GoPro HERO7 Black — Waterproof Digital Action Camera with Touch Screen 4K HD Video 12MP Photos Live Streaming Stabilisation

I am a total novice with action cameras so I waited a while to review this so I could give a fair and informative review for a novice.I chose GoPro after going through a multitude of reviews for just about every camera and every price range I could find. I surprised myself by going for one of the most expensive on the market rather than a cheap one. So, what influenced my decision?Gopro continuously came up as about the best product on the market with the Hero7 black as the bees knees, and the silver and white falling into second and third place. I could not find a single good review, except on amazon, for cheaper copies. Although I am not in a position to criticise them.Review of the various GoPro versions on You Tube showed the performance of the black to be outstanding with additional benefits of good audio, has multiple microphones and is not impeded by the need for a waterproof case. It is waterproof to around 20-30 meters without a case and there is a further case available if you need to go to 40 meters. There is a wide array of photo and video settings, voice control, blue tooth, internet, remote phone connection at 2.5 and 5.0 “whatevers” for the mobile phone app. The features go on and on and what’s more they can be viewed working on the internet so in the end I trusted these features work, and they do.There were a few negatives and I have cured most of these.I discovered it eats power, like a bitch. Initially this caused me a lot of annoyance but I have discovered that the cure is simple. It’s certain features that kill your power so if you are not using them turn them off. Then the power consumption turns from useless to excellent. Features that need to be turned off if you are not using them:1) Connection to app2) Connection to internet3) GPS4) Voice Control5) Blue tooth6) Screen brightness – it is very bright so it only needs to be at about 20% and that is still brightI don’t find not using the app a problem as the touch screen is fully readable even if you wear a + 4.5 prescription lens (as long as you are wearing them). This surprised me as I normally have to go for a big screen option. The app is great when you are getting to know your device and getting used to the touch screen controls but, it can be a bit glitchy. Give the touch controls a chance. They are annoying at first but you soon get used to themExtra tips I would give are:1) Buy an extra battery or two and a charger, non-branded ones still work well.2) Only use voice controls if you need them or, all you hear in the recording is you shouting at your GoPro (probably no need to shout). In addition, when using the voice control the device reverts to stand-by for 6 hours following the command to turn off. During which it has a nasty habit of turning itself on spontaneously. I have had a 25-minute recording of the inside of the camera case with the voices of people around it and lost a good deal of battery power.3) Read the manual available online. I found it very helpful indeed, and it is not too techy to put a novice off.4) Make sure the memory card you buy is suitable for 4K recording, it needs to be high speed. Check the specs online before purchasing. I bought a 128gb high speed card, and you honestly do not need one with quite that much space but, it was not much more expensive than one with 64gb. Note: I have not bothered with the 4K yet as I do not currently have a 4K monitor.There is the option to buy the GoPro Plus which gives you unlimited cloud storage, extra support function, half price accessories and a new GoPro should you manage to break it. This to me suggested it was very difficult to break. I purchased it but, did note that you can only upload short clips i.e. less than 5 minutes. Disappointing but, not enough to make me cancel my subscription. The failed order I put through may. But, let’s see how they resolve it. Note: your first 30 days is free and the account does give you easy access to support information, downloadable content and various other bits and bobs that are very useful for a newbe.Overall it was money well spent. It’s a smart trustworthy piece of kit. The features work well once you get used to them. I even managed to take time lapse recording of night landing from the interior of a plane. Not brilliant but, it was my first attempt and there were results. I keep finding new stuff it does – which is amazing.I have given it 5 stars because 4 does not do it justice. It’s about a 4.6 with the loss coming from it little niggles when getting used to it and the power consumption before I worked out the cure.In terms of the EIS, I originally uploaded a sample but, I have removed it because the uploaded version just did not do it justice.

After reading several reviews on this site and others I settled with the 7 silver model.Good points.1) Stabilisation.I can not fault the stabilisation capabilities of this camera! I have purchased a few cheap action cameras now with so called ‘stability features’ but this was truly an amazing improvement over budget cameras.2) Storage capacity.As this camera can take a 128Gb microSD card (not included) you can shoot hours of 4K video which I have found is more than plenty.The camera has a time lapse feature which greatly utilises the extra space to make some amazing condensed videos of your adventures. Also great fun to time lapse a long car journey!3) The appThe camera utilities an app that has many features and makes a truly great addition to the hardware. The app has the ability to control the camera so it is ideal to record shots of yourself and see how the photo/video will look - this is opposed to trying to figure out what your camera is truly looking at!Bad points.1) The battery is not removable, if you want this capability I suggest you take a look at the black models. If you feel you need more battery life ensure you carry a decent power bank with you for ‘on the go’ charging.2) The charging cable.I feel the included charging cable is very short! Something to consider if your charging port is behind furniture.Also the product only comes with a USB cable and not a mains adapter.3) Software freeze.Occasionally you may be the victim of the camera ‘freezing up’ sometimes a simple hold the power button can reboot the camera. However, I have faced the issue of it completely freezing and unfortunately you have to wait for the battery to go flat!On other models this is remedied by removing the battery, but as stated previously you cannot do this on the silver.Summary.Overall this product is an amazing camera. If you have only owned a budget action camera you will see a huge difference in quality. The best improvement was noted when comparing budget cameras to this one when using it underwater. The underwater shots are almost as good as the site boasts about!Significantly more expensive than other action cameras on the market but the price increase is well justified.

The media could not be loaded. I’ve had Hero7 Black for well over a year now. It’s been with me on multiple holidays and is still my go to holiday camera of choice. There is hundreds of incredible photos I could share but I wanted to add this time lapse I took on the beach whilst star gazing. I’m no camera expert and simply put the GoPro in NIGHT LAPSE mode and it did all the work itself. I left it there whilst using a telescope and the result is what you can see. I also used the Official Fusion/Max grip tripod To keep the camera stable. Incredible!Ive seen other reviews and people moan about battery life. Yes if you are doing complicated or high quality video recording, you will need to take spare fully charged batteries to last a whole day of activities. But this isn’t GoPros fault. Understand that the fault is with the battery technology itself lithium ion. We all want super awesome frame rates, 4K quality and silky smooth processing and a form factor still as small as possible. Smaller battery + high end features = limited battery life. so take this into account when using it, turn off features if your not needing them to improve battery life and set some realistic expectations. This time lapse only used 20% of battery life over 657 images at long exposures.