking at the Hero 3 Plus but also at the 4 and didn't know if the 4 is all that much better than the 3 for the extra money? Also are they user friendly and durable?

Thanks

[scottb7]

We went with the hero 3+ silver as that was cheapest that had ability to adjust field of view. I did not see anything compelling about the ones more expensive than that. Of course if you have the dough maybe get a higher end one. We also go the bacpac so we could view pics/videos on screen immediately or when used as a still camera. It is kind of odd to me when holding in hand to take a picture or video and not be able to see what I am recording.

http://www.amazon.com/GoPro-Touch-Ba...o+3+lcd+bacpac

[jhersey29]

We used the Go Pro Hero 2 for most of the season. It is a really great device for certain things. It's great for Mountain Biking when mounted to a chesty. The helmet and handlebar setup work pretty poorly due to camera bounce. For using on the ski or on the chesty in the water it should work just fine but we never tried it. I have a mount on my ski and just left there all season to see if it would fall off from repeated soaking. It held fine but I'm still neverous about loosing the GoPro in the water. For the boat to be honest we all liked the video's from our phones better. My phone has a good zoom and makes it very easy to follow someone. I personally am considering a Digital Camcorder with optical zoom for the boat use. Built this device for about $30 in parts and stuff laying around in the garage. Works well to follow someone but still needs some tweeking. Changing the rope length takes about a minute and on a hard slalom turn with rope slope the camera will get kicked around a little bit.

[rman56]

Thanks scottb7 the silver 3+ is has been the one I have been looking at the most. Right now all of my local stores are sold out!

[jguanciale]

Get the 4...3+ is great but the ability to control the camera via wifi from your Iphone or other device with the 4 is far superior to the other models!

[rman56]

Thanks, going to look at the 4 a little closer.

[vision]

Just keep in mind that the GoPro, and almost all action cameras, have fixed, wide angle or fish eye lenses. They are great for capturing action within 6 feet. Beyond that they are close to useless. Still fun, just not useful for say capturing images/video from the boat of some one being towed.

[scottb7]

^^That is the point of going to at least 3+, you get angle settings. FIELD OF VIEW (FOV) Ultra Wide, Medium, Narrow. Other than ability to use bluetooth, i don't see anywhere that it indicates that you can control camera any better with 4 than the 3+. They all show go pro app compatible.
The new Hero4 cameras benefit from Bluetooth connectivity in addition to the built-in Wi-Fi of the Hero3+ shooters. All of the cameras are compatible with both the GoPro App and Smart Remote.
The GoPro App allows you to control your camera remotely using your phone or tablet, complete with live video. The optional Smart Remote (an update to the Wi-Fi Remote which was bundled with the GoPro Hero3+ Black) features an increased battery capacity and allows you to control multiple GoPro cameras from distances of up to 180 m (600 ft).
It is your money spend it how you want. But I wanted to clarify the above.

[vision]

It might be different in the new models, but the optical field of view in my GP 3s is fixed. The different capture frame sizes or FOV settibgs are simply digital crops/mags.

[scottb7]

The 3 has one field of view and the 3+ has 3 fields of view. For real, not crop. The 3+ has exact same fields of view as the 4 silver and 4 black.

http://shop.gopro.com/compare?category=cameras

[vision]

Thanks. It looks like the GP4 is the same as the GP3+ in that FOV is achieved by sensor cropping. This will give you less fish eye distortion and a more magnified view, hence a smaller FOV. But there is less quality (less sensor data) as you decrease the FOV. Just want to make sure users understand that there is no optical magnification between the different FOV with GPs. The different FOV are still useful however as sensor cropping based digital magnification is usually better looking than post production digital magnification.

It would be great to have a GP that had different lens options.

[scottb7]

^^^true that...the guy that wrote the below figured out the settings for medium and narrow that make up for only having one lens like vision correctly and stated above quite well http://abekislevitz.com/understanding-your-new-gopro/
quite frankly the gopro we have is my sons. so i don't tinker that much with it. and i thought it was a crap originally, but now that i have looked into it over last few weeks i have concluded that with the right settings it can be a very good video and still camera.

