The GoPro Max is a really good 360 camera slash action camera hybrid and is
definitely worth buying. However, before you do,
I wanted to share 20 pros and 10 cons I noticed from my time using the Max that
you should consider before you make yourself $500 poorer.
The first pro is it's waterproof. You don't even need a waterproof housing,
you can use the Max directly in the water.
Here I am taking it for a swim in a public fountain in Sydney and it worked
without issue.
It kept rolling and recording 360 video and sound the whole time. However,
that does not mean you should use it in the water because the issue with 360
cameras being used under water without an underwater housing is called lens
refraction.
Where basically you have water hitting the lens on either side and it causes a
magnifying glass effect and when the two sides are combined together into one
360 image, it doesn't stitch properly around the seem line.
As you can see here from fountain cam, this footage is basically unusable.
If you're using only a part of the 360 footage though,
this won't be as much of an issue.
So to me this means you can use it around the water, yes,
and you don't have to worry about your camera being ruined. However,
under the surface,
360 mode isn't going to be of much use unless you have a proper waterproof
housing. Now straight out the box, the Max does come with these bubbly,
domey things, which it looks like would solve this problem.
However,
GoPro do not recommend that you use this underwater because it's not water tight
and water is likely to leak into one of these things and ruin your shot.
However, these lens protectors are pro number two. This is a great feature,
you just simply clip them on and it protects your lens. With 360 cameras,
it's so easy to smash a lens.
If I had a dollar for every 360 camera I ruined because it blew over in the
wind, well I'd have $3 but still you get the point.
The lenses are fragile,
they can break easily and this is something that will be super useful if you're
into extreme sports or you put your camera at risk at all. Yes,
they do look very silly, however,
they do not affect image quality and will be completely invisible in your 360
shots.
The next pro is that it has a rugged body and it's not going to break easily.
Because it's made of rubber,
it's going to absorb shock a lot better than the average 360 camera,
and while it would be easy to smash the lens or the screen,
at least the body offers some kind of protection. Next,
the Max is really easy to use.
Even a complete beginner can pick it up without reading the manuals and start
shooting within two minutes. I know with me personally, maybe it's an ego thing,
but I just like turning on a camera and pressing buttons until something
happens, I don't like reading manuals, I just want to get straight into it,
and I found I was able to do that with the GoPro Max.
The menus are easy enough to follow and you can start shooting in whichever mode
you like relatively quickly. I also love what you can do on the actual screen.
You can change almost any setting within the camera. You can change modes,
you have a live view of what the camera sees and you can watch back your footage
instantly after shooting.
No other point and shoot 360 cameras have offered that until now.
That's awesome.
It has a pretty chunky battery and as a result the Max has great battery life as
well. I found when I went out shooting,
I would have been actively using the camera for between an hour,
an hour and a half. It started on 80% battery and ended with 30%.
That's really good and it's above average for a 360 camera. It's USB-C as well,
so it charges quickly. The first con,
and while it's a small one it is important, is the pouch it comes with.
This is not very good quality.
There's also two hidden pouches inside to put these bulby,
lensy things and that's not a good place to put them and it'd be so easy to
smash them in here. To be honest,
I didn't even notice they were there until a few days later after I bought the
camera. Not good. Instead,
what I've been using is my case from the previous GoPro 360 camera, the Fusion.
The Max still fits perfectly inside this and this provides so much better
protection, I know I could drop this right now and the camera would be fine.
It does come with lens caps, great feature. However, with them on,
I found it dramatically affects the time it takes me to take the camera out,
set it up and start shooting.
Sometimes you just need to get the shot straight away and with the lens caps on,
it takes significantly longer to take them off and start shooting as it does
with not even using them to begin with. So I use these sometimes,
but not all the time.
The next con is the specs have not been updated that much since the GoPro
fusion.
It's been two years since the fusion and we still have the exact same resolution
for both photos and videos. I haven't yet tested them out side by side,
but I've got to say I'm a little disappointed.
It would've been nice to see even just a tiny little upgrade with these things,
but we got the exactly the same. Which is why I see the Max as a camera
that's very similar to the GoPro Fusion, just with a lot of the issues handled.
