GoPro Hero 8 and 360 max

F

firehawk

Veteran
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explor...ck-the-360-degree-max-the-latest-and-greatest

Looks neat. $399 and $499
Wonder if some of the previous issues have been fixed.

Take panoramic photos and videos without actually panning your camera GoPro MAX 360 Action Camera. Using opposite side lenses, the MAX can capture everything that happens in a 360° view in up to 4992 x 2496 resolution video and 5760 x 2880 still photos. Both photos and video are automatically stitched in the camera for editing flexibility and easy sharing. It can also use only one lens to capture traditional GoPro HERO-style wide-angle action footage when needed.

The MAX supports multiple modes for creative video and photos, such as PowerPano mode which can take 270° still photos without distortion. TimeWarp mode allows you to record in standard HERO mode with a variable speed function; you can slow down then speed up your footage in real time with one tap. The MAX supports the HEVC video format which records very small files while preserving image quality, saving you precious space on your SD card.

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Hero 8 Black
-Up to UHD 4K Video, Slow Motion
-HyperSmooth 2.0 Video Stabilization
-TimeWarp 2.0 Stabilized Time-Lapse Video
-SuperPhoto 12MP Stills with HDR Support
 
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I have to say, as a pretty big Go Pro users (we ran 10-12 Go Pros per race last year for our Docu Series), this is a yawn. I'm still frustrated as hell with my Hero 7. All Go Pro copy says that
the Hero 7 "uses the same accessories as the Hero 5 and 6". BS! We have half a dozen of the Refuel 6 hour battery cases that the Hero 5 and 6 work great with but mysteriously, when we
try to use them with the Hero 7, the Hero 7 shuts off immediately. Meaning that all we can get is the 32-35 minutes of recording with the Hero 7 internal battery, which for many racing uses, makes it useless.
Same with car racing, often the car needs to leave the pits and sit at staging and the start line for considerable time before the race even begins. This essentially means that the Hero 7 and I am going to assume
the Hero 8 are close to useless for documenting many kinds of professional racing? I assume that the Hero 8, because they redesigned the housing, will not work with the Refuel extended battery cases either?

Our racers leave the harbor and paddle out to a start line that is usually a few miles off shore. It usually takes 40-45 minutes to just get to the start line. So the Hero 7 has been a huge dud for us.
It eats batteries, the latest Go Pro app only seems to communicate with the Hero 7 about 60% of the time, the new menu navigation is lame and tedious compared to the older Heros. The Hypersmooth is great
and the recordings, when I can get the Hero 7 to actually work, are good looking, better, still terrible in low light of course, but all action cameras suck in low light. As soon as there are extended use
batteries avaialble for the DJI Action, we are dumping Go Pro.

I have to say, the case with Action cameras is the same as with digital cinema cameras, the manufacturers ignore the basic use case and keep piling on clever, cute features that few care about and ignore
the issues that really matter for users like how to shoot action sports for 2-4 hours stretches, how to make the images look at least usable when shooting in low light, how to make the apps simpler, less cluttered
and more reliable, etc. Some races we shot last years, with ten Go Pros out on boats, we had 60-80% failure rates. Go Pro shut down, Go Pro stopped recording, recording corrupted, Go Pro really couldn't make
a 100% recommendation on micro SD cards that are bulletproof guaranteed to actually work so you have to buy four or five brands and run your own tests and even then, ones that worked in testing would end
up not working under race conditions. Fogged up lenses and housings even though we used every anti-fog solution known to man, etc.

Action cameras are basically a way to stress yourself out to unimaginable heights, especially when used in professional applications because they simply suck. It's been re-iterated that most of us would gladly pay
three or four times the price if there was an action camera that mitigated all of these problems. It's not practical to use a mirrorless camera in a housing for many sports action situations so we are stuck with consumer,
unreliable, unfriendly solutions because nother Go Pro, DJI or Sony are going to biuld a professional action camera that solves all of the problems that retails for $1,200.00, the market is too small.
 
After one of the marketed features of the Hero HD took a year to make it to my camera, I said never again. For a while everyone was making cameras, now the herd is thin, but I still will not go back to GoPro.
 
Greg_E said:
After one of the marketed features of the Hero HD took a year to make it to my camera, I said never again. For a while everyone was making cameras, now the herd is thin, but I still will not go back to GoPro.
Click to expand...

