Here is a quick review of the new GoPro Session and the new GoPro "The strap" mount. (It's was an early Father's Day prezzie!)

All-in-all, I like them both!

A few comments on the Session:

1. Very small and easy to use
2. Easy to mount in the innovative housing
3. Video quality seems fine to me
4. The red button powers it on and it starts recording. Press it again and it stops recording and powers down. Should extend the battery life.

Some small concerns:

1. You can't replace the battery and you can't add the backpack battery - but unless you leave it recording the whole time, that shouldn't matter
2. There is no floaty backdoor - you better mount it securely
3. The sound/wind noise is pretty crappy as you will hear at the start of the vid - but you will probably turn it off and dub in music anyway.
4. The clip on the housing makes it a little vulnerable IMO - if it opens the Session could end up on the sea bed. See below.

I tried mounting it on the paddle shaft. You'll see some samples from Big Left at the end of the vid. It is nice and light and low profile, but it got tangled with the leggie a bunch of times... But it has to be better than the bigger Hero4.

I also bought the new "The strap" mounting product. I like the quality and the flexibility. It provides a bunch of new mounting options. I thought I would try strapping it to my thigh. It was easy to start and stop recording. It didn't get tangled in the leggie (to my surprise) and you can judge for yourself if the viewing angle is OK.

(As always, the waves were bigger than they looked...)



(The movie is a bit long but I didn't want to cut too much off Snoop.)

Nice review and video mate

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Supmaori said..
Nice review and video mate

Thanks

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deanrobi said..

Perfect solution to both problems! Thanks.

Nice.. I was trying to work out where it was mounted.. It looks like it's a penis cam.. but the water was too cold for that..

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DavidJohn said..
Nice.. I was trying to work out where it was mounted.. It looks like it's a penis cam.. but the water was too cold for that..

Let me reassure everyone that it was not mounted there

Definitely better video quality than some of the slightly negative reviews would have had you believe.......nice sounds on your vid
Would I suspect be very hard to find a tiny cube if you lost contact with it in some surf situations......even if it is wearing a pfd

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GizzieNZ said..
Definitely better video quality than some of the slightly negative reviews would have had you believe.......nice sounds on your vid
Would I suspect be very hard to find a tiny cube if you lost contact with it in some surf situations......even if it is wearing a pfd

Yeah - I can't fault the video quality, and it was getting dark when I shot the last couple of rides with thigh-cam.

Nice review. Have you tried still images, and what is the quality like?

Good work CSE!

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supthecreek said..
Good work CSE!

Thanks!

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gibo said..
Nice review. Have you tried still images, and what is the quality like?

Pretty good as far as I am concerned. I had to read the manual to figure out how to take a photo. Turns out you have to connect it to the GoPro app to get a single photo. But if you hold the on/off shutter button down for a few seconds it wakes up in time-lapse photo mode instead of video mode. So now I have 21 photos just like this

Cheers CSE,
I think I might have to get one.

I'm glad it's working out. I've been having some mysterious hardware? problems w/ my 3blk and like the idea of the session. Your review is a positive push for an upgrade. The floaty looks good too.

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surfinJ said..
I'm glad it's working out. I've been having some mysterious hardware? problems w/ my 3blk and like the idea of the session. Your review is a positive push for an upgrade. The floaty looks good too.

I should make one comment. The Session is a bit of a different beast. It is not a direct replacement for the regular Hero - depending on how you use it. 99% of the time I use a GoPro to video my surfing - and it seems perfect for that. Smaller, less obvious (I may not look as much of a kook), etc. I almost never used the video display on the back so I don't miss it. But I have had times when I used it to take photos. The fish-eye distorts the photo, but for example I paddled down a river through whitewater and occasionally took photos. But the Session won't let you do that - unless you have a wireless gizmo or a waterproof phone (or you use time-lapse). But for video - perfect.

If it's just video you are chasing, then there other options for a fifth of the price, these will shoot 1080 and are only about $100 plus a bag of accessories

Wow - nice find.

I am personally reluctant to buy knockoffs - but when they can provide so many more options (LCD display, removable battery, lots of included mount options, and more) - for $150 - you you can't help feeling that GoPro might be taking advantage of their brand and overpricing their product... Note that this product still has to be placed in the included housing to be waterproof.

I pretty much use my gopro for video in one-button mode only. Looks like the session is made for that.

But now now deanrobi has muddied the water, thanks obviously gotta study further. The reason I'd bail on the hero is my current hardware/software? problem. Maybe time to try the competition.