GoPro HERO4 BLACK

Product Information

Experienced GoPro Videographer: I’ve been shooting with GoPro cameras for over 11 years. My first GoPro was the Hero3 Silver, bought for a Galapagos work trip in 2012. Today I own 20+ action cameras, including GoPro, DJI, and Insta360 cameras. Including this deficiency, the bundle is nowhere near as generous as less-well-known brands such as ISAW with its Edge and Wing models. However, being the market leader, GoPro has a wealth of optional extra mounts, from chest harnesses to head straps, to floating hand grips, suction cups, handlebar mounts, dog harnesses… and so on. The 3DR is easy to control in the air via the remote controller and the majority of the camera work is controlled via the mobile app which means you have a dual screen controller and less clutter on the controller itself which we all loved. We will talk more about the camera in the camera section of the 3DR Solo review. There's no image stabilization, but the ultra-wide field of view certainly helps to minimize camera shake during normal use. If you're mounting the camera to a helmet, for example, footage is as good as if you had it on a tripod—just one that you could move easily. But when mounted to an ATV, the shaking of the body caused by the engine shows true in the video above. Image stabilization could help make handheld footage just a little bit smoother, but it won't do much for the violent shakes and stutters.

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Dropping down to 2.7K (1520p) boosts the top frame rate to 60fps, with 50, 48, 30, 25, and 24fps also supported. Shooting at 2.7K delivers footage that's better than traditional 1080p, but doesn't require as much computing horsepower to edit. It's a pretty good compromise if you want to shoot at 60fps. There's an in-camera crop mode available—GoPro calls it a Medium field of view—when shooting in 2.7K. Of course, Ultra Wide is available as well. The other reason that the Solo having no camera is a stroke of genius is that it can be upgraded at a future date or if it is damaged it can be easily replaced without having to fork out for a whole new drone. This means that your drone (if being used predominantly for photos and video) is somewhat futureproof. The 4K image quality is amazing when you consider the price tag, but only in the right light. When shooting in dark or shaded conditions the image quality takes a massive drop with lots of noise and hardly any shadow detail.On the later cameras, toggle the Color profile also adjusts the contrast and color of the image, but the HERO4 models output only with the Flat color profile over HDMI. Sundry non-ProTune features include Auto Low Light, which adjusts shutter and frame rate to maintain brightness. You can also capture night photos with a shutter open time of up to 2 seconds in auto mode, or for preset times up to 30 seconds. With no LCD preview, however, it will take a little trial and error to get this right.

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Once you start jumping around and adding major vibration to your recordings, you might as well just shoot in 1080p and save yourself some disc space. The sweet spot for image quality is probably Full HD running at 24, 25 or 30fps, with ProTune enabled. This then records at 45Mbits/sec, which is well above AVCHD, and the differences are noticeable. ProTune doesn’t increase the data rate for 4K, but it’s 50% higher for Full HD. So unless you need the extra resolution of 4K, Full HD with ProTune provides the must professional image quality. The GoPro4 that we used worked an absolute treat and was simple to set up and get going with. The reason it is so simple is that 3DR worked directly with GoPro to ensure that the drone was capable of exploiting all aspects of the GoPro tech. We added a gimbal to our 3DR which gave us super stable images even at high speeds and found that the 1080p HD 30FPS video output was excellent. In low light conditions you’ll get better results on your still images by shooting in the 8 Megapixel still mode. Not Just an Action CamThe video and camera controls on the app (which is controlled via the smartphone) were easy to use and features such as cable cam and orbit were very well received. Cable cam essentially means the drone will travel between two points that you set at a speed that you set and then allows you to control the camera without having to worry about piloting the drone. Professional Creator: Dena and I have developed video and content marketing plans for numerous international travel brands. And we also run several content businesses. The 4K footage is exceptionally crisp—each frame is 8 megapixels—with strong detail up to the edges. Video shot at lower resolution doesn't have quite the same pop, but that's simply based on its resolution. Action shooters may feel a little limited by the 30fps capture rate—many prefer 60fps for the way that it appears to make motion appear faster and hyperrealistic—and it can be slowed down to half-speed while still maintaining acceptably smooth motion. It’s worth noting that the Hero 4 has no image stabilisation (IS), which is beginning to appear on action cameras from some other manufacturers – such as Sony. While IS won’t be particularly effective in extreme sports with very jerky motion, it would have been useful for less frantic recording.