GoPro Hero 5 Black

amazon GoPro Hero 5 Black reviews

New features

Compared to its predecessor, the resolution of videos and images has not changed, but there are some new features offered on GoPro’s 2016 action camera. Feature-by-feature, it’s just a significant upgrade over its predecessor, but overall, the incremental upgrades make the Hero 5 far ahead of the Hero 4 Black. In this part, the author only focuses on the new features of the Hero 5 and the new upgrades on this new version.

Waterproof: Perhaps this is the most obvious difference compared to the Hero 4, the Hero 5 is completely waterproof (like the Hero 4 Session) without the need for a transparent case like the Hero 4 black/silver. The overall cover of the camera is a thin layer of rubber to limit the phenomenon of scratching and breaking the plastic shell like the previous version.

With fully waterproof, this camera can dive up to 10 meters without any worries. If you want to dive deeper, you should buy a dedicated case for this Super Suite product, with this use case, the camera can dive up to 60 meters deep.

Another interesting thing is that the front glass of the camera is replaceable. This means that in case you scratch the front glass, you can replace the glass and the camera will still be waterproof but now only 3 meters. Thanks to that, you will not have to worry about collisions as much as before. But in fact, disassembling this glass is not easy. If the camera hadn’t hit hard at high speed, crashed into a rock, or whatever, the glass wouldn’t have been a serious concern.

I think we should care more about USB-C/HDMI expansion ports. The camera’s flip-open lid can be removed when we attach the camera to a Gymbal or a Drone plan, or more often, to charge it.

But we also don’t have to worry about this cover easily falling off during charging. GoPro also retails this cap as an accessory (it’s a bit pricey), but it’s worth buying an extra one for backup in any case. The author also once lost this cap, making it impossible for him to take pictures of a hot bikini girl underwater, he regretted this and bought one as a backup.

Continuing the story of the lids, in addition to the cover for the expansion ports above, we also have an engraved lid, where the battery and mico-SD memory card are stored.

Touch screen:

This is also an upgrade compared to the previous version, the Hero 5 has inherited the touch screen on the Hero 4 Silver and upgraded it a bit, the Hero 4 Black does not have a touch screen design available on the camera, but must purchase a separate touch screen. It is because of this screen that the Hero 4 silver is preferred over the Hero 4 Black.

The touch screen on the Hero 5 gives users a completely different experience than on the Hero 4 Silver. The menu display is intelligently designed, providing very intuitive operation and very easy-to-monitor parameters. For example, in video mode, the screen will show the resolution and Frame Rate.

Users only need to touch to change the parameters. In theory, this display makes the screen look more beautiful and convenient, but, in practice, this display makes viewing the screen very entangled. Probably because these numbers are arranged so close together on the screen that it is quite difficult to hit the desired parameter.

On the right side of the screen, you can toggle a lot of extra features like ProTune, Image Stabilization, and Audio Control.

In addition, the author also added a video to explain the functions of Wifi connection, voice control, and image viewing modes on this display.

GoPro HERO5 IN-DEPTH! Hands-on!

It is a pity that this touch screen does not work when underwater, or even if there is water on the screen, your hands are wet, it does not work properly, so if you want to switch modes, We will have to use the button on the top of the camera to adjust the modes. There are 2 physical buttons on the Hero 5, the button at the top is used to turn video recording on and off (or if pressed and held for a while, the camera will immediately record video), and a button on the side, Used to set modes and create highlight tags while recording video.

The Hero 5’s screen sounds fine in theory, but in reality, to be fine during use, it needs some tweaking. What probably needs to be adjusted is that the layout of the parameters on the screen is quite close together and the mode switch on the screen is sometimes quite laggy.

Voice Control:

GoPro also brings a Voice Control feature to this Hero 5. Users only need to use the command to command it to work. Users can use it to toggle video recordings, take photos, change modes, or even highlight a few sentences without touching the screen. It sounds good and interesting.

Users can turn this feature on and off and it supports up to 7 languages. If the user uses the Remo remote control, the user can speak directly into this Remo, no need to speak directly into the camera.

