What does a Tesla?
A helicopter ride over Melbourne, a castle, an aquarium, paint balling
and the Sydney Opera House all have in common? This video.
And it was all shot on the GoPro Hero 10.
Recently I needed a couple for an upcoming video about electric vehicles.
And my friends at GoPro were actually kind enough
to hook me up with the latest ten and a nine for comparison.
Thank you so much to my friends at GoPro.
That was actually a huge help in getting that video together.
Subscribe if you want to see that one because it's coming out very soon
and I think it's going to be a pretty good one.
Anyway, having used these on a proper shoot
and in the months following, just for a little bit of fun,
I've now got a pretty good idea of who should actually buy the GoPro here again.
So I'm here to help you decide.
Let's get into it.
Let's start with what's new.
Right here it's in you can see the nine and ten don't really differ a whole lot
in terms of looks.
The Ten just has a blue logo instead of a muted gray one.
Yeah, honestly,
not a huge fan of the blue on this, but it's not about what they look like.
It's about what's inside. And that is exciting.
Inside, you'll find the Ten's new G two processor,
which allows it to shoot at higher frame rates than the previous model.
It also has a slightly higher megapixel count for photos,
the stabilization tech called hyper
smooth upgrades, to version 4.0 which is a bit of an improvement over the nine.
Here you can see how it differs.
And the low light performance has improved as well.
Oh, actually, there is one major physical difference between the two,
and that's this.
The removable lens cover.
It's normally easier than that.
The ten's is more hydrophobic and scratch resistant than the nine's, meaning
it's less likely to get obscured by water droplets and less likely
to get those nasty water stains when it dries.
Pretty cool. So those are all the major differences.
What is this actually like to use?
I would say it's amazing actually.
There are just a bunch of little minor things that all add up
to make this a really fun and easy shooting experience.
The front screen, while narrow, is good enough to frame your shot.
If you're filming yourself, it's fully waterproof right out of the box.
It's sturdy as all hell. You can see
I've torn up the front and side of the ten
when I went paintballing, but the camera itself is totally fine.
The back screen is bright and big enough that you can handily control it
without an app.
If you do use the app, it's actually pretty good now.
It's very easy to connect to your phone
and the live preview is only about a second behind
if that. All of the settings you need can be found in the app as well,
so you can remotely control your camera as if it was in your hand.
Also if you have the setting called Quick Capture on, you're able to press record
even if the camera's off
and it just automatically turns on and starts rolling, that is very useful.
This was a huge lifesaver when I was shooting in cars
because all I had to do was press a single button and start capturing the footage.
If the camera's far away, you can also turn it on through the app.
I love that the overall image is good if a little indistinguishable from the nine.
The thing that I'm more impressed
with is actually how much agency GoPros give you when you're shooting.
If you're a pro,
you've got options to shoot at high bit rates and dial in all your settings.
Just like any other pro camera.
But if you're a newbie or just want to smash a record button,
the GoPro does a really decent job in other settings as well.
It's not often that I'll look at the images this makes and be blown
away, though.
GoPros are really good at being places other cameras can't
or being really sturdy,
but the images coming out of them are rarely visually stunning.
I think a trap people can get in is seeing GoPro's epic ads and thinking
they'll get that kind of footage, but really it's often a bit more like this.
Plus, if you're
just capturing everyday life such as social media, vlogging,
getting landscapes, a lot of decent phones can do this just as well, if not better.
You don't really need a GoPro for that sort of stuff.
The photos it captures are also pretty decent,
but does anyone really use these for photography that much?
Here's some examples.
I took it up in a helicopter for some reason.
They're certainly fine, but I kind of wish I had just brought my SLR instead.
It's definitely not replacing that.
I think about 90% of the time I'd prefer to use my phone for stills.
They are more likely to have battery.
It's more likely that it's just going to be on me,
and it's a lot easier to get those photos from your phone onto social media.
