Gopro Hero 3 Black Edition

[jperkosk]

Finally got my hands on Gopro Hero 3 Black Edition that I ordered early in December from China in a strange bare-bone package for US$300, and today I got to do a quick comparison. First, two observations:

• Compared to GPH2 the new GPH3 is a bit smaller
• The lens on it, however, is quite a bit bigger

The size difference almost disappears when the camera sits in its waterproof housing, in fact the housing is pretty much identical in height and width, just smaller in depth.




The rundown:

• The lens looks serious enough now and according to GP it's made of 6 fixed elements, so we can expect some improved image quality.
• Wifi is very nice. Normally when you mount Gopro you do some guessing about where it's actually pointing, now you connect the phone and you can preview as well as control the cam.
• The faster processor is nice, but near useless. Who would want to record 4k pixel images @15 fps? The short video clips will start weighing gigabytes...
• 720p@120fps looks promising, IMHO the lens is still best for 720p, and the image size won't be that humongous even at quad frame rate (compared to 30 fps)
• Unfortunately the narrow FOV is still available with 1080p resolution only. It's still a promise with 720p, but the latest firmware doesn't have it, so the official status is still one of vaporware. It's marked with an asterisk on the Gopro specs page: http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero3-black-edition#specs, but they were promising the same thing for Hero 2 at one time and in the end found it easier to disappear the feature from the specs than to deliver on this promise. Still, all hope is not lost yet. All other resolutions shoot exclusively in fisheye mode which bothers me a lot.
• Don't go for stripped-down packages like I did, it doesn't pay. I paid $300 for the camera without anything from the China-man, $25 for a battery, and $45 for the housing from Amazon, because China-man wanted $90 for it. That added up to $370, and left me short of WiFi remote ($80 separately) and an assortment of mounting accessories which I don't miss because I have a bunch of them from Gopro 2, but all of these are included in the $400 retail package.

And below is a nice case I bought for my Gopros:

[Tomstoy2]

Jerry, let me congradulate you on an excellent report.

I'm quite happy with my gh2, for what it does, so when they released the Black I was happy to be satisfied. I'm really leaning toward a Nex whatever when the time comes.
A Nex 5 you can get some really good deals on now.

GoPro is a great camera to risk, any mishap could be the camera's last.
I'll admit though, I'm really impressed with the quality of video I see on boobtube. Couple that with some of the vids I've seen of the new direct motor gimbals, wow!

No matter, fishe-eye sucks!

Did I say it was an excellent report?

[jperkosk]

I thoroughly hate fisheye, and for practical purposes it's only good for shooting things which are literally right next to you, up to about 3m/10'. Anything beyond that looks microscopically small and ridiculously bent out of shape. That's why GoPro has the Field Of View adjustment, which is nothing other than a digital zoom, you just take the pixels from the center of the frame, right? If you do that and drop the resolution at the same time, its a simple image cropping, really, no extra image processing is necessary at all.
The FOV angles on GPH3 are somewhat hidden from the specs, you need to dig a bit all over to find them:

• Ultrawide = 170° = ~12mm in 35mm equivalent
• Medium = 120° = ~17mm in 35mm equivalent
• Narrow = 85° = ~24mm in 35mm equivalent

So even a narrow angle in GoPro terminology is quite wide in terms of traditional photo/videography. Somebody shot the same static scene in all 3 FOV angles with GPH3:


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx4owTGJFzA[/ame]


Furthermore, you can see that there is no difference between shooting at 1080p@170°FOV (1920x1080=2Mpixels) and 720p@85°(1280x720=1Mp), it's just taking half of the pixels from the center of the image, simple image cropping. So why do they stall so much and resist providing adjustable FOV for 720p resolution? Is it just marketing, as the first 2 generations of GPH were just WVGA (Hero) and 720p (Hero HD), so they want to distance themselves from the non-1080p past? No idea


Anyway, now that I have H3 I may look deeper into aftermarket lenses for H2 to permanently convert it into non-fisheye camera...


As far as H3 goes, the incredibly fast processor on the black edition brings 2 new options that I will want to try:

• Shooting 720p@120fps
• Shooting video and photos simultaneously

Will report after more testing is done.

