GoPro Hero3 announced

[Marty Cerven]

I have got my hero 3 black and will be dving a bit with it this weekend and I will take a hero2 out also to compare on some dives. I have been trying it out a bit on land and the image quality is pretty impressive and looks very promising for underwater use. The cam raw white balance will be something I want to test out at depth along with filters and I havent shot much hd2 protune video so there are lots of things I want to test lol.

Going by the h3 black the h2 with protune is still just auto wb the cam raw is a very raw flat image close to a raw photo from a dslr, I have got best results with this but you need to colour grade in post if using that mode otherwise sticking to auto will be best for most people.

I havent checked the battery life too much yet but with the new bat bacpac and wifi on I ran a bunch of tests for over 2 1/2 hrs with some battery left still. Same setup with a timelapse got about 3 1/2 hrs at .5s mode, the old lcd works fine but limits the battery life some more but I didnt do any real full battery runs with the lcd or just camera on its own yet but will do soon.

 

[RockyHeap]

Marty,

THANK YOU.


for all your informative posts and hard work behind the scenes.

dammitall though, where the heck is MY hero3, somewhere In the postal service que I guess..........

 

[toozler]

I got my hands on a Hero3 White and took 720-30fps video, side by side with my Hero2 on the Dive Housing.

It was very disappointing, its not as sharp as the Hero2! Not worth the "upgrade" imho. Is there any mandatory firmware upgrade to be done? The quality was awful.

 

[RockyHeap]

I got my hands on a Hero3 White and took 720-30fps video, side by side with my Hero2 on the Dive Housing.

It was very disappointing, its not as sharp as the Hero2! Not worth the "upgrade" imho. Is there any mandatory firmware upgrade to be done? The quality was awful.

I know the Hero3 Black Edition got a whole new Lens and bigger 12 Meg-pixel CCD detector, but your barebones Hero3 White only has a 5 megpixel vs Hero2's 11 meg pixel, so yes, you have less than 1/2 the resolution...........

How-ever A hero3 in Silver "should" be an equal to a hero2? 11 meg pixel = 11 meg pixel

HERO3 Comparison Chart


So to be fair, you can't compare a Toyota to a Porsche, and say the quality was aweful when you took a step backwards compared to your other Hero2.

 

[toozler]

But even for 720p video, is the whole 11mp sensor used?

 

[Marty Cerven]

I got my hands on a Hero3 White and took 720-30fps video, side by side with my Hero2 on the Dive Housing.

It was very disappointing, its not as sharp as the Hero2! Not worth the "upgrade" imho. Is there any mandatory firmware upgrade to be done? The quality was awful.

The hero3 white is actually a bit of a downgrade from a hero2 sorry to say, it uses the sensor and processor from the original HD hero1 camera. That camera was a little soft in 720p mode compared to the hero2 and if using the same sensor and processor results will most likely be quite similar. The hero3 Silver is an upgraded Hero2 and only the hero3 Black is the all new sensor and processor. Im quite impressed by the quality and I cant wait to see how it looks underwater I just hope the Melbourne weather plays nice and the forecast is quite good but a good day here is like a Bad day at fishrock where my other tests were. I flew over there to get some nice vis at deeper depths but they had the worst 2 days in the month when I was there lol.

On a great day in Melbourne though it can look pretty impressive but those are fairly rare, doing a cool site at least so will see how the HD2 goes against the HD3 Black using a few filters on both.

 

[toozler]

I'm glad I did not buy myself a Hero3White, this is a friends camera. I just didn't expect the "downgrade" in quality to be this noticeable.

 

[DMDavid]

I'm glad I did not buy myself a Hero3White, this is a friends camera. I just didn't expect the "downgrade" in quality to be this noticeable.

If you (Oops! I meant to say your "Friend" ) just bought it, I would return it.

 

[coralgirl]

Any comparation between gopro 2 dive housing plus magic filter flip vs gopro 3 autowhite balance black edition.
I have gopro 2 with dive housing and magic filter flip from backscatter, thinking of selling it to upgrade to gopro3 black edition or should i wait for gopro 4 to upgrade

 

[avigulf]

Dont see the point of releasing Gopro Hero3 white edition at all....