GoPro Hero 8 -arvostelu

ACTION CAMERA

GoPro pretty much invented the action-camera market by selling people a tiny, easy-to-use video camera and encouraging them to record their wildest adventures.

Even the name, GoPro Hero, reeked of excitement. It was as if the whole world was waiting for somebody to come up with the idea, and when they did, kaboom!

Katsomaan YouTube and you’ll find GoPro footage of pretty much everything.

No, strike the “pretty much” – if it hasn’t been filmed on a GoPro, it doesn’t exist.

Scuba-divers were among the early adopters. True, the early GoPros weren’t that great as diving cameras; they delivered much better footage above water than they did in the oggin, unless you were prepared to shell out on lights and filters and generally compromise the whole tiny and unobtrusive thing.

However, divers didn’t worry about that and just got on with filming everything they dived, GoPro in one hand and torch in the other.

GoPros were soon almost as common on dive-boats as sääntelyviranomaisten.

Today there are dozens of GoPro rivals on the market at all sorts of prices. A quick Internet search brought up full-HD action cameras selling for a fiver, which is just ridiculous, plenty of GoPro rip-offs complete with 30m dive-housing at anywhere between £25 and £75, serious branded competitors hovering around £200 or so and the diver-developed Paralenz at £465.

Simple question, then. Given such a crowded and varied marketplace, is GoPro still out in front with its latest iteration, the Hero 8?

Vain yksi tapa saada se selville, ja kiitos Davelle Ocean Leisuresta, että hän toimitti minulle näytteen sukellusta varten.

Muotoilu

The GoPro Hero 8 looks impressive as soon as it’s sitting in your hand. It’s small, yet feels surprisingly solid and meaty, built to last, with a soft coating, smooth finish and rounded corners.

Se ei ole kovin painava, vain noin 120 g, ja se putoaa helposti BC-taskuun, mutta se tuntuu vakavalta paketilta. Nouda sellainen kaupasta ja ymmärrät heti, että saat jotain rahoillesi.

The front of the camera features the lens and an information display screen that will tell you basic stuff such as battery life and recording time left.

Virta- ja tilapainike ovat samalla tasolla kameran vasemman puolen kanssa takaa katsottuna, ja suljinpainike on ylälevyn oikealla puolella.

Melkein koko takapinnan vie värinäyttö/etsin. Fyysiset ohjaimet rajoittuvat kahteen painikkeeseen, ja kosketusherkän takanäytön on tarkoitus olla tapa, jolla käyttäjä määrittää ja säätää kameraa.

As supplied, the Hero 8 is claimed to be waterproof, rated to 10m depth, and features a pair of foldable fingers under the base. Folded away, these sit in a shaped recess, so the bottom of the camera is flat and it will stand easily on any surface. Pulled down, they form the near-universal GoPro action-camera mount, and will let you to use the Hero 8 with any GoPro mounts you might have.

Näiden kahden yhdistelmä tekee kamerasta erittäin houkuttelevan monikäyttöiseen käyttöön, veden päällä ja alla, ja tarkoittaa, että et tarvitse ylimääräistä asennuskehystä, kuten muissa kameroissa.

Hero 8:n koko oikea puoli on tiivistetty, vesitiivis ovi, joka vapautuu vetämällä alas sen pohjassa olevasta kielekkeestä ja nostamalla koko paneeli, joka on irrotettava.

Under the door is the battery, micro-SD card slot and a port for charging the battery. GoPro provides the charger cable, which has a standard phone-charger or tietokone-port USB at one end and the appropriate plug to fit the camera at the other, and is as serious a piece of kit as the camera. The camera end isn’t a standard USB, so you’ll need to carry the GoPro cord if you’re travelling.

Lataus kesti hieman yli tunnin tyhjästä, ja kamera tallentaa jatkuvasti noin 100 minuuttia tavallisella akulla ja tiedostot rajoitetaan noin 20 minuuttiin, jotta myöhemmästä muokkauksesta ei aiheudu traumaa.

Vara-akkuja ja erillisiä latureita on saatavilla, ja jos teet useamman kuin yhden sukelluksen päivässä, ne ovat luultavasti kannattavia, mutta tunnin latausajan vuoksi ne eivät suinkaan ole välttämättömiä.

Perustaa

Battery charged, I proceeded to set the camera up ready for use – and ran headlong into the first of the two things about the GoPro I didn’t like.

Olen jo maininnut takakosketusnäytön, joka on ensiluokkainen etsin. Suuri, tarttuva ja värikäs, se on yksinkertaisesti ihana katsella.

Se toimii hyvin myös kosketusnäytönä, koska se on erittäin herkkä ja helppokäyttöinen, mutta se ei ollut intuitiivinen, ja huomasin muuttavan asetuksia, joita en halunnut muuttaa, ja sitten vaikeuksia muuttaa niitä takaisin.

I did get used to it after a few tries but, and this is important, it wouldn’t put me off buying a Hero 8.

Asia on, että kamera tarjoaa valtavan valikoiman asetuksia, joihin pääsee useilla pyyhkäisyillä ja näytön valinnoilla.

