Hi All,
Based on the very negative reviews on Amazon.com it sounds like the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition is a piece of crap that GoPro should have never released in its present form. Have any members experienced problems with their GoPro Hero3 Black Edition?
Regards,
TCIII ArduRover2 Developer
Replies
I have Hero3 BE from the first batch.
First it was an issue with WiFi - it is continuously draw battery even it was off.
But firmware update helps and now it perform flawless,
Just to throw an opinion into the mix. I was unable to justify the price of the GoPro after trying a Sony HDR-AS15. I may buy a GoPro eventually but this was half the price and still shoots beautiful 1080P video at 60fps.
All of the video in this flight is from the Sony.
what is the use of shooting aerial footage if the friggin props are in every dam scene....the image quality looks great but you have to find a way to shoot without having two twirling props in the corner of every frame or it really doesn't matter what camera you are using...
Surely that is down to the mounting arrangements and not the camera?
I have a GoPro on a gimbal under my hex - no issues with props in it.
If I set the GoPro on the widest settings I see the bottoms of the front two arms or the front two 'feet' on the landing skids, so I usually use the middle or narrowest field-of-view on the GoPro (which is still pretty wide).
If you really needed the widest setting then mounting the camera mount further forward (and moving the battery further back to compensate the CoG) would be possible.
I guess different people have different experiences. I have three GoPro Hero 3 cameras, two whites and a black. I haven't had any issues with any of them. I get spectacular battery life --but noticed that using the battery backpack didn't seem to extend the useful time by much, if any. All of my video comes out crisp and very well defined and I've gotten some spectacular video and stills from the cameras. I fly them all on multirotors, so far all DJI products but I have a 3DR X8 on the way and plan to fly the GoPro on it too. The cameras do seem to be fussy about vibration and most of the anti-vibration mounts I've tried has only made the jello effect worse as well as adding some bobbing action. I have found that a brushless gimbal like the Beholder does a good job if you defeat the anti-vibration mounts by putting RTV in the centers of the little silicone grommet things.
But as far as reliability, video duration and general ruggedness (crash survival) I can't complain. I suspect that because of the different reviews I've read that a) GoPro's quality control is lacking, b) people misuse/mistreat them, and c) a lot of them work just fine. I also own a Contour Roam, a Swann and Emerson sports cams and the GoPro is leaps and bounds better.
Are the cameras worth $300?? I'm not expert enough to comment, but I've been told that the video I've gotten from my GoPros is on par with Sony, Kodak and Nikon cameras with ultra wide angle lenses that cost more than a grand each. For amateur-hobby use they are well suited. I can't comment on GoPro support because I've never needed any. The first one I bought was DOA though, and Best Buy replaced it over the counter the same day I bought it. After that I am three for three great cameras.
From my own perspective, considering what we fly them on, the way we mount them, and the way we use them, they're a good deal. My suggestion to anyone who buys a camera is to make sure you get it from a reliable dealer with a good return policy and then see for yourself whether the camera is worth it or not. If you hate it, send it back.
Hi
Having watched some awesome movies on the Go Pro web site, I decided to jump in and buy the Hero 3 Black edition.
Take it from me, this camera performs exactly how it looks - a toy camera.
It cannot handle or compensate for scenes with dark and light, it will lighten the dark and blow out the light, skies are purple and not blue. It suddenly stops recording video when it wants and then starts again when it wants.
It is a piece of junk and I would not recommend this camera to my worst enemy.
Maybe I just picked up a bum version, but based on everything else I have read - it would appear many others know this to be a terrible waste of money.
Tom
UK
I bought my go pro last spring and have had a couple issues with it. The record button doesn't work most of the time, usually takes about 25 presses to either stop or start recording. This didn't happen until i crashed my copter with the full gopro case on.
Another issue is that it sometimes locks up but I haven't updated the firmware yet.
Other than that it's done the job.
Wow....I've had zero issues with mine, same goes for my mate with his....must have been lucky. My mate's one is one of the first ones, mine is a couple of months old.
the 2 second wifi delay is just how they are unfortunately,
Hi Tom,
I was an early adopter of the Gopro Hero 3 Black and my experience was dismal.
The worst thing was frequently under various situations, some repeatable and some not, the camera would "crash" and immediately go into a state where it paid no attention to any controls (including the off button) and it would immediately start rapidly heating up.
The only solution was to rapidly remove the battery.
Contacting customer support numerous times resulted in them telling me it was a firmware problem (every time) and to simply reload the same firmware I had reloaded 5 times by the time I got fed up with this charade and sent it back within the return period for the camera.
Tech support had no idea what it was doing and no real interest in fixing what was a widely reported actual hardware problem that had nothing at all to do with the firmware.
The other major issue as far as I was concerned was that the video "live preview" was delayed by several seconds making it less than useful for setting up live shooting. I was told this was normal for all wifi connected cameras, but that is nonesense and my little JVC Adixxion has less than 1 second of delay in its wifi preview.
This is the Blog I wrote about my brief ownership of this camera.
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/gopro-hero-3-cameras-for-planes...
Sadly the GoPro has become the benchmark for this type of camera and is the one supported by so many commercial gimbal mounts that the others hardly even count.
Also the black at least has some truly great features that are unmatched at anything remotely like the price, the up to 4K video is nice, but the real benefit is 3 levels of 1080P zoom with no loss simply by changing the aspect of the recording on the hi res chip they use.
In many ways for our kind of use, this stepped lossless zoom is more useful than a conventional optical progressive zoom and a lot less prone to malfunction.
Oliver got his after waiting a suitable period and did not have the initial batch "crash" problem I had and he does not use the live preview WiFi feature because of it's tendency to interfere with or 2.4ghz RC.
Given those conditions it has performed very well for him.
I will probably get one again myself, but when they come out with the GoPro 4 I would definitely recommend waiting at least 6 months before jumping into that pot.
And GoPros customer service and tech support was and is awful. 3DRs is way better in spite of periodic comments to the contrary.
I should also say in my opinion the only one worth getting is the Black, there are too many other cameras with the features of the lesser GoPros and they have the advantage that you don't have to deal with GoPro.
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