A look at the new GoPro Hero 3 iPhone app - iPhone as wireless monitor and remote control

[Andrew Reid]

I recently picked up the Hero 3 Black Edition. It's a great overall point-of-view camera not just a favourite of sports shooters. The size of a matchbox and it does 2.7K and 4K video all at a pretty high bitrate of around 45Mbit.

Since a couple of days ago (Dec 14th) it has a new firmware update and iPhone app which gives you smooth wireless 24fps monitoring on the iPhone so I thought I'd give it a try.

[Matt Burton]

Was playing around with this the other day at a friends, the range of the wifi is incredible, was watching my mate roam around his house with the gorpo on my phone it was quite surreal :)

[galenb]

Awesome!

 

P.S. I'm so glad to finally be reading about something other then the Hobbit and HFR. ;-)

[Zach]

I want manual exposure control! Or exposure lock or something to that extent

[noirist]

Contrary to your statement, the GoPro Hero3 Black Edition uses line skipping and cropping extensively. Just film a resolution chart at the various settings and you will see how severe the cropping and line skipping is. I'd be surprised if the measured resolution exceeded 500 lines in ANY setting, including the alledged 4k mode.

[OverCranked]

Can't wait to see Andrew's experiments on  " GoPro + anamorphic ". Perhaps one of those baby hypergonars could be a good match !

[Pavel Mašek]

According these two videos - it seems that GH2 is more noisy in dark areas + GoPro has much better resolution than 5DmkIII and slightly better than GH2 (necessary to download original file). And it seems that 4K has lower dynamic range than 2,7K.

https://vimeo.com/53872859

https://vimeo.com/53767865

[Izhar Ashdot]

Andrew, thank you for this mouthwatering review.

 

I can't wait for my Black to arrive.

 

Izhar

[ScreensPro]

"In fact with an interchangeable lens mount the existing Hero 3 Black Edition would make a superb 16mm cinema camera"

 

I've got a GoPro3... had it a few days now.... It is amazing for the price and great at what it does... But the above statement is ridiculous.

 

The sensor is clearly nowhere near 16mm.... The low light is still very bad and creates very ugly compression.. needs tons of light at 48p or more.... DR is about 9 stops... 9.5 at a push. 2.7k scales down to "ok" 1080p, not GH2 levels, from my eyes.

 

Other than paper specs of 2.7K and charlie chaplin 4K mode.... what possibly makes you think this has anything close to the levels required for 16mm cinema work?

[Pavel Mašek]

DR is about 9 stops... 9.5 at a push.

According first video - it seems to me that GoPro has higher (or same) DR than 5DmkIII (if you look on the skies for highlights / cliff on the right side for shadows). Maybe it is just because of changed light.conditions. Anyway - very impressive for GoPro. And I think it is not fair to compare noise in 48 fps and higher framerates in lowlight - you cannot expect that such a small camera will be able to handle 1/48s and shorter times in dimm light. 2.7K in 24/30 fps should be better.

[ScreensPro]

you cannot expect that such a small camera will be able to handle 1/48s and shorter times in dimm light. 2.7K in 24/30 fps should be better.

 

That's my point though.... It is a fantastic camera at what it does, which is POV shooting outdoors, with lots of light.. you can even get nice slow-mo, outdoors.... But to start going on about it being a something close to a cinema camera is just bizarre.

 

For anything other than POV or action shots, it is a $400 camera. A decent one.

[GravitateMediaGroup]

Other than the 5 second lag between camera & phone, it's a pretty awesome app. 

 

I seen a comment above that said the GH2 has more noise in low light than GoPro? Or was you comparing the 5d to the GoPro

The GoPro is AWEFUL in lowlight, not just nosie, but big huge blotches.

[Andrew Reid]

GH2 is certainly better in low light. F0.95 vs F2.8 for starters!

[Christopher Wadsworth]

I just received mine today and having only used a Hero2 on occasion before I am working my way through this. Andrew does yours kick a large amount of heat when operating, especially when using the wifi? I also found the wifi drained the battery very quickly. As it's so new I'm still figuring out it's quirks ; )

[justinflux]

I have been using the new WIFI function since 14 December on the Hero3 and its great.

I was wondering if anyone knows if I can transmit the WIFI video from the GOPRO to a laptop (not just an iphone or ipad etc...)

It would be great to have it streamable to my macbook.

The macbook can obviously find and connect via airport, but how will I preview feed without an "APP"?

 

 

[Pavel Mašek]

GH2 is certainly better in low light. F0.95 vs F2.8 for starters!

:-) yes, but it is not comparable - F0.95 lens on GH2 is not 15mm fishey on GoPro. I think that similar lens on GH2 would have F2.8 or F4 - so I would compare similar lenses. Plus you have tuns of depth of field on GoPro so GH2 should be also stopped litle bit down for silimar results. I am keen to compare GoPro3 with my 5DmkII which also has quite ugly noise and mackroblocking in dimm light.

[ScreensPro]

Gonna run some underwater tests today, see how the wifi performs.

[ScreensPro]

unsurprisingly, wifi connection dies after about 0.5m

[ipcmlr]

:-) yes, but it is not comparable - F0.95 lens on GH2 is not 15mm fishey on GoPro. I think that similar lens on GH2 would have F2.8 or F4 - so I would compare similar lenses. Plus you have tuns of depth of field on GoPro so GH2 should be also stopped litle bit down for silimar results. I am keen to compare GoPro3 with my 5DmkII which also has quite ugly noise and mackroblocking in dimm light.

Uhhhh... whats not comparable is the GoPro is at 800 iso and the 2 other cameras are at 1600 iso. They are getting 1 full stop of light less in already lowlight conditions.

 

For a tiny camera though it is impressive.

[Ernesto Mantaras]

Uhhhh... whats not comparable is the GoPro is at 800 iso and the 2 other cameras are at 1600 iso. They are getting 1 full stop of light less in already lowlight conditions.

 

For a tiny camera though it is impressive.

 

In the second video, the one on the water, the shutter speed is at 1/24 while the other two cameras are at 1/48 (or 50 o 60, but around 180º).