Abe’s Personal Reviews of the Modes

• WVGA 240 Wide
  Well, it’s WVGA – If you look closely at the image it’s not very clean – aliasing is present. The novelty of 240 FPS is pretty cool if you don’t care about image quality when stacked up against some of the other modes. It can look decent by itself when posted on YouTube.
• 720 60 Wide
  Looks great, but why don’t you try using 1080 60 Wide instead
• 720 120 Wide
  This mode is tough for me to like. You’ll notice jagged edges in this mode when looking at full resolution so it won’t even compare to 1080-60 wide – the way it was scaled and read off the sensor gives some aliasing. It looks great on the web on YouTube – if that’s your final output, go slowmo crazy.
• 720 120 Narrow
  Bingo. 120 FPS? Check. No lens distortion? Check. Clean image without aliasing? Check! If there’s any mode in the camera that screams “I’m not a GoPro!” it’s this one. It looks like a 50mm lens and is a clean image. Slow mo is rad. This mode is great for web as well. Blown up next to 1080 or 2.7K, you’ll notice the softness that comes from the Narrow FOV.
• 960 48 Wide
  I’ve never even tried this mode. I bet it looks good.
• 960 100 Wide
  I feel similarly about this mode as I do 720-120 Wide. With this mode there is the opportunity to gain a bit of resolution by stretching 960 to fit to 1080 and dynamically stretching it. Either way, this mode will have slight jagged edges when looking at full resolution.
• 1080 30 Wide
  I did a test where I filmed the same scene at 1080-30 and 2.7K 30. When 2.7K 30 was scaled down to 1080, the details and sharpness were just about identical to 1080-30. So this one gets my full approval; however, you have to ask yourself, why not film this at 2.7K 30 and have the extra resolution if you need it? Either way, 1080 30 Wide is one of the cleanest modes in the camera. Also regarding low-light, this mode will look much sharper at dusk or at night vs 60 FPS.
• 1080 60 Wide
  Comparing 1080 30 & 1080 60, you’ll see 60FPS is ever so slightly softer than 30. It’s not something you’d ever notice even scaling the image to 720P or viewing on YouTube, but there’s a slight difference in the way it’s processed. At the end of the day, 1080-60 W is my go-to mode for 90% of filming action sports. With 60FPS you’ve got reduced rolling shutter as well due to reduced exposure time. Switch it to a lower frame rate at night to get a sharper image.
• 1080 60 Medium
  This mode rocks. It’s very clean, doesn’t look super GoPro-ie, and is in slow mo. Consider this mode for sweet slider dolly shots, glidecam, or cranes. Try it for car mounted shots. Careful with the POV with Medium or Narrow as you’ll get shakier and more disorienting. Again, switch to a lower frame rate (30 or 24) for night or dusk.
• 1080 60 Narrow
  This mode is very cool. Still a very clean image; however, at this level you’re going to see more of the pixel noise & artifacting. You’re close to pixel levels without scaling so sensor noise could be an issue at lower light levels. Also details will be softer overall. The narrow FOV looks like DSLR video, very unique to GoPro. Fun fact – we actually pulled out a few 1080-60 Narrow shots from the HERO3 reel because your average joe may see it and assume the video wasn’t fully shot on GoPro.
• 1440 30 Wide
  I love this mode! First off, it’s VERY sharp and very clean. It really gives you a sense of real POV when you wear the camera on your head, chest, or bite it in your mouth. It can be a pain to deal with, as the aspect ratio is 4:3, but if you know the anamorphic 16:9 dynamic stretch tricks, it can be wonderful. If you’re filming POV to just keep to re-live life later, this is a rad mode to use.
• 1440 48 Wide
  The high framerate is great, but when looked at full resolution, you’ll see some aliasing. The way the image was processed to get high framerate produces some jagged edges. Thankfully, hardly anyone watches this at full resolution so jagged edges are harder to pickup. This mode still looks great online and scaled down.
• 2.7K 30 Wide
  This mode is insane. Here’s what I like about it – sharp as a knife, full sensor wide, full 30 fps, native to the camera. The one downside is rolling shutter since it is a 30FPS mode. If you can get it mounted to something steady, at high speeds or low light you’ll notice really nice motion blur with this mode. The high resolution makes this ideal for cropping and re-framing, or stabilizing in post. I find this mode has great low-light as well.
• 2.7K 24 CIN
  This mode is interesting – it’s 2.7K width but shorter to give it a 17:9 aspect ratio, so it’s got a bit less resolution than the basic 2.7K. I’ve requested 2.7K Wide in 24 FPS as well so 2.7K CIN isn’t the only option. We’ll see, but not sure how that missed the initial spec sheet.
• 4K 15 Wide
  This is great for timelapse, conform to 30FPS later. Don’t make a video at 15 FPS unless you’re highly stylizing it and know what you’re doing. Great for setting in ProTune and locking to a specific color temp for timelapses that might otherwise cause color shifts in the photos (sunset/sunrise).
• 4K 12 CIN
  This is 4K but wider, so there’s slightly more resolution (17:9 with the height of 4K’s height). This is also a great mode to do video for timelapse.

