The GoPro
Hero 9
Over the years I have always
been into outdoor adventure, travel, nature and building wooden canoes or boats
of various sizes and types. I am, after all, a geographer and explorer at heart
and recently with the time given to me on retirement, I’ve started writing
articles for various outdoor journals and magazines (both print and online).
Like may outdoor
enthusiasts, I invest carefully in my equipment and so it lasts years. My down
sleeping bag was bought in 1982 and is still going strong today although the
interior is tea stained after an encounter with a gerbil like rodent at Kibo
hut on Mt Kilimanjaro. I’m still not sure who was more surprised, me finding a
rodent in my sleeping bag, or the cute rodent finding me in his warm soft
hiding place. Either way, I was in my bag drinking a cuppa after waking from a
deep ‘post summit success’ sleep and was rather shocked to feel something
crawling up the inside of my thermal long johns! In a rapid exiting of the
mummy style sleeping bag, tea went everywhere. A slight tea stain still remains
on the off-white cotton interior, a reminder of great times. I also possess a
first generation Gortex bivvy bag and a small Trangia stove bought at the same
time as this sleeping bag. They are collectively, my most treasured outdoor
gear possessions (along with the ice axe from my first successful Mt Blanc
summit expedition, a manky old climbing harness from the days when I didn’t
suffer from vertigo and an old swiss army knife – which I literally never leave
the house without).
Which neatly moves us on
to GoPros’.
Who doesn't love n exciting parcel but all that wasted packaging!
Although more recent
acquisitions, these too have become treasured possessions. My original Hero 2,
still going strong, has been on many adventures and scrapes with me. The GoPro
Hero 5 blacks’ have been in environments ranging from tropical rainforests to
mountain summit glacier fields and from African deserts to wonderful coral
reefs. Nowadays, they are mainly put to
work on Arwen or as ‘travel vlog’ recording
cameras.
However, there has been a
recent addition to the camera bag. I’ve finally succumbed and bought a new
GoPro camera; by-passing Hero 6, 7 and 8 and plumbing immediately for the
latest edition, the GoPro Hero 9 Black. It
is early days, I am only just playing about with the buttons, menus, pre-sets
etc but so far, I am impressed.
Over the Christmas
period, I will get out on the mountain bike over Dartmoor, use it onboard Arwen
in Plymouth Sound and use it on our next trip/tour in Bryony, our new motorhome,
to get a better feel for it and I will post my further findings as a post
script on this blog. My cameras are well
looked after but they do get a hammering throughout the year, so the GoPro 9
will be put through its paces!
Firstly, price. I managed
to get a bargain by opting for the GoPro Hero 9 Black package on offer from
GoPro themselves. This was the camera, a year’s GoPro subscription service, a
GoPro handle, battery and spare battery and 32Gb sim card along with some
mounts including a magnetic one. Catching some last-minute heavy discounting on
Cyber Monday, I added to the package the media mod pack and three other
batteries and a two-battery charger unit. In total I saved just over £300 on
the complete set of equipment. Finally, I managed to be in the right place at
the right time. An hour later and all the deals were finished and gone, prices
had returned to their normal retail level.
Battery charger and spare battery
The sound mod kit with external microphone
Anyway, here are the basic spec’s:
·
20 MP with 1/2.3
sensor
·
HyperSmooth
3.0 stabilisation and horizon levelling
·
1720mAh
battery
·
2.27 inch
rear screen with 1.4 inch front screen
·
10m water
resistance
·
4K/60 fps and
5K/30 fps video recording
The pros I have identified so far:
·
Much longer
battery life than my Hero 5’s – GoPro are estimating 100 minutes at 1080p
resolution; much more than the 30 minutes I am getting on my Hero 5 batteries
·
Useful colour
front display that shows either a preview or the actual settings of the
video/photo function in use; makes vlogging and shot composition far easier – a
real winner for me
·
Replaceable
lens covering
·
Flip-out
mount fingers at base which can be folded away to make hand holding the camera
easier
·
Huge rear
screen – much easier to see and use
·
Ability to
create videoing pre-set menus regarding resolution, lens field of view, frame
rate, stabilisation mode etc. allows you to personalise your Gopro.
·
5K/30 video
capture and 20 MP sensor leading to high quality images. Although I haven’t
tested this yet I should be able to crop in further during editing for precise
framing. In the meantime, first impression is that exposures are well judged
and colouring fairly accurate. Footage is detailed.
·
The new sensor
size allows the grabbing of 14.7 MP stills from video footage – a resolution
that is good enough for print as well as the internet
·
HyperSmooth
3.0 boost mode gives very smooth footage given it is a non-gimbaled camera;
very impressive in Linear view when horizon levelling is switched on
·
Timewarp
hyperlapses at several different speeds – a very impressive feature
·
Hindsight and
Liveburst allow the shooting of video and photos before you even press the
shutter button – I know its hard to get your head around that but it works! No
more missed shots of jumping Atlantic Blue Tuna
·
The
subscription that came with the bundle gives unlimited cloud storage, discounts
in the GoPro store and total camera replacement if it gets damaged out on a
shoot. You can also get trade in discounts on older gear for new
·
Larger mode
and shutter buttons – much easier to operate
·
Audio sounds
good and you can record audio RAW track as well
·
Schedule
Capture means I can set up the shot, leave the camera outside, go to bed and
not have to get up to capture the sun-rise next morning. Sounds a brilliant
idea
The cons initially irritating me:
·
Pricey
·
Poor night
time videoing image quality. Footage gets grainy
·
Far larger
camera size and heavier than previous GoPro’s – so can’t use old frames or
waterproof housings
·
Lot’s of empty space around the rear screen
·
Can’t
independently alter the brightness of each individual screen – they are linked
·
The rear
screen interface speed feels laggy compared to the old Hero 5. There are so
many setting choices that you need to be very careful with finger placement.
I’m finding some gestures are ignored on occasions.
·
5K/30
requires use of HEVC codec and so far, I have only shot in 2.7K – so I need to
check that my laptop and editing software can cope with these higher
resolutions.
·
Different
battery size to all other GoPro’s so extra expense again if you have older
models
·
Doesn’t fit
some of the older accessories as well because of the extra size e.g. my head
and back straps, for example, require additional mount pieces for the Hero 9
·
HyperSmooth
3.0 crops in at 25% on the image
·
My camera
seems to overheat. Others are reporting the same issue
Finally, GoPro if you ever happen across tis blog and read this post....'what's with the excessive packaging dudes?"
Sort it out GoPro - there is a climate change crisis you know - get with the sustainability programme please!
