The GoPro Hero8 Black is Mac Play’s first review of a hardware product in the sports camera/drone space. In fact, I’ve always wanted to do content in this area, and in the future we’ll be expanding our review of these smart and innovative consumer products to bring you more new and interesting experiences with products outside of the Apple ecosystem.
This year’s Double 11 saw the GoPro Hero8 Black, which has been a perennial favourite in the sports camera world, added to the shopping cart in advance.
I’m planning to do several more reviews of the GoPro Hero8 Black. This article is just an initial one, and I’m planning to write at least two more articles on the core features and the GoPro app on the iOS platform.
Shape and size
The dimensions of the device are 66.3mm – 48.6mm – 28.4mm in length and width respectively, with a non-slip rubberised front and back body and metal surround. On the left side is the ancestral parametric display, which shows the shooting mode parameters, battery status, storage status (volume of video remaining to be shot) and other information when not in operation.
The body, unaccompanied by fixed accessories, feels great to hold in bare hands, clearer than your everyday smartphone, and even without the support of a shooting accessory such as a grip, you can still get a smooth picture with HyperSmooth electronic anti-shake technology.
On the back is a 2″ touchscreen display that covers the entire reverse area. The design feels in line with UX interaction ideas for this size, and the feedback on the controls is not very responsive, a bit like an Android screen. The official kit comes with fixing bolts to attach the device to a variety of handheld, head, chest strap and suction cup mounts, and it supports shooting accessories that were designed for older devices in the past.
Looking at the back, the left button is the integrated on/off and mode selector button, and the top button is the shooting/photography button. I was not impressed with these two buttons on the GoPro, they are not easy to press and must be pressed downwards with force to control the machine. This is to prevent the user from accidentally not touching the on button when the machine is stationary, which may cause unnecessary power loss, or not pressing it during the shooting process, which may result in not recording good images in time.
In less than 10 minutes of use, the machine was already heating up badly, which is the legendary ancestral heat!
HERO8 and GR2 camera, Apple Watch 3 42mm together with the size of the comparison effect, you can feel that this sports camera is very small, in fact, the Ricoh GR2 camera size has reached the limit of the pocket camera, but in front of Hero8, it still looks a little “clumsy The camera’s size is already at the limit of pocket cameras, but it still looks a bit “clumsy” in front of the Hero8.
Interfaces and battery life
The new model also simplifies the interface design considerably, removing the mini HDMI port from the previous unit and moving the USB-C port and micro SD card slot (64GB and 128GB cards are available in the official shop, 128GB recommended) to the battery compartment.
Only one original 1220mAh battery is provided in the official package, the battery is fully charged, direct charging is fast and feels like it will fill up quickly, it should take no more than 40 minutes, I haven’t calculated the exact time, using USB-C to charge the USB device is rather long, it takes about an hour to an hour and a half, continuous video shooting for about 1 hour will drain all the power, so when you are outdoors So when you’re doing continuous shooting, in a heavy workload scenario, it’s advisable to have 2 or more batteries with an officially designed charging case which can charge both batteries at the same time.
The Hero8’s battery hatch can be opened at nearly 90 degrees and is also removable. When the hatch is removed, many types of special kits can be attached, which can be converted to mini HDMI or 3.5mm audio via the USB-C connector on the body. I haven’t tried it yet.
The Mount on the Hero8 is designed to be folded on the camera body. Previous versions of the 7 or older were attached to a protective case, so when replacing accessories you needed to remove them from the case. The foldable mount has a damped feel when folded and extended.
Shooting views
HERO8 offers four shooting angles: superview, wide, line (also known as linear, which removes the distortion effect from wide) and narrow, each with a different focal length setting.
SuperView, 16mm equivalent focal length.
The SuperView supports up to 4K/30fps, and the frame rate is exceeded or the 4K 4:3 mode is selected. SuperView automatically hides when the frame rate is exceeded or 4K 4:3 mode is selected.
Wide angle shooting, 16mm-34mm equivalent focal length.
Linear angle shooting, 19mm-39mm equivalent focal lengths, 4K support now.
Normal view (Hero8 added view), 27mm equivalent focal length.
Core technology
This update brings HyperSmooth electronic stabilisation, TimeWrap motion delay and HDR algorithms to the Hero8, and although it doesn’t update the image processor or offer higher frame rates such as 4K-120fps and 1080p-480fps, the resulting video is sharp enough for everyday use. The official video profiles are available by default.
There are four official video profiles by default, which are
Standard: 1080p resolution at 60fps
Active: 2.7K resolution at 60fps
Slow motion: 2.7K resolution at 120 fps
Video: 4K resolution at 30fps
You can create a new profile to suit your needs on the touch screen.
About HyperSmooth
HyperSmooth is a new level of electronic image stabilisation (EIS) from GoPro on the HERO7 Black. With the GP1 chip and 2GB of memory, it allows the camera to capture stabilised video that is comparable to shake-free video with a gimbal.
With this update HyperSmooth 2.0 is now finally available at all resolutions and frame rates, with the addition of two levels, High and Enhanced, in addition to the traditional on and off. The “high” level has the same view as normal mode, cropping off 10% of the wide field of view, while the enhanced level will use a more intensive image crop, but unfortunately enhanced stabilisation doesn’t support superview view.
