I’m a GoPro user since last 2.5 years, I started my journey from Hero3 and then used Hero 3+ Silver Edition for almost 2 years. Along with tech blogger, I also write for travel especially the adventure so I always carry GoPro cameras with me.
After 2 years of extensive use, I decided to buy a new GoPro camera. GoPro recently launched GoPro Hero5 Black in India and I immediately get one for myself. Here is my GoPro Hero5 Black review after 2 months of use.
Pros of GoPro Hero5 Black
- New Improved & Power Efficient Processor
- Rugged & Waterproof out of box, no housing needed
- Improved Audio with wind reduction & stereo mode
- RAW Support
- WDR Support
- 2-inch Touch Display
- 1080p @ 120 fps, great for smooth slo-mo
- Manual Exposure lock
Cons of GoPro Hero5 Black
- Voice action is still very limited and do not support many accents
- No 60fps support for 4K
- GoPro Studio for PC still sucks when it comes to editing videos
GoPro Hero5 Black is next gen Action camera which is both rugged & Waterproof out of box up to 33ft it means you no longer need external housing to take it underwater. It also comes with 2-inch Touch Display to frame your shot better and hands-free voice control to control your camera.
GoPro Hero5 Black Review in Hindi
Design
GoPro completely changed the design of the camera, it no longer carrying the old silver metallic square design. It’s got black coating with 2-inch Touch Display and simple 1-button control.
The mode button from the front side is gone, now on the front side of the camera, it has a small screen and camera lens. The power button is on the right-hand side.
HDMI port and USB Type-C charging port are on the left-hand side, you’ve removed the door to access the port.
The Battery & MicroSD card is at the bottom.
The Power button is on the top hand side.
In previous GoPro cameras, we always have to use the housing to make it rugged & waterproof but from this, we’ve to sacrifice the audio. GoPro Hero5 Black is Durable by design. The camera is waterproof to 33ft without the use of any housing. GoPro also added three mics to record stereo audio.
Despite the new Design, the Hero5 is compatible with all old mounts. It comes with a metal frame which you can use it to mount on any accessories.
For scuba divers, GoPro also comes with up new accessory called Super Suit to take the Hero5 beyond the 33ft limit.
Display & Software
GoPro Hero5 Black comes with 2-inch Touch Display so that user can frame the shot, change the settings & review the footage right from the camera. The user no longer needs to connect the camera to phone to do all the work.
Touch Display has its own advantage but it also some limitations. Touch Display makes the camera vulnerable, the display can easily crack on the tough fall. Through You can use the screen protector & also the outer frame add a little protection to the display.
Touch screen sensitivity is not that great if we compare it with a modern smartphone and also touch screen stopped working when it becomes wet. Though you can change the camera modes with the power button.
GoPro also simplified the User Interface of the camera, now it’s much more simpler and straight forward. Most of the camera functions are right on the screen. With a just tap, you can change the camera modes, fps and POV. You can also view the footage or change the camera preference or turn ON the Advance settings for the camera.
Hero5 Black also voice control with support for 7 languages, through Indian accent is not supportable so only a few commands work. Apart from this, Hero5 also comes with GPS and Electronic Video Stabilization.
Videos & Photos
The Hero5 Black comes with 12MP Camera which can record 4K @ 30 fps, 1440p @ 80 fps and 1080p @ 120 fps. The lens & image quality has almost resembled to Hero 4 but it’s few additional features which take the footage quality to next level.
First, it comes with Electronic Image Stabilization, it’s not a huge improvement as compared to external gimbal or OIS but it’s still a huge deal. And when the vibration is not huge, you can clearly see the difference. During my entire Thailand trip, I kept the Stabilization ON. Through the stabilization is not available when shooting at 4K.
Next big thing in video department is that you can record Full HD video @ 120 fps, this is a great addition if you want butter smooth slow motion video. Though I’ll not recommend you to shoot @ 120 fps in low light conditions, the picture will come very dark & grainy. For low light condition, 60 fps with Low Light Enable or 30 fps is the best settings. The Auto Low light setting will improve the video quality in low light condition. Despite the low light setting, GoPro struggle with video quality in dark condition.
GoPro is not just for Videos, it’s also very popular for its Photos. GoPro Hero5 Black gets three new photo-specific features: RAW, WDR and Linear mode.
With recent 2.0 software update, the RAW & WDR features are available in Photo, timelapse, Night timelapse & Night Photo mode.
The GoPro Hero5 Black features Protune from where you can control the different aspects of the camera such as ISO, Shutter Speed, Exposure, Color & Sharpness. This gives great control over the photos, during my Thailand trip, I always used the GoPro for the photos instead of my DSLR. The photo quality is fantastic and with RAW support, I can put it on lightroom to get the maximum out of it.
GoPro Hero5 Black Video Sample
RAW Photo
The Hero5 now supports RAW photo capture. The RAW photos contain less compression and more information as compared to JPEG. It allows users to change the photo expects such as color, contrast, sharpness, saturation etc from the photo editor. With recent 2.0 software update, GoPro extends the RAW feature to time-lapse, Night timelapse & Night Photo mode.
GoPro has developed its own RAW file format called GPR which is using the new compression algorithm to save the image information. The size of the GoPro RAW file is much small as compared to DSLR format but gives you the almost same result.
WDR (HDR) Photo
The Hero5 also gets its own HDR-like photo technique called WDR. WDR is very useful if you’re capturing against a bright background and you want both foreground & background to visible in the photo. WDR can be enabled by swiping right.
WDR & RAW feature can not be used at the same time.
GoPro Hero5 Black Photo Sample
Audio no more sucks
Gone are the days when you just replace the audio with external music. GoPro takes a big step to improve the audio of Hero cameras. The Hero5 equipped with 3 microphones which can record stereo audio and also reduce the wind noise. Pro users can utilize the Audio using Manual Audio Control & ProTune Audio Track.
In Manual Audio Control mode, the user can lock the GoPro in either stereo mode or wind reduction mode depending on surrounding conditions.
In ProTune Audio mode, GoPro will save the high-quality audio in the separate .wav file.
Features
Exposure Lock
The user can adjust the exposure by long press on the touch screen. When you hold down on the screen, a small box will appear and then you can drag the box to desire location to set your exposure. From here, either you can set the camera to Auto expose mode or lock the exposure at desired spot. Very helpful feature when you’re shooting in conditions where you’ve to differentiate between shadow & bright area.
GPS
The Hero5 has GPS built-in. GPS allow the user to remember the location of the photo or video. This is a really great feature and as I always moving from one location to other and keep shooting in between them. And also I edit my footage later so with the help of location it’s easy to remember which capture at which place.
The user can also utilize the gauge feature which is available when you edit using Quik for the desktop. By turning on this feature, you can view the speed, G-force, route, altitude etc directly on the video.
Battery Life
GoPro is using new power efficient processor which not only brings the awesome features but also reduce the battery consumptions. GoPro also slightly bumped up the battery capacity to 1220 mAh. The Hero 4 comes with 1160 mAh.
I mostly shoot at 1080p @ 60fps or 2.7K @ 60fps. I don’t have the rig at my home to edit 4K videos.
When recording at 1080p, the Hero5 gives battery life around 2 hours.
When recording at 2.7K, the Hero5 gives battery life around 1 hours 45 mins.
In both the conditions, my Hero5 GPS is always ON and the brightness level is set to 50%.