[sutty]

Thanks for the interesting report so far Jerry. I confess that you lost me a little though with your latest post. Am I to understand that fisheye is eliminated simply because it is not at the edges anymore, as the capture is only from the centre of the device, where it less significant? In which case you could record in full resolution, and simply crop your video afterwards, and you would achieve the same results?

Also, am I to conclude that you are as equally disappointed with it as I would be when there is so much distortion? What is there available on the market to post process the fish eye from the video. Intelligent distortion software for want of a better description, and are any of these free because if they aren't my guess is that they will be very expensive, and your report has put me off getting one.

I nearly bought one, without waiting for your report, I had it in my cart, I am glad I didn't press buy now. I didn't because I knew you were going to do this, and thought I won't need one until the weather improves anyway.

Lastly, why are you looking for an after market lens for the GPH2, and not the 3? If that proves to be successful though could I not get a silver, or a GPH2, for very much less, and get the additional lens?

By the way I notice a lot of sport and natural history stuff on the TV. Crops up all the time actually, where they have used a GPH2, you often see them on helmets etc, from the wide shots, and the footage is always dreadfully fish eyed. Even on TV they don't even bother to post process it, and it drives me nuts.

Great report, saved me money I think. Sorry it cost you. Wonder what the alternatives are that don't do this? Rubbish though my Bloggies were, at least they didn't do this.

One last thing, why do you think they think that this is acceptable? Because they sell anyway I guess?

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

Originally Posted by sutty

Am I to understand that fisheye is eliminated simply because it is not at the edges anymore, as the capture is only from the centre of the device, where it less significant? In which case you could record in full resolution, and simply crop your video afterwards, and you would achieve the same results?

Yes and yes. At the very center of a spherical lens there is no distortion. A major PITA for the user to have to do it, though, isn't it? Also, all these pixels being recorded only to be thrown away later saturate the processor slowing down the real-time image processing. That's why Hero 3BE can record 1Mp(720p) @120fps but 2Mp(1080p) only @60fps, half the speed.

Originally Posted by sutty

Also, am I to conclude that you are as equally disappointed with it as I would be when there is so much distortion? What is there available on the market to post process the fish eye from the video. Intelligent distortion software for want of a better description, and are any of these free because if they aren't my guess is that they will be very expensive, and your report has put me off getting one.

Yes again. Not sure what's out there software-wise, used a lot Pinnacle in the old days but the video processing is very processor intensive and time consuming; these days the most I'm willing to do on a PC is trim the clips, splice them together, add some titles and transitions and that's it. Hate the idea of having to do the intensive post-processing just to fix what should be defective coming out of camera.

Originally Posted by sutty

Lastly, why are you looking for an after market lens for the GPH2, and not the 3? If that proves to be successful though could I not get a silver, or a GPH2, for very much less, and get the additional lens?

One main reason: mechanical mounting. H2 has been around for a year and for example this lens has been successfully adapted to it: http://www.optics-online.com/OOL/DSL/DSL377.PDF Don't feel like I have time to start the R&D on replacement lens for H3, but will probably adapt one after others do it.

That's why H2 seems like the best bet at the moment, but there will be some limitations here, mainly lack of high frame rates of H3BE, capability of taking simultaneous vids & pics, but also some other undocumented ones like what happened to me last Friday: H2 was occasionally locking up on record start with newer 32GB SDXC card, had to go back to older trusty 16GB SDHC card. Wager H2 wasn't build with SDXC cards in mind

H3 makes no sense in white or silver, imho. Black has the best sensor and the processor, why even bother considering other 2?

Originally Posted by sutty

One last thing, why do you think they think that this is acceptable? Because they sell anyway I guess?

It's smallest and most robust camera on the market with a very good image quality, period. Very good image quality if you overlook the fisheye distortion, that is. Fisheye has place in photography in some situations, it just bothers me that I can't switch it off at will. Apparently to a large number of people it doesn't matter, though .

Remember it's not the defect of GP's lens, it's an optical distortion inherent to all wide-angle lenses, a result of projecting a spherical object matter onto the flat surface, same as equator-centered Mercator map distorts the hell out of near-pole areas of the earth.

About money saving, I don't know, I'm upset about Gopro's lack of attention to no-fisheye community, but I would have bought it probably anyway. And if my H2 lens conversion goes well in a couple of months I will probably start looking into alternative lens for H3 as well. I just don't see serious alternatives out there, Andy.