[Ryan1776]

I've been running the Hero 3+Black for 6 months or so.
The 4k stuff isn't worth it, in my opinion. Yes, It'll record in 4k, big deal. If you don't have a 4k tv it's not worth it. Even so, the 4k TV's are not worth it either.
Check out Cnet on 4k tv reviews. In a nut shell, people watch tv at an average of 7-9' and the human eye cannot detect pixels at that range. OLED is where it's at.
OK so the one thing the 4k does better, is it claims to have better low light capabilities. I say claim, I've never used one, and that being said I have no reason to believe otherwise.
But really, how often are you going to be using what a GoPro was designed for in low light or dark settings?
Also for a still camera? It sucks. Not worth it. I can do a lot more with my iphone, and better. The image is really cropped.
And to confirm, the 3 series and up all have wifi. If you have a smart phone you can setup the cam with a live view and know you have the shot.
To me the LCD backpack isn't worth the 80. Spend the cash on an extended battery for 50.
Just my .02
Ryan

[NCH2oSki]

We used the Go Pro Hero 2 for most of the season. It is a really great device for certain things. It's great for Mountain Biking when mounted to a chesty. The helmet and handlebar setup work pretty poorly due to camera bounce. For using on the ski or on the chesty in the water it should work just fine but we never tried it. I have a mount on my ski and just left there all season to see if it would fall off from repeated soaking. It held fine but I'm still neverous about loosing the GoPro in the water. For the boat to be honest we all liked the video's from our phones better. My phone has a good zoom and makes it very easy to follow someone. I personally am considering a Digital Camcorder with optical zoom for the boat use. Built this device for about $30 in parts and stuff laying around in the garage. Works well to follow someone but still needs some tweeking. Changing the rope length takes about a minute and on a hard slalom turn with rope slope the camera will get kicked around a little bit.

This is a little of topic, but have you seen the wakeye stuff? Specifically the app for auto recording set by speed? I'm looking forward to trying it out this spring.http://www.wakeye.com/pages/wakeye-ios-app

[jhersey29]

I have seen the wakeeye website. The app looks like a great idea. I have a Windows phone so no go. The camera photo still looks too far away. I want close up body shots to identify position issues. Heck not that I could fix my issues bit maybe just maybe I could fix a few of the hitches. Will do more digging on thier site. I see the works with any phone model. Only issue is the holder is right over the power button. Suppose I could write an app for.the Windows phone platform but still seem like $260 for a mount is a bit excessive. $99 and I'd want the mount.