Jotkut pyyhkäisyistä ovat ilmeisiä, jotkut paljon vähemmän, ja ne edellyttävät pyyhkäisemistä alas esimerkiksi yläreunasta, mutta kun olet asettanut kameran haluamallasi tavalla, voit tallentaa kaikki säädöt ja soveltaa niitä sitten yhdellä pyyhkäisyllä esiasetettujen tilojen luettelossa.

There are four pre-named selections available, which you can alter to your taste, and you can add additional presets using the custom function if that isn’t enough. Or I could just use the GoPro app and set the camera up from my phone. Duh!

Vedenalainen

Dive-settings made, into the water I went, and immediately came across the only other kysymys I have with the Hero 8, that the control buttons aren’t easy to find without looking for them, and even less easy to press with gloves on.

They’re used to control the camera in the water, changing mode or taking a kuva or starting and stopping video recording, so it’s not as if there’s a workaround.

Sekä tila- että suljinpainikkeet ovat neliömäisiä ja asetettu samalle tasolle kameran sivun tai yläosan kanssa, ja vaikka ne napsauttavat selvästi, kun niitä painetaan, sinun on katsottava nähdäksesi, että sormesi on todella oikeassa paikassa.

Valinnaisen kotelon käyttö auttaa tässä. Kotelon painikkeet ovat vain hieman ylpeitä kotelon pinnoista ja ne on helpompi löytää. Joten se ei myöskään estäisi minua ostamasta Hero 8:aa.

I also made a very unpleasant third discovery. Rated to 10m or not, the Hero 8 I used wasn’t watertight in less than 6m of water.

Vaikka se ei tulvinut tuhoisasti, en harkitse sukeltamista sen kanssa uudelleen ilman koteloa.

Mutta se ei myöskään lannistaisi minua, koska useimmat sukellukset ovat joka tapauksessa syvempiä kuin 10 metrin nimellisarvo, joten käytät koteloa.

Kuvanlaatu

Which brings us to the important part of the review, and the part that trumps touch-screen set-ups, fiddly buttons and questionable waterproofing of the basic camera, and that’s the quality of the files the GoPro produces.

They’re as good as anything any action camera can produce, and better than most. No, they’re not going to equal cameras with much larger sensors, but unless you’re the BBC I’d suggest that won’t matter too much.

Part of this is down to the range of video-file options. Topping the spec sheet is full 4k resolution at 60 frames per second. Another part of it is due to the high bit-rates the camera is capable of dealing with. This allows the camera to apply less compression when the files are recorded, effectively increasing the quality of the final images.

Reducing the resolution to 1920 x 1080, full HD, and setting the bit-rate to high, produced video that was more detailed on-screen than a reference action camera set to the same resolution.

The trade-off was bigger files, of course, but if quality is important to you the Hero 8 is where it’s at for action cameras.

Next up comes the processing software, and GoPro has been developing its own for a long time. In good daylight conditions with the sun behind you, most action cameras will deliver decent results. I have a five-year-old £45 eBay special that produces results almost indistinguishable from the GoPro in ideal conditions. However, as soon as those conditions change, the GoPro blows it away.

Low-light performance from the GoPro is better than the small sensor should allow. Dynamic range, the gradation between light and dark, is very good, and colour is spectacular.

Even on a dull, grey, flat day the GoPro finds colour and impact from somewhere, and as divers those are the conditions in which we work.

The lens GoPro uses also needs a nod. It’s fisheye-wide, actually slightly wider than various other action cameras with the same claimed 170° field of view, and sharp corner to corner, happily delivering images that look good on a large-screen 4k TV.

Voit valita kapeampia katselukulmia, mukaan lukien lineaarinen tila, joka tarjoaa laajan kuvakulman ilman kalansilmätyyppistä vääristymää.

Sitten on Hyper-Smooth tärinänvaimennustila, joka toimii hämmästyttävän hyvin veden alla tai tärinässä maastossa.

Siellä on myös sileyttä tehostava tila, jota voit kokeilla, jos Hyper-Smooth ei leikkaa sitä, vaikka en löytänyt sitä paljon parempana.

The mode works by cropping the full frame to allow software room around the edges to smooth out jitters, but for once the crop is small enough not to be counter-productive under water, where wide-angle lenses that let you get really close are the standard.

Finally, there’s colour balance. Under water, the best action camera I’ve previously used has been the Paralenz, which coped well in both green- and bluewater environments. I wasn’t able to use the GoPro offering in blue water, but the greenwater colour delivery was certainly equal to that of the Paralenz, and better than other action cameras I’ve tested,

GoPro calls its system ProTune colour, and the big files allowed good colour correction in post-production.

Add external lighting or filters and the performance of the GoPro improves. Actually, that’s another spoke in the GoPro wheel, one that comes from the popularity of the cameras, in that there are masses of third-party accessories out there to improve the usability of your camera.

Yhteenveto

So the Hero 8 was clumsy to set up and required a bit of attention to make sure I was pressing the right buttons, but it delivered class-leading images. If I were buying a camera solely for diving, and I was positive that it would be used only under water, I’d compare the GoPro Hero 8 with the Paralenz, then go for the GoPro because it has that rear screen.

If I wanted a use-it-anywhere action camera, I’d go for the Hero 8 – just making darn sure that I housed it before taking it diving.