GoPro Hero 5 Black - First Impressions

Picked one up cheap on sale.  Have only had it a couple of days and haven’t had a chance to use it in anger yet.

Spec-wise, the cam is fairly similar to the 2 year old GoPro Hero 4 Black but brings the LCD back as per the Hero 4 Silver.  The video specs are pretty much the same as the 4 Black, but adds electronic image stabilization and a new “linear” mode that eliminates fish-eye.  I am slightly disappointed the stabilization is electronic not optical, but it’s still an improvement.  Stablization does not work in high res video (4K) nor at frame rates above 60fps.  I’ve read elsewhere it is only effective for removal of small shakes.  There is a gimbal grip accessory coming soon that should enable really steady hand-held footage.

Physically the cam body itself is now rugged and waterproof (10m).  This is an interesting choice and I think a good one overall.  It give gopro a bit more latitude to either shrink the cam overall or put more stuff in the same sized package.  It also enables exposure of the microphones (it has 3) for better sound, may open up new mounting possibilities, and presumably means you don’t have use the little anti-fog tabs anymore.  I guess on the downside, you want to be *really* sure you’ve closed the battery and USB hatches properly, or good-bye GoPro if you get it wet.  Also, the camera body has no mounting options.  Instead, it comes with a frame that you insert the cam into and which has a traditional gopro mount set-up on the bottom.  The glass lens cover is apparently replaceable.  The body still has the traditional grey LCD display on the front as well as the new colour back display.  The body doesn’t blow me away in terms of looks, but I guess it’s functional.  The battery is slightly higher capacity and similar but not quite the same form factor.  The body has a USB-C port (yay!) and some tiny HDMI port.

Probably the biggest change is in the software.  GoPro has put a lot of work into streamlining control of the camera, and extracting, producing and sharing footage.  The old combo of power/mode button, shutter button and highlight/mode settings button is gone.  There is now just the shutter button on top and a mode/power/tag combo button on the side.  The mode button can be used to quickly change between video, photo and other modes using the defaults you have set up for each of those modes.  It works well.  It can also be used to change settings in a similar way to older GoPros which may be handy when you can’t use the rear display eg. underwater.  The rear display is quite nice to use.  The screen is not Apple Retina quality, but is bright and clear enough and the touch works reasonably well.  You drag right to show your captured media, left for advanced settings for the current mode, down for connectivity and other settings.  Mode can be changed by tapping the little cam icon on bottom left corner of screen.  It has GPS capability, but it only locates where you took the footage and does not have the ability to track your speed or record your tracks.  Maybe they will add that in firmware later?

There is a series of new apps that are replace the old GoPro app.  The Capture app is more or less the replacement and is used for camera control, firmware updates and downloading recorded footage.  Then there are two editing apps - Quik and Splice, and I haven’t quite worked out the difference.  On my Android phone I only get the choice of Quik.  Splice seems to be only for Apple users.  Anyway, on the short play I’ve had with it, it seems to be useful for doing quick edits and sharing.  There is also a paid cloud service, but from what I’ve read in other reviews it has a few gotchas and I can’t see myself buying it.  I think it is a good move to make editing and sharing on the fly easier.  My old workflow was pretty cumbersome and I look forward to trying this out.

My Smart Remote should work with it, but I haven’t tried that yet.  There is also a new remote that has a single big record button on it but is also voice-enabled.  oh yeah, voice control.  The cam has it built in and you can even select Aus-English - nice!  It seems to work pretty well but I’ve yet to try it while being wind blasted on top of Mt Hotham.  You can use it to stop and start recording, tag highlights (by yelling “that was sick!”), change modes and a few other things.  The vocab is pretty limited - you need to use GoPro’s specified phrases and I hope they expand that in future.

Overall I’m pretty happy with it.  It has a killer feature, too - price.  It’s significantly cheaper than the 4 Black.  I think the effort GoPro has put in on this model has been above my expectations, and while there are some warts it is a very good package overall for the money.

Thanks for the review, @Mudhoney. Good to hear you’re stoked with it. ?

@Mudhoney thank you for this! I was thinking of buying a GoPro as I read a lot of good reviews about it. Currently, I am using the SJ Cam Legend. It’s pretty fine but gotta try something better.

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