But, it sounds great, but the feature is still not very good. For the most part, this feature only works when the user is stationary. But when the user starts scrolling, the feature becomes less accurate. At 16km/h this feature is almost dead.

In return, GoPro has a lot of commands for this feature, in addition, users can also add their commands if they want.

Sensors and GPS:

The Hero 5 Black has GPS support. But it seems GPS is pretty much useless on this device. Rarely does it self-address on photos and videos. It just does things like announce where you are when you take these pictures. It doesn’t even track your journey or tell you how fast you’re moving. Its only ability is to notify you where your photo or video was recorded.

This frustrates most people, especially those who want to tag their videos or clips where they are, what they’re doing, what speed they’re going at, and so on. Finally, GoPro brings an application called Dashware, an application that helps put the above parameters into your clips. The GPS display icon is in the upper left corner of the screen.

GoPro announced that 3rd party manufacturers may be able to interfere with this feature. Personally, this is quite ridiculous for a camera company that has always been a leader in the action camera segment like GoPro.

System equalization, stabilization, RAW photo, and Advanced Audio Track:

I grouped seemingly unrelated items not because they fit together, but because I wanted to go deeper into their analysis. In addition, these features are not available on Hero 5 Session but only on Hero 5 Black.

This capability allows the user to record a second file on the GoPro, or even allows the user to store 3 audio files at a time (one for each built-in microphone). This is impressive for video editing when users want to be sure which microphone captures the best sound quality. By default, these microphones will automatically switch back and forth, to minimize noise from wind and other agents, and this feature is really good. There is still an error between switching microphones sometimes, but it can also be adjusted manually.

In addition, Hero 5 also supports RAW photography and a new shooting mode that is WDR (Wide Dynamic Range), this mode helps to increase the contrast of light and dark of the image. It is quite similar to the HDR feature. But actually, this feature works very well on GoPro.

We’ll go into more detail on what these new features have to offer.

Video and audio quality details:

Talking about GoPro, it is impossible not to mention video quality, and we will dig deeper into camera quality. Overall, the video modes on this Hero 5 are the same as on the Hero 4 Black, it also has 4K video recording at 30FPS, and 720p at 240FPS.

We can leave the above parameters aside, and start to analyze the more noticeable differences. The first is video stabilization. Theoretically an “electronic image stabilization system”, works by taking pictures with a higher resolution than the video resolution and then making the video smoother by reducing the image resolution down. In essence, anti-shake is cutting off the outer edge of the image and stitching it into the video, making the video smoother.

To turn on the anti-shake feature on Hero 5, simply swipe from the right, and it will also warn users that 10% of the overview view of the video will be cut off.

To see the anti-vibration function on this device, the author made a video about cycling along the mountainside with 2 cameras, 1 on and 1 off with the anti-shake function to give the most overview quality of this feature.

This anti-vibration feature is really useful in cases of recording while driving on the road, or recording when holding the camera in hand and walking. But this will be a trade-off between video stability and resolution. Video recording with anti-shake will give better results than taking pictures in that case.

The next plus point is that the Hero 5 Black supports better recording. It has 3 microphones, so it allows recording from 3 directions of the camera. The use of these 3 microphones is to reduce noise from the wind when you are traveling at high speed. The author gives an example of this when he moves at high speed, the Hero 5 Black will automatically remove the sound from the microphone facing the wind, and will sound from the remaining microphones, the sound obtained is very stable and clear.

What’s even more interesting is that when you activate ProTune, you can record audio from all 3 videos at once, and save them to 3 different files. With this feature, you can store audio in 3 modes, Low/Medium/High.

As a result, after activating this feature at a Low level, users will receive audio with each separate microphone and accompanying video. This feature allows adjusting the video more diverse. If users are not interested in this feature, they can turn it off and continue with the default feature on GoPro.

In addition to adjusting the audio, ProTune also allows users to adjust the color, shutter speed, white balance, as well as detail of the video.

