I had bought a second-hand camera with underwater housing from a friend for the bargain price of £80. There was a problem in that it wasn't shooting video - but I thought that I might be able to address that.
A few dives later and I was finding the camera quite cumbersome, probably not helped by the fact I was taking a butter tub lid with me to use for white balance correction. I was struggling with handling it plus getting back into diving after a few years lay off - I watched my Polish friend, Olaf, with his nice compact GoPro and immediately thought that a much better idea because he could put it away in a pocket between shots. On my last holiday to Malta I had borrowed a friends GoPro and it did a great job and after diving with Olaf, I was convinced that getting a GoPro would probably help me get going with underwater and action videography better than my current camera.
And for my birthday, my fantastic girlfriend bought me the entry level GoPro called the GoPro Hero.
A GoPro is known as a compact action camera. The traditional camcorder of old is pretty much dead now with the rise of smart phones capable of shooting respectable amateur photography and videography. So technology came about to meet the needs of the more sporty end of videography. Cue the GoPro. Action cameras are designed to be very small and lightweight as well as being fairly rugged. It wasn't until about 2014 that other manufacturers caught up with the surge in demand. The most notable being the Sony ActionCam using very respectable Zeiss lenses.
You don't have to worry about your DSLR and expensive lenses getting wet or damaged when you have a GoPro, designed to be exceptionally rugged through simplicity, it takes Point and Shoot to a whole new level.
Unboxing
The GoPro Hero comes in a lovely white card box with a nice cut-out so that you can see the camera in its waterproof housing and start to appreciate just how small it truly is! The front is quite plain with just a few photographs, the model name and a small note stating that its waterproof to 40m (131 feet).
The left hand side of the box has three sections of information about the features, video shooting options and photo shooting options. These are :
On the righthand side we see a list with drawings of what is included in the pack. Besides the camera there is a refreshing list of extras. The total list is:
- Integrated camera and housing
- Built-in battery
- Skeleton backdoor
- Quick Release buckle
- Flat adhesive mount
- Curved adhesive mount
- USB cable
You are also advised about requiring a microSD card.
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| Righthand side of package |
Finally on the back there is a large schematic showing some of the key features, or rather selling points such as the depth rating on the housing, wide angle lens etc.
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| Back |
After being teased about how awesome a GoPro is, it's time to get at it! The front cover turns out to be a sleeve which can just slide off after the sticky plastic badges on either side are cut.
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| Sleeve removed from package |
Still no closer to get at it! The packaging is sealed once again on the back at the top with the plastic hangers to allow display on walls. Cutting through this allows you to get the front and back packaging apart. Both parts of the packaging are made from good cardboard.
Now we get a glimpse of what is included in the packaging. At the top we can see the GoPro Hero camera held under a plastic shield, at the bottom is some paperwork.
The first small pamphlet (top left in the image below) is about Getting Started with your GoPro. This is not a quick start user manual. The manual comes in six (6) languages (including English, French, German) There are four basic points that it recommends that you do:
- Sign up for a GoPro account - Submit your most epic photos and videos for the chance to become GoPro famous (optional)
- Get the GoPro app (optionl)
- Download GoPro software - easily import, view and edit your content. Create gorgeous, GoPro-style videos. (highly recommended)
- Update your camera - get the newest features and best performance from your GoPro by keeping it up to date with the latest software
The GoPro Studio software is an all encompassing editor and camera management toolset. It's a rather hefty 115 Mb download - you don't need an account to get the software and it also allows you to update your camera as well.
The next document is the Quick Start Guide (bottom left in the image below). The Quick Start Guide shows how to use the camera and provides some advice on using your camera.
The third document is the Important Product and Safety Information Guide (bottom right in the image below).
Finally three GoPro stickers are included. I like these kind of things, I've got a Stormcase for my HID light which I use as a sticking ground for stickers from suppliers!
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| The paperwork |
With the paper out the way, we can now remove the plastic shield holding back the camera. Removing the cardboard interior packaging also reveals some of the accessories. These are:
- USB lead
- Skeleton backdoor
- Curved adhesive mount
- Flat adhesive mount
The skeleton door is used to allow you to have access to the USB port with a wire, allowing better audio recording and charging while recording when connected to a PC. This could be useful if shooting lots of static / slow moving subjects in an interview type setting, especially in a hot environment.
The two adhesive mounts will be discussed further below.
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| Camera and accessories |
Below are the two adhesive mounts; on the left is the curved mount and on the right is the flat mount. Below that is a device which is used to prevent the GoPro Quick Release potentially coming free during a high vibration environment.