Without having compared,
I can tell you already it's going to be better in terms of workflow,
the app and so many other things. However,
the image quality I know already is going to be quite similar. Also,
I've taken a few photos with it and I'm really not impressed.
The images are underwhelming, the dynamic range is not that great.
Here I am at the Strand Arcade in Sydney and yes,
the lighting is a little bit challenging,
but I'm pretty sure the Fusion would have handled this.
I know for sure the Insta360 One X would have because it has inbuilt HDR mode.
The Max however doesn't and it also doesn't have RAW which both the One X and
the Fusion do have,
so to me that says this is not a camera you would buy if your focus is photos or
360 photos. And that's okay, it can't be good at everything for only $500.
Another weakness I've found is the stitching around the base of the camera
hasn't always been great. I'm sure they will improve this,
but if you're using the camera handheld or on a selfie stick like I am here,
if you allow your viewers to see that area directly beneath the camera,
there is going to be a noticeable stitching imperfection.
I'm sure you noticed earlier too, the stitching ain't always great.
It still is pretty early into the Max's release and I'm sure they'll fix this,
however, I found it to be pretty hit and miss.
The next pro is stabilization and yeah, it's good.
Also, it's got to be said, it's got really good video quality.
I've been really impressed with the videos I've taken with it so far in terms of
contrast, clarity and really nice colors.
Every single clip in this video has been taken directly out of the camera,
I've not done a single bit of color correction. From my tests so far,
it's also been pretty good in low light.
I had a lot of comments on my last GoPro Max video about how nice the shots
looked of me walking past the Sydney opera house. So yeah,
I think it's a pass for low light. The next pro is sound quality,
and while I saw some really good sound samples in other GoPro Max reviews,
this is something I had to put to the test myself. In this first shot,
I had three competing sounds, me, the water fountain and the wind.
Or is it not clear?
And that wasn't that great, was it? So I tested it again,
but this time without my own voice
Now that was a whole lot better. In fact, I'd actually say that's pretty good.
So the sound quality will definitely be better than most point and shoot 360
cameras, however, it will depend on the circumstance you're in.
Speaking of sound, it has spatial audio, which means 360 audio. As you can see,
it has microphones on three sides of the camera and this means if you're
watching back in 360 mode, the sound will move as you move around the 360.
A con is you have limited control over the video setting.
There aren't too many options to choose from in terms of resolution and frames
per second.
Also I found the time warp mode to be pretty underwhelming because of this.
You can only speed your footage up to four times as fast.
When sometimes you're traveling a long distance,
you want to go 10 times as fast. Also, there's no slow motion,
just 24 or 30 frames a second,
which it's got to be said is a downgrade from the GoPro Fusion.
Another pro is Hero mode where it essentially allows you to use the camera as a
normal GoPro, capturing a fixed perspective in front of or behind you.
They're branding the GoPro Max as three cameras in one and I guess this is
technically true because you have one perspective there,
one looking back at you and then one when they combine together into a 360.
And while yes, this technically is true,
all 360 cameras can already do this.
Where the Max is better though is it allows you to record one individual site at
a time without the need for reframing.
Whereas with other 360 cameras you have to go into an editing software and
reframe the footage before you add it to the rest of your video.
No question this makes it a great camera for vlogging,
because there are so many ways you can use it and shooting in 360 mode
essentially means you won't miss the moment.
This is why 360 cameras are so amazing,
especially when they have such good stabilization like the Max does.
It literally means you can shoot first, point second. When you're shooting,
you may have no idea how the edit is going to look later on,
but when you are editing,
you may decide that 10 seconds in it's better to have the shot point towards my
face and then 12 seconds in, point to the thing I'm looking at.
Or you can reverse that.
You don't have to decide then and there while you're shooting.
You simply can't do that with a regular GoPro and this is the unique selling
point of 360 cameras. Hashtag 360NERD.
Another thing that makes it a good vlogging camera is it's fast to connect to
your smartphone. You don't need to manually search for the wifi connection,
it will pick it up straight away and connect. Also,
it's got a great app that not only makes it super easy to connect to your
camera, change the settings and shoot,
but also to edit and reframe your photos and videos into any kind of edit you
like.
