• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

GoPro Hero 3 (black) First Day Review

Jiggles said:
Here's 5 minutes of dogs catching food at 1/10 speed

[YOUTUBE]2hvLBeLhiEg[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...

I think you're being generous with the word "catching".
 
R3DS!X said:
I think you're being generous with the word "catching".
Click to expand...

Well yes the pitbul sucks at it but my boxer is an excellent catcher. However, I liked the ones where he missed more so I put more of those in lol. That boxer has some very good reflexes while the pitbul is like the kid that sits in the back of the classroom eating glue.
 
The battery issue is trivial to fix - you can power the camera via mini-USB (or micro, whatever the hell is is). Just run hard lines from your bike - never worry about battery again. When I head out on the road for a few days, I just mount the camera, plug it in, and turn it on whenever I feel like recording.
 
monkeyneck said:
The battery issue is trivial to fix - you can power the camera via mini-USB (or micro, whatever the hell is is). Just run hard lines from your bike - never worry about battery again. When I head out on the road for a few days, I just mount the camera, plug it in, and turn it on whenever I feel like recording.
Click to expand...

Well yes that's fine if you don't mind drilling into your hero 3 case in order to plug a USB into it
 
Jiggles said:
Well yes that's fine if you don't mind drilling into your hero 3 case in order to plug a USB into it
Click to expand...

It's also fine if you don't mind buying a case that has a charger hole in it. Or simply getting another case and drilling that one.

With the previous model, there was the "skeleton" case so you didn't have to cut. It's doable either way. It's not like the case is irreplaceable or something. If you wire it up, you also don't have to deal with that big stupid battery backpack.
 
Dude the replacement housing is $50 that's not trivial in fact it's the same price as the backpack yet the bacpac has far more function than a second case with a hole. Try mounting the camera to different spots on your bike or even your helmet and it's rather obvious what a major flaw it is to rely on being plugged into a power source.

My plan is to get the bacpac and drill a hole in the secondary skeleton door to plug in a charging cable so if i want I can film and charge while I ride. It retains the water proof ability and is still able to be moved to wherever you like on the bike w/ double the battery life. And with the bacpac the camera is about the same size as the previous model camera which could hardly be considered bulky.
 
Jiggles said:
Dude the replacement housing is $50 that's not trivial in fact it's the same price as the backpack yet the bacpac has far more function than a second case with a hole. Try mounting the camera to different spots on your bike or even your helmet and it's rather obvious what a major flaw it is to rely on being plugged into a power source.

My plan is to get the bacpac and drill a hole in the secondary skeleton door to plug in a charging cable so if i want I can film and charge while I ride. It retains the water proof ability and is still able to be moved to wherever you like on the bike w/ double the battery life. And with the bacpac the camera is about the same size as the previous model camera which could hardly be considered bulky.
Click to expand...

If you care about filming anything beyond just "look at me hauling ass" malarkey, then $50 to film any time, whether you have a fresh battery or not is pretty damn trivial. You just paid something like $400 for that thing, right? And quite frankly, based on the roll of accessories I wouldn't take you as the gy to cry about $50 to not have to worry about the battery life. As far as the work required, the vast majority of locations on the bike are easy to run a wire to - I've mounted both GoPros and Contours in many places.

Obviously, wiring it up if it's on your helmet is less fabulous, so use it on battery power there. I've had both GoPro and Contour on my helmets and probably wouldn't put a GoPro on my helmet again. Too big, and funky mounting.

I'm not trying to give you shit, just point out that this is an easy problem to solve. Your plan sounds ok, except that "double the battery life" is still about two hours, from the sound of it. I often ride 500 miles or so in a day, so 2 hours of battery life just isn't enough. You make a good point about the waterproof thing - I've pondered various ways to solve that too but haven't come up with anything golden yet.
 
Ya, an extra case for $50 just doesn't scream good idea to me when I can not only double the battery life but also retain the waterproof of the original case with the bacpac. Two hours is plenty for me as I'll generally take a break from riding, get lunch or w/e and can charge the batteries back up during that time. The bacpac is also a standalone battery charger so if you wanted you could have the bacpac always plugged in and switch the batteries every hour. This is generally what I do at the track when I have 2 gopros on my bike in order to keep them charged.

Also the gopro 3 has this little door for the charging plug and microsd card. If I charge it through the bacpac I won't have to remove (and lose) that door. I'm not sure if that little door helps keep the micro ad from ejecting or what.
 
monkeyneck said:
The battery issue is trivial to fix - you can power the camera via mini-USB (or micro, whatever the hell is is). Just run hard lines from your bike - never worry about battery again. When I head out on the road for a few days, I just mount the camera, plug it in, and turn it on whenever I feel like recording.
Click to expand...