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| Adhesive mounts and security bracket |
Now we get to the good bit, the bit we are really interested in - the GoPro Hero camera. The GoPro (including the case) has dimensions of just TBD mm x TBD mm x TBD mm (width by height by depth) and weighs just TBD g.
To put this into context, I've photographed the GoPro Hero next to my Samsung S3 smart phone and a £2 coin.
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| Relative size of the GoPro Hero |
The GoPro Hero camera and the housing are fully integrated - you can't remove the camera from the housing. Nor can you remove the battery, charging the battery is done via the USB lead.
Opening the housing
To get at the camera you open the back door. GoPro have come up with a brilliantly simple, yet absolutely secure system using a pivoting latch on the top of the camera.
The GoPro comes with some charge, but a full charge is the first thing you will need to do, so get it plugged into your PC and charging up. Also you need to get a microSD card inserted. You don't need to worry about formatting it first - the camera will do that for you.
Connecting to the PC
When connecting the GoPro Hero to your PC for the first time you will find that Windows just treats the camera as external storage and so just works straight off. A really cool "feature" for me is that the camera shows up in my devices with the image of the Hero as well.
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| Geeky feature |
Connecting to the GoPro by double-clicking it in the Device menu gives you a selection of options to either view your media, copy it across, or get the GoPro software suite (which will then do all of this for you).
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| Hero Control Panel |
After installing the GoPro software suite and re-connecting the camera you will probably be given the option to update the firmware on the GoPro.
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| Firmware Update |
Real world testing
So I've shown you all about the GoPro Hero, its packaging and contents as well as some features, but how good is it?
Underwater
The first thing I had to do with my GoPro before I took it diving was to find some way of securing it during dives, so all I did was attach a boltsnap. This would allow me to clip it off while entering and exiting the water and any times where I didn't want to film.
Diving with the GoPro is great, without taking any measurements it probably slightly negatively buoyant which means it stays in your hands and not want to float off. Even with thick wet gloves (5-7mm) that I was wearing, operating the GoPro was easy, because the two buttons are large and positively respond when pressed (I also had the button press noise on as well). The only annoyance was that I wanted to switch between taking video and pictures which because of the linear cycle through the menus mean't that I would have to go through all the different modes before I got back to Video (or Photo), it just meant a lot of pressing
In practice, I found that there is definitely a delay in the image capture. When you press the shutter button (top) to take a photo graph. The red LED on the back will flash three times. I think its only once its finished flashing has the photo actually been recorded. In my mind, pressing the shutter button means the image is captured upon release, once I'd taken the picture (releasing the shutter button - its now started its saving process) I would move on. This led to a lot of blurry images, with only the occasional still image.
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| Blurry images are easily achieved |
Reviewing the video as well, I learned that the GoPro Hero REALLY like having the light, it makes a considerable difference to the quality of the images I found, this is probably due to noise in the camera. The following images were taken at the same depth, one after the other.
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| Looking horizontal at a depth of approximately 11m |
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| Looking up from a depth of approximately 11m |
In the latter image, whilst the foreground isn't particularly well exposed (compared to the former) there is a much better feel in terms of depth in the image. By that I mean I feel like I can't see much past the diver in the second image whereas the first image I get the impression that I can see much closer to the surface.
Another aspect of the camera liking light - when not VERY shallow or under virtually direct and intense illumination the colours become very washed out very quickly (as a diver I completely understand this, but I'm still very very surprised at how quickly the wash-out is occurring - these photos are less than 6m under water)
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| Underwater selfie, colours look good - you can see the blue of my mask and fin reflection well, even the yellow of my backup regulator is clear) - depth approximately 3-4m max |
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| Downward looking photograph - same location, perhaps 4-5m max |
On land / the surface
One thing that strikes you with the GoPro when taking photographs is the massive lens distortion
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| Massive lens distortion |
In some ways the lens distortion can be really creative and quite desirable. It's not really a problem, most image editing programs provide functionality to allow you to fix this.
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| Not so major lens distortion. |
Conclusion
The GoPro Hero camera comes with no internal memory so buying a microSD card is absolutely mandatory. For shooting Full HD video at 30 fps, a full class 10 card is recommended. All of the video and photos I took to make this blog up was taken on a very cheap Class 4. Perhaps using a Class 10 would have improve the photo taking process and reduced the number of blurry photos?
For the size (matchbox) and price (under £100), I am more than impresed with my GoPro and want to thank my amazing Charlotte for a wonderful present!
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