GoPro Hero 9

abarth

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Location
SF bay area, California
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Dash Cam
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Hey all:

I made my first GoPro purchase. I'm a bit of a camera/photography/videography enthusiast but I never really saw much value in GoPro cameras. I am however a DJI fan and have been using the Osmo Action Camera for every ride for about a year now. I've had a few cheap action cams over the years and never used them much because the shakiness was nauseating. When the DJI Osmo Action came out, I had to make the purchase after watching this comparison video by iPhonedo.

So now I have the GPH9 Black. It's good. I really like the colors it produces. It's bright and saturated. I'm not very well-versed in color grading so it's good enough for me. I love the loop function for commuting which acts exactly like a dashcam (will create multiple video files until the card is full at which case it will start over-writing the oldest file). It's a function that was not present in the Osmo Action so I had to delete junk files every couple days even on a relatively big 256GB card. The stabilization is a toss up between the GPH9 and DJI. The GoPro seems to handle the "yaw" axis better than the DJI, which is important when it's mounted on handlebars. It also retains a wider field of view than the DJI while stabilization is active. Where it falls short of the DJI is on stabilizing sudden small impacts like streetcar tracks and rolling off the driveway. I'm hoping this is not a deal breaker when I take the bike on more technical singletrack. I didn't do any side by side shots but I've memorized the route and how the DJI behaves when in that location.

There are dozens of other things I'm leaving out but hopefully this gives some insight for anyone considering it.

Here’s a few clips from my adventure yesterday:
 
Looks good! And glad to see the air looking fairly clean!

The air has been good for about a week. But the west in the US is still on fire and there’s a few big ones in Northern California and the closest one to me is in the Napa and Sonoma county fires. We are definitely starting to get that smoke our way.
 
The air has been good for about a week. But the west in the US is still on fire and there’s a few big ones in Northern California and the closest one to me is in the Napa and Sonoma county fires. We are definitely starting to get that smoke our way.

I know! It's like the fire season from Hell and it's far from over. And it seems as if this is becoming the new normal. I remember some years ago when there were forest fires way up in Canada and we got smoke and some red skies here in Vermont but it was nothing like what you guys are going through. Even if it is just a temporary respite I was happy to see that the air in SF had cleared enough to go out for a bike ride.
 
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About 90% of my usage for this camera is bar cam for the daily commute. This video has horizon leveling turned off. Here's a clip of yesterday's ride home:

 
I do hope you guys will be able to elevate / guard those bicycle paths with a curb like here in Denmark, if you had that the bus slowly getting closer and closer to you would not do that if it meant he was crawling up a 5 - 6 " tall curb.
Also like us it would be better if you moved the cycle path in along the sidewalk, and then moved the parked cars out, so them parked there would guard cyclists,,,,,, but of course also block view of them somewhat ( it is a trade off )
Drivers must learn to be careful making Right turns, even here in Denmark people still get killed / wounded by right turning vehicles, about 1 is killed on average every month sadly.

Whatever circumstances a cyclists safety are primarily in his own hands, never trust anyone when cycling, dont trust them to do the right thing, dont ever assume they have seen you.
 
I do hope you guys will be able to elevate / guard those bicycle paths with a curb like here in Denmark, if you had that the bus slowly getting closer and closer to you would not do that if it meant he was crawling up a 5 - 6 " tall curb.
Also like us it would be better if you moved the cycle path in along the sidewalk, and then moved the parked cars out, so them parked there would guard cyclists,,,,,, but of course also block view of them somewhat ( it is a trade off )
Drivers must learn to be careful making Right turns, even here in Denmark people still get killed / wounded by right turning vehicles, about 1 is killed on average every month sadly.

Whatever circumstances a cyclists safety are primarily in his own hands, never trust anyone when cycling, dont trust them to do the right thing, dont ever assume they have seen you.
Thank you for the wise words. And yes, you’re absolutely right. Our infrastructure is lacking in most places and I definitely should have been riding more defensively. I had a “why did I do that?” moment after that.
 
I am debating buying the hero 9. i have the hero 7 and haven't gotten much use out of it as I should but really love the redesigns of the 8 and 9.

Can you set the looping mode to different times? I think the 7 just has 5 minutes, but I don't think it has an option to turn on and start recording when it's usb port gets power does it?
 