Increasing the battery capacity on the Hero 5 allows for longer video recording, with 4k resolution, the manufacturer claims that it can record continuously for about 1 hour. But in fact, the author has tested roasting, it can last about 1 hour 31 minutes.

where can you get a GoPro Hero 5 Black online

GoPro Hero5 Black — Waterproof Digital Action Camera for Travel with Touch Screen 4K HD Video 12MP Photos: Buy it now

GoPro Hero5 Black (E-Commerce Packaging): Buy it now

GoPro HERO5 Black Waterproof Digital Action Camera Power Bundle (with Extra Battery): Buy it now

Here are the detailed periods for each video resolution:

1080p 30 FPS (Wide): 2:07:41 (no Wifi/GPS), 1:50:52 (Wifi/GPS enabled)

2.7K 30 FPS (Wide): 1:45:05 (Wifi enabled).

4K 30 FPS (Wide): 1:31:10 (Wifi enabled).

All were filmed at room temperature, so any other changes in travel or temperature changes will not be taken into account. But other factors will not affect much compared to the parameters measured above.

Capture mode:

Compared to the Hero 4 Black, the Hero 5 Black doesn’t give a higher resolution image, but it does deliver impressive focus.

In addition, it brings some other shooting modes, including Burst Mode, taking multiple photos at once, or taking photos at night. TimeLapse photography mode is different from TimeLapse movie mode, timelapse photography mode produces a series of contiguous images, and timelapse video produces a timelapse video file.

In each shooting mode, you can change the resolution, and viewing angle. The default resolution is set at 12MP, and the viewing angle has options such as Wide, Linear, Medium, and Narrow. The Linear video option is the most notable. This option is intended to reduce the fisheye effect on most dash cams.

Burst mode allows photographers to capture the action at 30 frames per second. Users can change Burst speed very easily by selecting on screen.

This 30-frame photography mode produces quite good images. The author has not yet figured out what people will use these photos for. But there will be other sophisticated users who will use this shooting mode more perfectly.

Next is the WDR shooting mode, Wide Dynamic Range. This mode is quite similar to the HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode, which allows increasing the contrast in the dark, to make the photo more beautiful (in fact, GoPro also allows HDR mode to be activated when people are using RAW shooting mode enabled). With WDR shooting mode, GoPro makes the photo very balanced and eye-catching than the normal mode.

The most notable shooting mode is RAW image mode, which is similar to that on DSLR cameras, allowing users to post-process to get more details with professional photo editing applications.

When the RAW shooting mode is enabled (of course, WDR shooting mode will be disabled, and this RAW shooting mode will only work in Wide view), you will have a . GPR image file with 1 . JPG image file as usual. These files will be visible when plugged into the computer.

These extensive file formats will make photo editing very convenient, with high detail and accuracy.

Note that RAW shooting mode, unlike ProTune, allows users to adjust light balance and shutter speed directly on the camera. This mode is very handy for those who don’t want to spend a lot of time on post-production work.

Overall, the Hero 5 produces much better video photos than its predecessor. And the WDR and RAW shooting modes produce very high image detail quality, suitable for a wide range of users, from those who want to improve their image post-processing capabilities to those who want to have a perfect image. The photo looks good from the first shot.

GoPro Apps:

Currently, GoPro has 4 applications that directly support the use of the camera, which are: Capture, Quik (Mobile), Splice, and Quick (Desktop). There’s the GoPro Studio app for those who want to tinker with the old-fashioned way.

How these apps help us:

Capture: This is the old GoPro App, just people renamed it. From here we will change the settings on the camera from the phone and also the place to download photos and videos from the camera to the phone.

Quik (Mobile): This application is used to edit photos that have been pre-downloaded to the phone. This application cannot connect directly to the camera.

Splice: this app is also used to edit the music already downloaded to your phone, it’s almost like the iMovie app. It also doesn’t connect directly to your camera.

Quik (desktop): This is an application installed on the computer used to adjust photos, as well as to download images to the computer. It can also be used to upload photos to GoPro Plus (a form of cloud computing), as well as to update the camera’s firmware. It can also be used to download photos from GoPro Plus.

We’ll go through each app one by one to see how it works, starting with the one we’ll probably use the most. The Capture App, also known as the GoPro App. If you are familiar with the GoPro App, this new Capture app is just a slight UI change in terms of the logo and app name. This is where you can edit the camera parameters in movie shooting modes, in addition, you can also preview the scene being recorded.