The DJI looks ok to me. Not that DJI either is the paradigm of rock solid reliability. But Go Pro, ughh....so hard to use, such a PITA sometimes and without more than 35 minutes of recording, pretty useless for a lot of users.
Hope someone is coming out with BIG batteries for the DJI and that the DJIs don't freak out when asked to record for 2-4 hours straight like the Go Pros often do. We had one Hero 5 that recorded 4K 30p for 4.5 hours, worked
perfectly, no glitches, shut down or overheating. But the Hero 6 next to it stopped recording after 2 hours, same battery, card, raster and frame rate. It's like a craps shoot.
 
Yeah I know what you mean puredrifting. We've talked about this before. I have about 8 Sony action cams and one Hero 5 black. I would pay $1200 for a good action cam as you would but no one will build one. The consumer market for action cams is largely young people and to them even a $399 camera is very expensive as I've heard many reviewers exclaim. Whereas those of us that have been in video for a couple decades or more grew up around $100k cameras so our view is different as are our needs (reliability, long recording times etc).
Action cams have such potential but are frustrating due to all the limitations, compromises, problems etc.

It's been a while since Sony brought out a new one. Maybe the next action cam will be better. Hopefully they haven't abandoned the market.
 
You have to start looking at things like the Z Cam E2C in a housing, but it's a little big. I've done 2 hours with cheap cameras like the Mobius before, but they do get HOT and I had it shut down one time sitting in a window. The internal battery is only good for about 2 hours, but it can be powered from an external USB power source. Just not sure that something like the new Mobius Maxi is what people are looking for. Some third party companies have made water proof housings for some of the camera, but not anything with a big battery attached. And these max out at 1080/60p which might be an issue for a lot of people. The JVC Adixxion cameras were actually pretty good, I've often run mine for the complete battery, but again only about 2 hours per battery (full size SDXC cards which is nice). Image was decent the last time I used them, and haven't used them much in a few years. The version 1 went to 1080/30 and I can't remember what the version 2 would do.

The Panasonic cameras always had poor video, it was always soft. Never did buy the 4k version and probably never will. Too bulky and expensive for the image quality.
 
Greg_E said:
You have to start looking at things like the Z Cam E2C in a housing, but it's a little big. I've done 2 hours with cheap cameras like the Mobius before, but they do get HOT and I had it shut down one time sitting in a window. The internal battery is only good for about 2 hours, but it can be powered from an external USB power source. Just not sure that something like the new Mobius Maxi is what people are looking for. Some third party companies have made water proof housings for some of the camera, but not anything with a big battery attached. And these max out at 1080/60p which might be an issue for a lot of people. The JVC Adixxion cameras were actually pretty good, I've often run mine for the complete battery, but again only about 2 hours per battery (full size SDXC cards which is nice). Image was decent the last time I used them, and haven't used them much in a few years. The version 1 went to 1080/30 and I can't remember what the version 2 would do.

The Panasonic cameras always had poor video, it was always soft. Never did buy the 4k version and probably never will. Too bulky and expensive for the image quality.
Click to expand...

I've thought that buying an E2C would be a fun camera with low cost to fool around with, not necessarily as an action camera though. The E2C body with a lens and a big enough battery would be pretty large and heavy and then you are into gripology to mount it. If you have Grand Tour kind of budgets, no worries, but on low budgets, that's why we use Go pros, they are super easy to mount and clamp and tape to places. On our ocean going racing canoes that are 44' long and weight 500lbs, there is an outrigger (Ama) that is supported by two arms (Iaku).

After a few months of experimentation, we finally ended up going with Velcro heavy duty strut mounts that are designed to mount Go Pros onto light aircraft, all of those shots you see of Cessnas and the like. We wrap the Velcro around the Iaku, which can be different diameter and shape, depending on the canoe and then into that clip shoe, we clip a RAM mount arm extension that the Go Pro rides on. This allows us to level and frame up the shots how we want, the mounts and Go Pros are rugged, even in crashing waves and they are small enough to stay out of the way. We coverd about a dozen races so far with about 10-12 Go Pros per race and we have never yet lost a camera, although they have overheated and shut down plenty of times. There is a lot of jarring and vibration transmitted from the Ama to the boat via the Iaku though and we will have to edit around some of the bad vibrations. That's the thing, we are kind of held hostage now to the Hero 5s and 6s because they are the only models that work with the Refuel six hour batteries. To my knowledge, there are no six hour, waterproof battery systems that work with the Hero 7, Hero 8, DJI Action or the Sonys. Until someone comes out with one, I am still picking up used and closeout Hero 6s because they are the only ones that can work for our situation.

NAC Practice 1.jpg
 
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P-D: My gopro 7 black works just fine with the Refuel long life battery, especially if you fire everything up with no battery in the camera.
 
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