GoPro Hero3 annouced

I destroyed two Hero 2 while in Mexico a couple weeks ago. I bought a new dive housing ... yup it leaked in the swimming pools. Good thing I took an extra original Hero HD for scuba diving. Made me mad, I had planned on a lot of great footage scuba diving and ended up with a lot of so-so from the old camera. GoPro agreed to replace the dive housing and both HD2 cameras. I'm waiting to see if they really are doing so. I'll buy the HD3 when readily available for shipping.
here's a great link to browse or buy GoPro cameras and gear:
http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-3915739-10886686

I need link to the official specs of the gopro3. Nothing serious on their web site.

The link two threads above will get you to the stats page. Click on Hero 3 Black then follow buttons to "specs". I know GoPro is a little "questionable" when they advertise twice as powerful. Not a very solid photographic term for specs. I really think they market more towards the sports enthusiast.

Their website is not helpful. for example, what is the horizontal and vertical angle of view of the gopro3?

silver edition seems to be out... I want my black one!

I talked to GoPro. The Black edition is a completely different camera (guts) than the others. Seems like the white and silver are really not much better than the older versions.

Just ordered mine today through my web site link above.

Don't expect a "whole" lot. Compared to Z5U/V1U/FS700, the resolution and warped FOV is not making me happy. Shooting in ProTune is nice and flat, but the jello effect drives me nuts.

I wrote to them and told them all this - they haven't responded. Maybe I should not have called it a "toy"?

Almost crashed the VW staring at the WiFi remote tiny screen...there is no tally light on the remote!

So far I'm deleting 95% shot, with some stuff saved for later when I can de-funkify it with AE and really working on the so-so mounts to minimise vibration.

The worst thing is the banding around the sun. I expected better. Despite the high bit rate, there's something funky in the way this camera handles the gradients.

However, for the 5% shots I get and keep, there's just no other way I could have gotten them with in my budget, so for that I'm happy.

Completely agree with he original HD Hero and Hero 2. Supposedly much of this is fixed in the HD3. Both Jake and I had a discussion with a die-hard GoPro user (maybe employee or management) on need for manual control on exposure. He said it will not happen because it is so good in auto; we both disagreed. In stock selling manual control is absolutely required. On the old cameras jello was bad on a mechanical vehicle with vibration. Try shooting in 720 at 60fps and sometimes the jello is not bad. On the HD3 with high frame rate I'm hoping jello will not be a factor.

Sorry to say "keep hoping". I'll try the 720/60p though. In some cases you have to look for it, but if you're trying to determine if it's good for stock, seeing jello at all is a very bad thing!

Totally agree on the exposure control.....I was going to say another bad thing is the "Pro Low Light Handling"? Yikes. BIG, chromatic chunky noise from jacking up the gain/ISO. YUCK.

The high frame rate so far is no better than low (tried 24, 30, 60) and also 2K - it's worse at higher resolution.

The distortion is bad enough to be distracting when there's anything (especially moving) in the foreground, but it's quite acceptable for true wide shots. Will look amazing from the air, I bet, and it does look really cool underwater. If it is attached to a vehicle/airframe, and the wheels/windows/tubes, whatever are not moving, the distortion is not bad, but it is very distracting otherwise. Shooting sideways from a vehicle, it is vital to aim the camera up so that the roadside is not in the frame, as it warps it in a nice U shape, even when in the medium setting.

Wide/Medium/Narrow (only Wide and Medium are available in ProTune (which you MUST use) at 1080. Since it crops into the sensor to change the FOV, you lose real resolution, and especially in low light, you will pay with your soul.

Also, in cold weather, battery life is terrible. I kind of expected that, so got the battery BacPac. Good thing. I should have bought two though. I wish I could buy just the battery, since it is packaged with other stuff I don't need, and the GoPro packaging is such that it shows they really don't care about wasteful packaging, resources, or the environment.

Other than that, it's great.

Heh. No, really, if you go into it knowing that most of what it shoots is trash, from a stock shooter's perspective, then you learn to deal with the faults and operate it accordingly, and get a few really cool shots. Hopefully more.

Nutshell: Keep the sun out of the lens, keep movement and straight lines out of the foreground, don't shake the camera, don't expect miracles in low light, don't move from low light to bright light in the same shot, and wonder if you should have waited for the Hero4.....

miz, did you get the hero 3? silver?