In just a few sort years, GoPro has become has become the weapon of choice as an action camera. Used by snowboard and surf dudes, track day heroes, troops in Afghanistan and base jumpers the world over, it’s also taken the professional broadcast world by storm. There isn’t a reality TV show on the planet that doesn’t have a GoPro creeping into shot at some point.
They’re not just sitting back, though. GoPro have just launched the Hero2. With this camera, pretty much every possible criticism you may have had has been answered, all at a price point that makes it cheaper that many family compact cameras.
The new Hero2 has a sharper lens, as if it were needed, and a stills camera of up to 11 megapixels. Combine this with a stills burst mode of 10 frames in one second and you’ve got a pretty good spur of the moment action camera. Video resolution field of view modes now have 170 degrees, plus 127 and 90 at 30fps. plus 48 fps and an amazing 120 fps at 840 resolution.
But probably the most important change is to the user interface, now with a language based interface instead of a numerical one. Unless you were using the old camera on a regular basis, the interface was very clunky, a factor of the small size, but that’s now been fixed.
Take a look at the showreel, you’ll love it…