At the time of filming this video review, the GoPro Hero 8 Black has been out for about 30 days and I have had a good amount of time to use it. Now, this review is from the perspective of an everyday average Joe user, I am not a sports enthusiast or do any kind of extreme activities. I use my GoPro mainly for family vacations, hiking and outdoor activities, travel and when out adventuring. I also use it quite a bit for filming B-Roll footage for my YouTube channel. I consider myself to be a heavy GoPro user as for the most part its the only camera I film with.
After using the GoPro for 30 days I can confidently say that it is a good solid camera and by far my favorite GoPro to date, however, there are a few things that need to be fixed hopefully with next year’s model. I actually like the Hero 8 Black so much in fact that I ended up purchasing a second one. This is the first year I have ever purchased two of the same generation. The reason I purchased a second one is for capturing different perspectives when hiking and adventuring. Normally I would just use an old GoPro for a second angle but this year I wanted all my footage to be captured on the Hero 8.
Two of the main reasons for purchasing the second GoPro was Hypersmooth 2.0 and Timewarp 2.0. These two features alone make the Hero 8 Black a worthwhile upgrade. The Hypersooth 2.0 is just crazy smooth, I didn’t think GoPro could improve from Hypersmooth 1.o but somehow they did and it is just simply put..magic! On top of that being able to set the level of stabilization depending on what activity you are doing is very handy. The new speed selection of TimeWarp 2.0 can add some stunning visual effects to your hyper-lapse and is something that used to take a lot of know-how and a lot of time editing, now it can be done on the fly.
The new menu system is a nice improvement as well in my opinion, being able to create your own custom shooting modes is a huge time saver and definitely a welcome addition. I also am really enjoying the fact that we no longer need to fuss around with a frame, the built-in folding finger mounts is quite slick. For those who are worried they may break, I would worry too much about that, they seem to be really robust. If the finger mounts do happen to break you can purchase replacements on the GoPro website and they can easily be replaced.
When you pair up the GoPro Hero 8 Black with the newly revamped GoPro App with all the new editing features you have a nice portable editing setup where you can create spectacular videos from anywhere. My only real complaint with the GoPro Hero 8 Black is the fact that there is no longer a replaceable lens protector. I have broken one in the past so this does worry me a little. GoPro stated the lens is now stronger than past versions so I guess time will tell if it is a problem. I hope that with next year’s model GoPro reverses its decision and makes the lens replaceable one again.
You can watch my full 30 days in review below.
Hero 8 Black (USA) https://amzn.to/2Mp5Omh
Hero 8 Black (CAN) https://amzn.to/2OUhEXe