[jperkosk]

Update: there was a firmware release for Hero 2. After loading, still no FOV adjustment in resolutions other than 1080p, but at least looks like they addressed the issue of larger/newer SD cards, as my 32GB card works without a glitch now.

No new firmware for Here 3, so I'm back to waiting for the adjustable FOV to appear with 720p on either of the platforms...

BTW, forgot to mention: Gopro has completely changed the way firmware updates are handled for the Hero 3. Hero 2 has always been updated through their CineForm Studio software, Hero 3 doesn't require you to install anything on your PC, all upgrade is done through Java applet executed directly from their website. I think it's an improvement.

[CyprusDave]

Seems like a common problem. I was going to suggest that a Drift HD might be an alternative (a mate of mine got one a while back, and it's a great bit of kit).
http://driftinnovation.com/camera/drift-hd-ghost/

However, digging into the tech specs of even the latest model, Drift HD Ghost, same FOV issue is apparent - 170 degrees at all resolutions, 127 and 90 only at 1080p. Frame rate only up to 30fps in 1080p, and 60fps in 720p. So from that point of view (no pun intended), not much different than the GoPro.

1080p [1920x1080] – 25, 30 fps
960p [1280x960] – 25, 30, 48, 50 fps
720p [1280x720] – 25, 30, 50, 60 fps
WVGA [848x480] – 25, 30, 50, 60, 100, 120
File format: .Mp4 / .Mov (H.264 codec, selectable)
Sensor type: CMOS
Field of view: 170° (1080p, 960p, 720p, WVGA)
Field of view: 127°, 90° (1080p)
11, 8, 5 megapixel Still Photos
Lens focal range: 0.5m to infinity
Lens rotation: 300°
Zoom: x10 (digital)
Exposure: Auto / Manual
LCD Screen: 2.0″ TFT
Waterproof: 3m (9.84ft)

3 things that it does have to recommend it - rotatable lens, built in 2" screen and waterproof to 3m without a housing (housing is available also for greater depths for the scuba divers out there).

Personally, I would buy a Drift before I'd buy a GoPro, but that's just my choice.

Drift HD is about £180 from Amazon UK, HD Ghost is about £300

[copterboy]

Just wanted to add my tuppence about the fish eye and the GoPro camera's in general, and elaborate on a point already made.

These camera's are also used alot as helmet cams for extreme sports. Some sports such as snowboarding and skateboarding actually prefer the fish-eye effect, as it gives the perception of getting in closer to the action. I'm well used to watching it on Skate/Snowboard vids, but even I find it a little un-natural when watching these FPV vids and listening to the debate about it.

I guess it does come down to what you prefer to look at, so not having the option to reduce it is a bit of a downer. Hopefully, something that could be fixed with a firmware update or additional software.

Still a nice review to read if I ever need to come back and look at it. Cheers Jerry, just noticed your GPH3 hat-cam maiden vid on another thread, so going to have a look back at it now (just watched the 550 and 300x first time)

[jperkosk]

To remove fisheye from gopro videos is easy now with their free software, but what about the photos? It took some research, found a open source program called GIMP. These are the results with the lens distortion main setting at -85 and edge setting at +25, the source files are 12Mp wide angle (total fisheye) from my gopro h3+:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k8qrfqyn3j...Small.gif?dl=0

[sutty]

I see no results Jerry? Did you forget to post, or is it at my end?

I use GIMP, but I had no idea it could do that. Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

Something happened with the link, can't fix it from the phone so it'll have to wait until tomorrow

[jperkosk]

I'm not sure what's happening, but it has to do with HF not supporting multilayered gif images; when I upload the image HF saves only the top layer, so I had to use my dropbox instead. If you still can't see the animated gif image above, I posted a link to the file as well. Here is a high definition version if you want to see the original 12Mp images:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rofdiatjuv..._Test.gif?dl=0

P.S.1. You may have to download the image to your PC and open it locally to see the animated version.
P.S.2. Here is the link to an uncompressed native GIMP version of the file, but it's almost 500MB:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1cl5em41ic..._Test.xcf?dl=0

[sutty]

Very impressive Jerry. Cycle time is a little fast on the gif to study the images carefully, but it was fine to flip the layers on and off in GIMP.

Cheers

Sutty