Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
The GoPro Hero isn’t known for its exceptional battery life, which is where Polar Pro’s latest creation comes in.
Polar Pro just met its funding goal for the PowerPole, which is a GoPro accessory combining the equivalent of 5 GoPro batteries and an ultra-durable extension pole. [Read more…]
The Sony HDR-AZ1 is a new action cam that weighs just over 2 oz. and is 30% smaller than Sony’s other action cam models. In spite of its size, the new AZ1 sports some powerful features, including capturing HD 1080/60p video using Sony’s XAVC S codec at 50Mbps. [Read more…]
GoPro has announced a new GoPro camera mount for your canine pals. The GoPro Fetch is a $60 harness that fits dogs from 15-120 lbs in size. [Read more…]
Incase has launched a new line of accessories for GoPro and other action cameras. The new Action Camera Collection includes 13 new products ranging from storage cases to camera mounts to a slipover silicone protective case for individual cameras. [Read more…]
The problem with mounting a GoPro to a DJI Phantom or other drone is that the vibration of the propellers creates a terrible jello effect in the footage. This is the main reason that gimbals have become such a popular accessory for drones. But gimbals are expensive.
Two grad students from USC were searching for a cheaper way to reduce the jello effect in their footage from their Phantom-mounted GoPro. After months of failure in testing several aftermarket products, they finally built their own mount with household items for less than $10.
They discovered that they had to dampen the attachment between the GoPro and the Phantom, which is something that none of the attachments on the market allowed. In the end, they used a pair of sponges and some semi-rigid wires to connect a mount that was constructed from a plastic lid.
The results are impressive and resemble the look of an expensive gimbal when viewing the output footage. You can see a full walkthrough, along with sample footage, in the video above.
VSN Mobil has announced a new 360° action camera with a unique camera that allows it to capture 1080 x 6480 resolution video, which is comparable to three full 1080p images laid side-to-side. [Read more…]
Contour closed its doors in 2013 and then was purchased by an investment group in October last year. We saw Contour at CES 2014; however, there were no new camera models available.
Now, Contour is poised to come back into the action cam market bigger and better than ever before. [Read more…]
The Atomos Ninja Star was announced at NAB 2014 and touted as a ProRes recorder for the GoPro. The immediate downside that everyone saw was that it only recorded to CFast cards.
CFast cards are great from a speed standpoint; however, a 60GB SanDisk CFast card still costs $650! That’s a tough pill to swallow for a $300 recorder. While some more recently released cards are lower, they are still well above CF card prices. [Read more…]
Hero 4 Mockup
The chip manufacturer for GoPro cameras have released specs for its new system on chip (SOC). The company building this chip, Ambarella, has been exclusively providing SOCs for GoPro, so it looks like this could be the real deal on what to expect from the GoPro Hero 4.
If not the actual physical board shown in the A9 release, the tech specs should/could be the equivalent to a customized board built specifically for GoPro. In fact, the A9 board in Ambarella’s press release is marketed toward the imaging industry as a whole and would almost certainly not be the final GoPro Hero 4 SOC.
Notably, the SOC delivers 4K video at a full 30p, along with 1080p at 120 fps and 720p at 240 fps. In addition to the powerful video features, it also delivers on multi-exposure HDR and WDR tone mapping.
Actual A9 4K Board from Ambarella
If these specs show up in the GoPro Hero 4 later this year, it likely means GoPro will taken even more of the market share that it created while everyone else plays catch up.
Of course, we would expect these specs to only land in the top end model, like we currently see with the GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition, while cheaper models get a reduced set of features. [Read more…]
Canon has been trying its hand at some cameras and features lately that are a bit out of left field. The PowerShot N and G1 X cameras come to mind. In the same vein of “different” comes the Canon Vixia Mini X, which debuted at CES 2014 last month. Just looking at the camera, you are left scratching your head about who its intended users are and how it should/could be used. [Read more…]