GoPro Cameras - which one and why

Hi there geeks,

Who can enlighten me as to which GoPro camera is the best value for money (or even if there are alternatives I should be looking at) and what features I should be looking for ? The primary use would be to capture kitesurfing/diving, but would be really nice to be able to use it as a camcorder/camera for general use too, but I don’t know if that is the intended use, and how well it does to replace the standard digital camera ?

What does everyone here use, and how well does it work for your use ?

GoPro black version, the new one does 4k in 60 frames per second, black edition also comes with underwater housing rated at 40m so fine for scuba diving. You can buy a camera pole and red filter for underwater photography.

The only problem is the price Sabre - about R8k for the black edition. I heard something about being able to do a software/firmware upgrade of the silver to get it to the black level…

Hey Bass

I would recommend the Silver. has everything the black has , less framerate at 4K , but 60fps on HD.
The Black has no touch screen so addons is needed. also very pricy to get.

the thing that made me choose the Silver was the build in touch screen . no addons required .
the gopro’s is exceptional piece of tech. even just doing point and shoot (1 photo) or burst (30 photos in 2 sec)
gives you amazing quality photo’s .

a buddy of mine borrowed mine to go diving and as is no addons the videos was sweet , he just didn’t have the red filter , so he lost alot of color but still amazing .

Thanks EyeBall ! I’ll have a look at that rather - nice to know that it can be used as a normal camera/camcorder too. If one uses it as a camcorder can you zoom and still keep good picture quality? Trying to take video with our current camera is almost pointless as it just does digital zoom and it becomes very pixelated.

Are there any more affordable alternatives that anyone knows about?

unfortunately there is no zoom, so you will need to be nice and close . I used it a few times at action cricket as well , leaving it at the umpire and set it to 720p with narrow angel and that seems to have a bit more focus / depth

when you run it wide it kinda feels like fisheye view if you are trying to do longer distances .

hard to explain .I did my sons rugby game with my gopro and really worked well. would have been nicer if there was a zoom but with the size and stability of it I can understand why there is no zoom.

tbh , my work colleage has a cheaper unit and after he used the gopro he was dissapointed at the quality of his own one . at this stage I would really say , close your eyes , pay the bucks and smile afterwards.
If you want the best footage go gopro , I haven’t seen anything cheaper that is better.

The accessories is also not expensive , most of em around 200 - 300 bucks … I bought the apacer 64GB mem stick and really works well

Thanks Eyeball ! Will definitely have a look …

The Hero4 Black has a throughput of 60Mb/s versus the Silver’s 45Mb/s… therefore can handle higher fps. That being said, you’ll also have to have a memory card that can keep up.

After all is said and done, the Black is the better of the two for footage quality, but at a price. If you’re fine with 1080p at 60fps (same as the Hero3+ Black model) then the Silver is a better buy as you get the LCD touch screen included which is really helpful when “framing” your shot as well as going through the menus and setup - which you could also do via a smartphone.

BTW the Silver can do all the way up to 4K resolution… but only at 15fps, versus the Black which does it at 30fps.

The Silver also comes with a 40m waterproof case plus two additional backdoors - one that is good for 3m as as well as an open back one (skeleton).

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