GoPro: Upgrade Complete

In May, I said my next upgrade would be a GoPro. Last week, I confirmed that, as I bought a GoPro Hero 3+ Black. (Thanks to my employer, I even got a 40% discount.) For the first few days, I played with it — did a sunset timelapse, and contributed to the internet cat database by adding pictures of the kitties in a charming 2.7k video. (2.7k probably only available in Flash or Chrome.)

But in part, my reaction was “Enh. What did I think I needed this for?” After all, I already had a camera for my quadcopter (in the form of the A5-powered FC40 camera); I had a DSLR (which can shoot great 720p videos); I had my phone, which could do decent 1080p video, and I always had on me. Why exactly did I need *another* camera?

Today, I finally took the GoPro up on the Phantom, and that particular concern is no longer.

I was recording video, so I didn’t get any particularly high res stills — but that wasn’t really a concern. Shooting 1080p video, I was able to get great shots of both the storm clouds looking out west of town:

And another photo looking East towards Boston.

The colors, the clarity, the overall picture and video quality … this is what I kept seeing in everyone else’s photos, even though I wasn’t getting it in mind. I always wondered if the problem was just my tools… and now I know. As with everything, the user makes a difference… but the tools certainly help.

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