I'm a big fan of the smart phone workflow and I think the Max and the GoPro app
are helping lead the way towards doing all of your editing solely on a phone.
Also,
these are the best transitions I've seen when reframing 360 video on a mobile
app. As I mentioned in my last video,
it's kind of hard to export 360 photos and videos to your camera roll.
You can technically do it,
but you need to search deep within the menus of your phone to find your exported
content. Why not just make it easy? Everyone else does it.
If you prefer the desktop workflow, then I've got good news,
GoPro have a great desktop software for both Mac and PC.
What I love about it is it's basically a computer version of the mobile app.
It's super simple and user friendly and they use a lot of the same elements as
the app.
So it's easy to recognize which icons do what and what the overall sequence of
the workflow is.
They also have a fantastic 360 video reframing plugin for Adobe premier,
and this helps you get even more control over what the final viewpoints of the
end video look like. Yes, they did already have this, however,
it hasn't worked for the last few versions of Adobe premier.
And then there I was all excited by this, I opened Adobe premiere,
I applied the effect and I'm getting nonstop crashes.
Maybe it's to do with the recent release of premier 2020. Again,
this is something I'm sure they'll fix pretty soon,
but I haven't yet found a work around for this.
It could just be me and my computer or it could be something that's affecting
more people. I'll be sure to report back about this ASAP.
Something I'm a little disappointed by is the maximum export quality on mobile
and the desktop software is 1080P. Yeah, WTF.
I've been exporting 4K reframe 360 video for the past two years now and this is
going back to 1080P. Yes,
I know it's not actual 4K because when you start with 5.6K,
and you're reframing to one tiny little square within a 5.6K equirectangular
video.
The Maximum image quality in terms of pixels you'll see in the window will p
robably only be around 1080P. However,
I like having the ability to export at 4K because I found it actually looks
sharper and better than exporting at 1080P.
The only workaround I can think of is editing in Adobe premier,
starting with 4K sequence settings and then editing from there and exporting at
4K. But still 1080P is so 2012.
Also something that quite a number of users are experiencing are unlevel h
orizons in 360 photos and 360 videos.
Here's an equirectangular 360 photo straight out of the camera.
And this is basically unusable when I import it to my computer.
I'm going to have to open this in a horizon leveling software and fix it photo
by photo. To fix this, you'll either have to A, when you're shooting,
make sure the horizon is dead level with every shot or B,
share your 360 photos directly from the GoPro app because the app does correct
the horizon. Still though, kind of just a tiny bit limiting. And 360 videos,
yeah, that horizon isn't good, I'm sure they're going to fix this,
but they haven't yet.
The final pro is the GoPro Max has a great accessory range.
You probably already know this from seeing the hundreds of accessories you can
buy for regular GoPro cameras. And straight after release,
the Max comes with a store full of accessories you can buy.
While most of them aren't necessarily,
one you probably will need to buy is one quarter inch tripod thread adapter.
As expected,
the Max comes with GoPro mounts and you can move them to the side like that,
but there's still no tripod thread there. So you're going to need one of these,
this is just an old one I've had lying around for a few years now,
but I found a really good one on Amazon that's on its way and I'll link that in
the description. Also,
I'm using a 400 gigabytes SanDisk micro SD card with the Max,
and this basically means I can record 12 and a half hours of 5.6K 360 video.
That's a lot, and don't do that, nobody's gonna watch it.
So I'll put a link to all my recommended accessories in the description,
including this as well as where you can find the Max for the best price
possible. I'm going to add one more pro and it's the price.
The Max is $500 straight after release and that's a damn good price for such a
good camera. Yes, it's not groundbreaking in terms of 360 cameras,
especially compared to what we already have,
but it has enough really good features to make it a serious contender,
if you're looking for a 360 video camera.
I will be comparing it to the One X in the very near future,
so make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on that.
Maybe I'll even compare it to its other competitors like the GoPro Fusion and
some of the other cameras that I due for release very soon. Now I'm curious,
what do you think of the GoPro Max, yay or nay? Let me know down there. Also,
if you can think of any other pros or cons to add to this list,
be sure to leave them down there too. That's it from Mr Ben.
Let me know if you have any questions, otherwise, it's time I disappear.