I am debating buying the hero 9. i have the hero 7 and haven't gotten much use out of it as I should but really love the redesigns of the 8 and 9.

Can you set the looping mode to different times? I think the 7 just has 5 minutes, but I don't think it has an option to turn on and start recording when it's usb port gets power does it?

The looping function isn't quite up to true dashcam functionality, yet. You have the choice of 120 min, 60 min, 20 mi, 5 min intervals until it writes over the oldest file. So it doesn't really fill up the card and then start overwriting the oldest file. It will hit the 120 min mark and then start writing over even if that's just half the capacity of your card. I have a 256GB card installed and use the 120 min option and it writes 5 min files. I can test out the 5 min option later. I'm guessing it just keeps overwriting one file.

It does not have the option to turn on and start recording when powered via USB.

It would be great to these true dashcam functions added in later firmware...but I'm not going to really count on it.
 
The looping function isn't quite up to true dashcam functionality, yet. You have the choice of 120 min, 60 min, 20 mi, 5 min intervals until it writes over the oldest file. So it doesn't really fill up the card and then start overwriting the oldest file. It will hit the 120 min mark and then start writing over even if that's just half the capacity of your card. I have a 256GB card installed and use the 120 min option and it writes 5 min files. I can test out the 5 min option later. I'm guessing it just keeps overwriting one file.

It does not have the option to turn on and start recording when powered via USB.

It would be great to these true dashcam functions added in later firmware...but I'm not going to really count on it.
I have been waiting for half a decade for them to add those features, I don't think they ever will. oh well, I would rather use real dash cams anyways. I just wonder because I still see people saying gopros are the best dash cams but they aren't even aware of what "true" dash cams are.

I still don't get it tho, so if you choose 120 min, is it one long 120 min file that starts recording over itself once you hit 120 min? so if you record for 3 hours then turn it off, do you get one 120 min file of the last 2 hours? Because you said until it writes over the oldest file which makes it sound like its saving several files.
 
I have been waiting for half a decade for them to add those features, I don't think they ever will. oh well, I would rather use real dash cams anyways. I just wonder because I still see people saying gopros are the best dash cams but they aren't even aware of what "true" dash cams are.

Agreed. GoPros are not dashcams...they're more of a "capture this cool moment" cam.

I still don't get it tho, so if you choose 120 min, is it one long 120 min file that starts recording over itself once you hit 120 min? so if you record for 3 hours then turn it off, do you get one 120 min file of the last 2 hours? Because you said until it writes over the oldest file which makes it sound like its saving several files.

See below:

I have a 256GB card installed and use the 120 min option and it writes 5 min files.

It writes 5 minute files until it hits the 120 minute mark and then it will overwrite the oldest 5 minute file.

And I just tested out the 5 minute option: it creates 1 min files until it hits the 5 minute mark and will overwrite the oldest 1 minute file.

In conclusion, it's definitely not a substitute for a true dashcam. But it is very sufficient for my needs as a bike commuter.
 
Agreed. GoPros are not dashcams...they're more of a "capture this cool moment" cam.



See below:



It writes 5 minute files until it hits the 120 minute mark and then it will overwrite the oldest 5 minute file.

And I just tested out the 5 minute option: it creates 1 min files until it hits the 5 minute mark and will overwrite the oldest 1 minute file.

In conclusion, it's definitely not a substitute for a true dashcam. But it is very sufficient for my needs as a bike commuter.
oh ok sorry I missed that 5 min files part.
 
I have been waiting for half a decade for them to add those features, I don't think they ever will. oh well, I would rather use real dash cams anyways. I just wonder because I still see people saying gopros are the best dash cams but they aren't even aware of what "true" dash cams are.

I still don't get it tho, so if you choose 120 min, is it one long 120 min file that starts recording over itself once you hit 120 min? so if you record for 3 hours then turn it off, do you get one 120 min file of the last 2 hours? Because you said until it writes over the oldest file which makes it sound like its saving several files.


Maybe you've already read or seen this but GoPro labs has a bunch of really cool tweaks out for their cameras. And yes, they include triggering a recording when power is connected.

Here's a really great video explaining how it all works:
 
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