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For the longest time, we shot all of our video footage on our GoPro Hero 4 Silver which handled the job well but gave all of our videos the proverbial “fisheye effect” that GoPro was known for. While this is fine when you’re recording high action items like kayaking, snowboarding, skiing, etc… it’s not the best option for everyday recording or vlogging. Fortunately, when we were looking to upgrade our GoPro, Aaron’s company was running a contest where the winner got to choose from a number of options, one of which was a GoPro Hero 5 Black. Aaron won the challenge and chose that which opened up our world to a whole new quality of video.
The first thing we learned is that the 5 comes with stabilization built in and that is a massive game changer! Aaron’s hands shake naturally so his videos are generally shaky, but Hayden has learned how to stabilize the GoPro when she’s recording so adding the built-in stabilization has really made our videos much smoother. On top of that, they have a feature where you can set the camera in linear mode which removes the fisheye effect and gives you a more traditional 16×9 or 16×10 video format. These two alone have massively improved the quality of our videos. They also offer 4k video, but in order to use the linear mode, you cannot record in anything higher than 2.7k. We would love to get into a fully 4k video system, but when you need the stabilization and linear mode, you have to make that sacrifice.
Our favorite thing about the camera is that it is compact and therefore, easy to use in any situation. We often get asked what kind of camera we have and its followed with “Oh, it’s so tiny and cute!” This allows us to be a bit more discreet when we’re filming in locations where it’s not as common to have a full on video camera and light setup. We also love that it’s waterproof, so we can take it kayaking, snorkeling, or anywhere where we don’t have to worry about it getting wet. While we love our GoPro Hero 5 Black, we will be upgrading to a better camera for vlogging that has a crisper image, better sound quality, and a zoom function.
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