Adjusting the parameters on the camera becomes very easy with just a few touches, you can set the desired specifications without using the remote control.

In addition, you can also download photos from the camera directly to your phone, by connecting directly to the camera via WIFI.

Overall, the application works very smoothly. Unfortunately, now you can’t rename your camera anymore, you will get an ugly name like the above.

Next, we will talk about the Quik (Mobile) application. This application is designed to edit videos and photos. It is also used to add music to videos. This application can source images from the cloud or images downloaded to the internal memory of the device, but ironically, it cannot pull directly from the camera. The application works quite well, but I find it a bit tedious to use this application.

Next is the Splice app (Mobile). This application was introduced by GoPro in early 2016, it is quite similar to the Quik application, but it offers more options for video editing than Quik offers. Unlike Quik, this app cannot connect to GoPro Cloud. The author feels that this application does not seem like an official product of GoPro but is just a product of a 3rd party manufacturer, in addition, this application often crashes constantly when the author edits video.

Finally, we will talk about the Quik desktop application. This app is quite similar to Quik Mobile except it has more features. As soon as you plug in the camera, you can check the device’s Firmware version and can download images from the camera to start editing.

In addition, this computer version also allows uploading photos to GoPro Cloud, while Quik mobile does not. In theory, you should see photos uploaded as soon as you connect the camera to your computer if you select the feature below. However, the author does not see that happening unless the images are downloaded to the computer.

You also get direct access to the GoPro Plus cloud using this app. When a photo has a small cloud icon at the bottom, it means the photo has been synced to the cloud.

Once you’ve selected what you want to edit, you can select it and start editing. Note that you cannot select a clip directly from the Cloud unless the clip is available on the device’s memory.

In the end, you will have your video displayed on the screen, and you will select the points that you find interesting. This program will automatically cut and adjust to fit the music. The app works pretty well and it makes music editing easier than manually cutting and pasting each video.

With the desktop version like this, you will pay more attention to creating a clip with a fixed length of time (the author usually sets it to 1 minute). After editing you can share your clip on any medium.

In the author’s personal opinion, these applications need to be upgraded and edited a lot, otherwise, video editing will be very boring.

GoPro Plus Cloud:

Indeed GoPro Plus is the most annoying cloud platform for users. Introduced at the same time as the Hero 5, but it did not bring any sympathy from users. It’s really bad.

I will explain what GoPro wants to do, and also analyze why it turned out to be so bad. First, the idea that GoPro wants to bring is the GoPro Plus cloud system (it costs $ 5 per month to maintain the service) that is syncing data from your Hero 5 to the cloud over wifi. From there you can edit that content anywhere without having to plug the camera directly into it. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Initially, the camera was completely offline. Then you have to connect it to a Wifi network.

How to sync, when the start button is not found. You have to plug in your camera and wait until it’s fully charged, then it will start syncing your library. It doesn’t mean that it will upload all of your data correctly, but it will upload a smaller resolution version. It sounds quite reasonable because uploading heavy data will take a lot of time. When it finishes syncing the data, you’ll find it on GoPro’s website, where you’re logged in.

So the data is on the Cloud, can we start editing them online?

It’s not.

If you want to edit this content, you must download it back to the device you use to edit it again. In addition, the content editing program on Splice phones cannot connect to the cloud but must use the Capture program (the new name of the GoPro App application, which no one in this world can explain. the fact that GoPro changed the name of an application that was too familiar to customers, to a name brought back somewhere).

Again and again, it’s the same crappy app that you used to upload data to the cloud, again you use it to download data. Unbelievable.

Back to our work, with the Capture application, users will select the content to download to the device. Once it’s downloaded, you’ll have the privilege to use other apps, like Quik or Splice, to edit them. Oh, starting from here we can edit.

Another funny thing is that, after providing such a service, GoPro also released a Quik adapter for $19, which makes paying $5 per month for GoPro Plus pretty pointless. However, GoPro Plus is well worth using.