OUR VERDICT
Action cameras and going modular. GoPro’s latest attempt to get one-up on the DJI Osmo Action and the Akaso Brave 7 LE means a front display for vloggers and taking selfies, high-resolution photos and video grabs, but most importantly a removable lens cover. The latter makes it ready for GoPro’s new Max Lens Mod, though at its core this action camera’s excellent stabilization, clever time-lapse modes and higher resolutions make the Hero9 Black pricey, but worth it despite its larger physical size than previous iterations.
FOR
- All-new front display
- Larger rear display
- Excellent image stabilization
- 20MP photos and 14.7 MP grabs from video
- Stable connection to a phone
- Easy-to-use app
AGAINST
- Larger physical size
- Batteries are not backwards-compatible
- Touchscreen is laggy
- Max Lens Mod costs extra
- Hit-and-miss horizon leveling
Gopro Hero 9 Price in India
If you’re a taker of selfies, a vlogger or an adventure filmmaker, GoPro’s new flagship camera is made for you. There was a time when action cameras were primarily for capturing sports, but the new GoPro Hero 9 Black pushes in a new direction by including a front-mounted LCD ‘selfie’ screen to challenge the DJI Osmo Action.
However, there’s plenty on the gopro Hero9 Black for the all-rounder. As well as upping the resolution to 5K for video, it increases photos to 20MP and adds the ability to capture 14.7MP stills from video, too. Add improved image stabilization , improved time-lapses and a longer-lasting battery and the Hero9 Black is the best GoPro we have seen to date, and probably the best action camera to boot.
While there are many similarities between them, the Hero9 Black is physically different to the Hero 8 Black. It’s larger in every aspect at 71x55x33.6mm and 158g, which is something of a surprise, though it’s hardly obese. That’s largely down to the inclusion on the Hero 9 Black of two new displays. On the rear it’s a simple upgrade, with a larger 2.27-inch display. That’s 16% larger than on the Hero8 Black, slightly bigger than on theAkaso Brave 7 LE, but a tad smaller than on theDJI Osmo Action. Bright enough in all but the sunniest conditions, this touchscreen is nevertheless not as responsive as it could be.
It’s on the front where you’ll find the biggest upgrade with a built-in 1.4-inch display (identical in size to the DJI Osmo Action, but slightly smaller than on theAkaso Brave 7 LE) that can be used as a live preview screen for framing a selfie or a piece to camera. Even more usefully, that can be done in ‘actual’ format, which presents it as a widescreen image with black bars above and below, or ‘full screen’, which works fine if you just want to make sure you’re in the centre of a shot or a video. That front screen can also be switched to ‘status only’ to show the remaining battery power, resolution and the current mode – as on the gopro Hero8 Black (albeit now in color) – or even completely deactivated.
The other new feature is a return to a removable glass lens protector. As well as meaning that third party ND filters can be used, from October it will be able to take a GoPro Max Lens Mod accessory (more on that below).
The gopro Hero 9 Black’s buttons are slightly larger and protrude more, which makes them easier to operate when wearing gloves. As always, this GoPro is waterproof to 33ft/10m, and the folding mounting fingers on the undercarriage remain from the Hero8 Black.
Finally, instead of arriving in a horrible thick transparent plastic casing, the gopro Hero9 Black comes in a soft travel case. About time, too.
GoProHero9 Black has a 23.6 MP sensor, which in turn means it can capture video at 5K in 30 frames per second (fps) at 100Mbps. If that’s impressive, it’s also incredibly capacity-hungry; the 4K 60fps is probably the one to go for if you’re after both efficiency and smoothness. The general step-up in resolution also means the abandoning of 720p, with faux-lens options comprising SuperView (16mm), wide (16-34mm) and linear (19-39mm) and narrow (27mm).
Despite the appearance of 5K the must-have feature is Hypersmooth 3.0, which means cleverly stabilized footage across all resolutions, with a ‘boost’ feature also available.
Gopro Hero 9 Review
The linear view also has 360º camera-style auto-correct horizon leveling that happens in-camera. In theory, that means easy-to-watch footage where the horizon stays level. It’s another feature for vloggers, and in practice it’s imprecise and laggy; expect it to improve on future GoPro cameras. In all other modes the Gopro Hero9 Black captures peerless video that has plenty of color, contrast and shadow detail, with a Boost option to really smooth things out when the action gets choppy.
Low-light video in ‘night mode’ is far less impressive and a touch noisy, with a new HDR night-lapse of the night sky for an hour looking reasonably good. There’s also a new ‘scheduled capture’ mode for filming video or, more likely, time-lapses, at a pre-ordained time. For example, you could go to bed in Iceland and set your Hero9 Black to film the Northern Lights for you … ditto a sunrise while you sleep-in. You can also set it to film for, say, an hour, before it switches itself off.
In practice, time-lapses are often the way to go on action cameras, which is why we like the TimeWarp 3.0 mode. Best used for endurance activities, such as hiking, though also useful for skiing and cycling, TimeWarp 3.0 produces fast-slow-fast footage where sped-up video is followed by a slow-down to real-before speeding back up. Called ‘speed ramp’, it now comes with audio, and there’s a new slo-mo option.
Also new to the Gopro Hero9 Black is a 30-second looping video buffer for video to avoid missing unexpected moments, which is for filming anything else where spontaneous events are everything. Practically speaking it will avoid having to take endless short videos only to delete them all later.
Not surprisingly given the WFH craze the Hero9 Black can be used as a 1080p widescreen webcam. Mac users require the GoPro Webcam app and Windows users needing a BETA version, though in our test on a Mac we couldn’t get the app to successfully install and launch.
There’s also an option to use the Hero9 Black as a streaming camera and to live stream 1080p video to YouTube, Twitch, Facebook Profiles and Facebook Pages. It even works with HyperSmooth 3.0 switched-on.
Action cameras are roundly ignored as photographic devices by some users, but that’s going to change with the arrival of the Hero9 Black. That’s partly because, like the Akaso Brave 7 LE, the Hero9 Black can take 20MP still photos.
It offers wide (16-34mm) and linear (19-39mm) lens modes, each allowing 2x digital zoom options, and a fixed narrow mode (27mm), all of which feature a delay shutter option for 3s and 10s. There’s also a LiveBurst (motion photos), Burst (25 photos per second) and Night Photo modes, with the latter respectable and easily outshining the Hero9 Black’s video exploits in the dark.
As well as RAW support the Hero9 Black also has HDR and SuperPhoto, the latter of which captures excellent dynamic range, though taking HDR and SuperPhoto images means a few seconds’ wait for processing. Manual mode allows tweaks up to shutter speed of 30 seconds and ISO up to 6400.
Gopro Hero 9 India
However, perhaps more important than all of that is the Hero9 Black’s new ‘save frame’ feature; playback any video on the app and it’s a one-button instruction to save a 14.7MP still image to your phone. It means you can stick to video and think about photos later.
GoPro Hero 9 is one of the best camera ever you met. The above is Gopro Hero 9 Review. when it comes to camera then this device is being one of the amazing tinny in the world of camera. We basically sell all the variant of gopro. Still the launch date of gopro hero 9 is yet to announce in India.