Evaluating footage

- So, Rich, we've obviously covered what's in the box, some of the technical specs, the different mounts and ecosystems that are available for the Session, but the at the end of the day, obviously, it's all about capturing great footage. Just a general thing, I think that the Session delivers on that tradition of good GoPro footage. This camera is capable of recording I think some really good 1080p video. Obviously, it can do 1440 if you need a little extra wiggle room there. Again, to be clear, this is not a 4K camera. So if you're looking for 4K resolution, you're not going to find it here in the Session but that's okay.

So we have a couple of different examples of showing how this camera was put to use. - Yeah, we put this camera to the test, and I want to show you some different footage to evaluate. So first up here, what we're looking at is a nice, controlled set environment. So Jim Ball and I, another one of our friends we've had on the show before, we recently have put together a class for Lynda.com on multi-camera, and we use this as a discreet camera on set. We actually hid the camera up, do you want to know where? - I don't know, like in a glass or something like that? - Under a lime, on the table when we were making smoothies.

it was so small, we just punched it in. So here's the camera, and this is a studio lighting environment, but I'm kind of an image snob. - It's really clean. Obviously, you had a bit of that wide-angle perspective that you get with all GoPros, but I was remarking to you before we started recording, how clean this looked. The close-up is nice, the focus is nice and sharp. Obviously, with the addition of Protune on the camera you can control ISO and sharpness and things of that nature. So you can get a little bit more out of the camera than the default. Richard, one thing we didn't mention before that I think is worth mentioning, this shot reminds me, compared to other GoPros, which you might have to find special black-out cases for and things of that nature, this is actually black.

So if you do need to hide it on set, under the lime as you say, it is going to be a little bit more discreet looking than, say, something with a silver face to it like that. So that's a really big benefit. The footage that it got in this situation, I think is pretty good as a cutaway cam. For a different angle, it's going to work really well. - What I really like is, you look at that range of what's in focus. Sure, there's a minimum focus distance. We can only go so close, but the front of the board is in focus, that blender for the juicer is in focus. This is just a great little discreet camera that gives you that really interesting angle.

- Cool, let's take a look at another one. - All right, so now, we have some water footage and we've got some different situations here. First up, we're on a canoe and what's the dynamic range, right? We've got dark, shadowy trees, puffy clouds, blue sky. Rob, could you color-grade this? - Of course, and this looks just like GoPro footage to me. I mean, I don't think there's anything out-of-the-ordinary here, versus what I've come to expect on the other cameras. Obviously, we have a little bit of that wide angle, sort of barrel distortion going on there, but that's fixable in post as well.

Pretty good dynamic range there, you see a little clipping there in the clouds, but obviously, it's an extremely bright day. This is a pretty hard situation, as you say, because you've got the shadow of the trees and the water. You've got the special highlights bouncing off the boat, you've got the burnt out sky, and the GoPro has always done a fairly good job, and this camera is not an exception. Even though it does a lot of auto-adjustments on-the-fly the thing I do like about all GoPros is they're not as steppy as you find in other auto-adjustments where things are kind of click-click-click, which is nice. - Yeah, as the camera got blocked there by the arm and then comes right out of it, there wasn't that dramatic auto-aperture.

- It's still there, but it's not as noticeable as you might find in other camera systems. - Now, because this camera is waterproof, I always like to see how it handles the transition. Now, we're in a dark murky lake, and the camera got pretty wet. So, it's underwater, it comes back out of the water - It's not shark-native, I don't see any sharks in this lake. - Yeah, but look at that transition, Rob, between underwater and out. That was pretty fast for dealing with a major exposure change. - Yeah, the one thing that I also say that's a little bit different about this camera versus a regular GoPro where you're going to put this in a case to be waterproof, is that the audio is a little better.

Now I say "little", in air-quotes here. - It's still a tiny microphone. - Right, and there's no external microphone or anything like that available for it, but because it's not inside of a case, I think if you're trying to pick up those water sounds or somebody screaming for help, "I'm drowning!" You're going to get that a little easier than you would maybe, with a regular GoPro in a waterproof housing. - Now, speaking of that, one of the things you mentioned, waterproof housings, when it's in this you're not getting the camera wet. You do you have to be careful that if that pops open underwater, you're going to fry your camera.

But when it's in the case, you can't actually pop that. They were smart enough to block those things so they really can't be accessed, making it more difficult. I've got to tell you, as a guy who sometimes puts a GoPro on his kids when we're going snorkeling or scuba, they are really tempted to open up those GoPro cases underwater, "Look, there's a button!" - Yeah, exactly. That looks pretty good. Let's take a look at another one. - Yeah, so I think what I want to see is one of those transition shots, so entering the water. So here we go. - Skin tones look good there, nice and neutral.

Somebody's about the jump in the water, I think, there we go, boom. - And it recovered. So, as we drag that, yeah It's a murky lake, but as we get later into the shot here, look at that. Comes up right away, we got a good shot, we're seeing things. That's a hard shot, we're right into the sun there, but look at how it recovered and was able to deal with that. That low-profile mount comes in handy. It didn't get in the way of a kid, this was a kid-cam. - That's another thing I think is important, when we look at footage like this, is that this is obviously a very small camera, but when you start putting mounts on it and other things, it gets a little bit bulkier.

I feel totally comfortable putting this on my little kids. I have a two-year-old and a seven-year-old. This smaller form factor just fits them a little bit better, especially with the low profile mount which is really nice. - All right, we've got one more clip to look at. In this case, we put this on a young parkour athlete. He's running around and jumping, and so it's going to be a little frenetic here, but look at that. Point of view camera, we've got fluorescent lights on the ceiling, mixed lighting, rapid changes. I've got to say, that's not too bad for smoothness of motion here for a pretty crazy athlete as he's moving around.

- Now, the thing that we didn't capture in detail, I mean, we've got a little bit of it obviously, in the water, but is extreme low-light situations. It would be my guess that the Session would react similar to a Hero4 silver or black in terms of low-light sensitivity. These are not cameras that you're going to go, "This is a low-light winner", but with the addition of Protune, you do have the ability to adjust and control your ISO. So that's a plus, but just be aware this camera does like light. - Yeah, as we're looking at some of the footage here what we're going to see is that without that dual processor of the black, this does not have night-photo mode or night-video mode.

Rob, we were here and it's okay, but there's a decent amount of light, but even as we're moving around in these different situations, it's handling it well. I always look at what happens as we move into different areas here. There are some shadowy areas. It's holding up, we're not seeing a lot of noise in areas and I really like how that low-profile mount, even these athletes here, they're doing all this rambunctious stuff, they're jumping from everywhere they're grabbing poles, they're leaping. That's holding up pretty well. - So Rich, when we come back in just a moment I think we should wrap up by giving people our buying advice for the new GoPro Hero4 Session.