Jiggles said:
Well yes that's fine if you don't mind drilling into your hero 3 case in order to plug a USB into it
Click to expand...

As monkeyneck is like, a computer genius, and casings are a dime a dozen, I can't figure out why the next post wasn 't just a"cool idea,bro", thanks!
Thanks!:). 2 hours battery life on the track equals pure frustration....at least a half hour too little even in the best case scenario.
 
Last edited:
But the casings aren't a dime a dozen, they are $50 a pop. Which is why I instead want to get the bacpac (also $50) and drill the already not waterproof skeleton door in order to run a cable to it rather than get a second case and always carry it with me just in case it rains
 
Alright, here is some wide 720p 120fps lane splitting with some slo mo sprinkled in

[youtube]DE-V-GRCMt8[/youtube]

And here is the difference between wide and narrow, keep in mind, the camera was mounted in the same place for each shot

[youtube]fhVpdKWJiYg[/youtube]

[youtube]vIUMM4BNxTw[/youtube]
 
I got mine as well and I have to admit seeing an update in the packaging was just a big fuck you to the consumer. The product is supposed to work out of the box, period. I shouldn't have to fumble around with cables and figure out to download an update of firmware. Firmware updates are the scariest part of updating hardware and the first thing the consumer has to do after buying a video camera is A FIRMWARE UPDATE, on a new product. :rolleyes

The battery life is bad and the darn thing freezes up. The only way to shut it off is pull the battery. I do not like the menu and how the user interacts with it. I am new to go pro but I find myself taking a few minutes everytime I start up the camera to figure out what I need to do or what setting it is in. Also, why on earth do I have to remove the camera if I want to charge it or upload video. It seems like there could be a better way of doing things.

Besides from that the camera is really good and does what it says. The noise is perfect and I really enjoy all the mounting points for cheap.

GoPro needs to look at Contour and see how easy it is to turn on and shut off their cameras. It's easy mode with the Contour and there is a learning curve with the GoPro but I can see that the GoPro it just an all around nicer camera.
 
You can set up one button on the gopro like the contour
 
Entoptic said:
Thanks! I am going to set that up right now. I was actually referring to the slide forward feature of the Contour.
Click to expand...

It's certainly easier but doesn't function quite so well when you put the protective case on the contour. And holding the power button on the gopro for 2 seconds ain't so bad either :p
 
Jiggles said:
It's certainly easier but doesn't function quite so well when you put the protective case on the contour. And holding the power button on the gopro for 2 seconds ain't so bad either :p
Click to expand...

Hmmm... something isn't right about this camera. It is either the camera or the cable they supplied. I need to find another cable to be positive but my camera is doing all kinds of weird stuff. I turned on the one button deal and it worked great but when I go to plug in the camera to the usb cable, wait for the red light and hit the power button to attach the device the damn camera thinks it is in 1 button mode and starts recording. Then after I stop the recording it says there is no SD card even though there is one. I power the damn thing down and remove it from the computer. I power it up and shut off the 1 button powerup and now the SD card is detected. I go to plug the sucker back into the computer and tada no SD card. The SD card is brand new, works in my other cameras just fine so I can rule it out as being bad. The battery seems to overcharge as well because there is a lot of heat coming from that tiny camera even after the red charging light shuts off. I have 6v 4200mA batteries that don't get this hot when charging. Maybe it was the firmware update and they are still working out the bugs but if I am beta testing new firmware and killing my battery life in the process that is very upsetting. I will have to check the GoPro forums to see if anyone else is having the same issue.

Still not sure if it is something I am doing but I am leaning towards the camera having an issue since I am pretty versed in IT support. Time will tell and so will another cable.

Update: I just read a ton of horror stories with the new GoPro3. Now I am kinda upset, I am not a beta tester and I expect that when I purchase hardware that the software which is installed is actually working. Jiggles I am so happy that yours is working as intended. At least it shows that some people are able to use the new camera. I am sure GoPro will fix these issues but in the meantime my battery is overheating the entire system and damaging it in the process.
 
Last edited:
Wow that is bizarre. My gets rather warm while charging but thats it. I don't have 1 button turned on (since I change up the resolution and framerate so much) so I can't speak to that issue.

I hope their warranty service is top notch and they can fix your issues for you.
 
Jiggles, with a fully charged battery what does the battery life say at 1080p 30fps? Mine says 1 hour 10 mins and that seems super bad to me.

Update: after shutting off protune I get 2 hours 21 mins which is better. Kinda sucks that protune removes half of the battery life.
 
Last edited:
What does it say? I don't know where to look for what it says.

I get about 1hr 4mins on 1080@60fps and 1hr 12mins on 720@120fps

I didn't get the black edition to NOT have awesome framerates! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top