I’ve been tempred for ages now, but was always put off by taking ages editing. However, mates insist it’s not bad to do now, so, well you know….

Hero session looks a decent buy?.

We have a hero session and it’s great (really, use all the time and a heap of fun great!), but I think the hero session 5 would be the better buy because of its image stabilising (and voice control too!).

I’ve just got a hero session, and it’s great. But if I’d got the extra spare I’d have had a session 5. By all accounts the picture quality is a fair bit better and the stabilisation is a handy feature

I might save my pennies and get one next year and keep the standard session as a rear facing camera on my commuter

I wouldn’t use a Session as a commute camera because when the battery goes no one can change it.
I have Hero 4 Blacks and a 4 Session and use the Session as much as the 4 Black. Really nice and I never shoot my riding stuff in higher def modes.

Worth noting a Session has an in built battery, this means you can not put a new one in mid day out.

Worth noting a Session has an in built battery, this means you can not put a new one in mid day out.

Battery isn’t really an issue for me, I’d only ever record descents and 2 hours is more than enough. Only time I ever descend for around that time in the UK is a day on the Nevis red via the Gondola…

but was always put off by taking ages editing

Seriously, editing is horrific. After the pleasure of a ride, you’re left with a trillion gigabyte file of dire footage of your handlebars wobbling around and a soundtrack of you gasping and cussing that goes on for an hour.

You’ve got to spend about 7 hours cutting it down to the tight, stylish 3 minutes that is the absolute maximum that anyone can possibly be expected to sit through, putting a vaguely relevant Coldplay song over the top and giving shout-outs to your sponsors. Then the end product will crater your broadband for an evening as it slurries itself onto Youtube, and you can watch as the view counter edges towards 3 before stopping there forever.

By then, it’ll be time for another ride, and you’ll feel duty bound to take the camera with you again because you paid actual money for it that you could have spent on something else. 😀

Here’s one of mine. Please watch it. It’s really, really short. You’ll hardly feel a thing: [video]https://youtu.be/olMq22D2jjU[/video]

Shot on a Session 4, by the way.

🙂

A Xiaomi Yi one (on the basis of recommending the one you own). Gets rid of some of the issues BigDummy describes as you haven’t spent so much on it – I don’t worry too much about all my unedited footage.

Bigdummy has it spot on, i have one of the older Gopros, its not seen daylight for a long time.

The hero session is a good size too. Have a look on CEX or ebay etc as it’s not worth paying full price for a new one.

I use mine all the time for looking back at the trail and finding better lines for the next time I ride it. Here’s one from yesterday on red 15 at swinley forest.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWpDwTZSeAU[/video]

i had a gopro, until my son lost it in theh surf, then after posting on here a chap kindly sold me an sjcam 4000 wifi and – although there is a catch coming up – for the cash i would be hard pushed to spend the hundereds that a gopro is again. its a great little camera for 50-60quid, less for the non wifi one.

that catch though… the two side buttons are notoriously weak, ok when using just the camera body but the metal buttons on the waterproof housing if pushed too hard will break them. which damn annoyingly i did. it can be fixed with a bit of soldering, just a shame i managed to crimp the lcd ribbon as at that stage i did’nt know how to dissasemble the unit correctly.

but apart from all that, good little cameras and if i can find another decent used one cheap (or a broken one i can raid the lcd from) i would buy it.

What’s a GoPro like for a general camera/video cam? I too like the idea of one but only if they are decent for photographs and general family film stuff. It probably wouldn’t see that much ‘action’.

Too wide angle for general stuff and too much distortion as its semi fisheye