The only time I'd really consider
a GoPro to be my stills camera is if I was going underwater
and didn't have dedicated underwater housing for an SLR,
or if I was going somewhere where the elements were so harsh
that this is probably the only thing that would survive
in fact, during the electric
vehicle video, because I was just vlogging and doing it kind of whenever I needed,
I fully relied on the GoPro's microphone, and it turned out
fine.
All of this stuff
adds up to a really seamless and easy user experience.
It just lets you use the camera
with as little friction as possible, but it is still not perfect.
I have two main gripes. Number one.
This side flap. GoPros have tiny batteries.
It's a given.
This lasts about an hour of recording in most circumstances,
which is actually pretty impressive given the size of the battery.
But if I want to roll with this
on something a bit longer, such as for a time lapse,
I need to plug it into mains or a battery bank for USB C.
The only way to do that is by lifting the entire side of the camera
open, exposing everything to the elements all at once.
Because the battery doesn't have a locking mechanism
it's very likely that it could just fall out the side. Yeah...
I really don't get it.
It's a really inelegant design and they used to separate the ports
from the battery.
I just don't understand why it's like this now.
There are, of course, accessories
you can purchase to fix this design flaw and pretty much every other one.
But that leads me to gripe two.
And that's this is kind of a little bit useless on its own.
Now it does come with a few stick on mounts and case,
but these stickers can really only amount to flat surfaces
and you want to be happy sticking adhesives to that surface.
Yeah, fine for helmets and stuff, but nothing with a nice paint job.
So eventually you end up with a collection like this
All of this adds up pretty damn quickly.
And as you find more ways to use the GoPro, you end up buying
more random stuff. Honestly, some of the stuff you can buy, like a case
with the coldshoe mounts and tripod mounts, that is all slim enough.
I feel like it could be included on the camera body itself with no worries,
but I guess the accessory racket, it's a little bit too lucrative.
I will give them props though.
They have always used the same two prong mounts,
and have actually had those integrated into the camera itself
since the Hero eight, which means at least if you've owned a GoPro before,
you'll still likely be able to use all your stuff.
That does take the pressure off buying a bunch of new accessories a little bit.
So who is the hero Ten for?
There is no doubt that the ten is the peak
of what GoPro has been trying to achieve over the last 15 years or so.
It is the most iterated on action camera on the market
right now, and you can tell how much thought has gone into it.
While there are a few little things that still bug me about the GoPro.
You can fix most of those problems with accessories
so long as you have the cash.
Honestly, I feel like most of you will be totally fine using a mobile phone
to shoot.
Maybe start with one of these and really think when you would actually use a GoPro.
I find when I have one of these, I don't use it nearly as much as I thought
I would, but boy, are these handy to have around when you actually need one.
If you're a filmmaker, want to shoot your extreme exploits,
even if you're a business who just needs an easy to mount camera,
this will be a handy little tool. Weirdly the ten and nine both cost the same
right now, thanks to a special deal, GoPro is running in a lot of regions.
The catch is they sign you up to their subscription service for a year,
but protip you can just cancel it before the next bill.
Rolls around.
So if you have watched this video and decided, Yes, I need a GoPro,
just go ahead and buy the ten, it costs the same amount as the nine
and it's better.
So yeah, there's really no need to buy the nine here.
Sorry, nine. I still love you.
Well, it's not a hydrophobic lens for everyone else who watch this
and thought hmm, maybe a GoPro isn't the right thing for me.
Maybe a smartphone camera is more your speed.
I actually checked out the best smartphone for photographers in this video
right here. I highly recommend you go pro.
Check it out.
Come well.
So this is pretty cool.
Even if it's off, you can just press record
it's out of batteries, isn't it?
Fuck also,
even if it's off, you can just hit record and it starts recording.
But now,
maybe not
also, even if the camera's off, it's got to also
even if the camera's also even if the camera's off, it's got
a setting called Quick Capture which allows you to pretty much record.
Yeah.
And then turn off
yeah.
Because the battery
also doesn't have a locking mechanism and it can just
because the battery also doesn't have a locking mechanism.
Because the battery also doesn't have a locking mechanism.