The GoPro Captures - Part I

When I bought the GoPro Hero 6 Black, I didn't realise how good the photos were going to be. They passed my expectations to be honest in such a compact and easy to carry unit.

The photos were never going to be better than my Alpha 7R mark II with Zeiss Batis wide angle combo. In the right light, the results were just as delightful. With any fixed aperture lens, you would not be able to gain extra sharpness by stepping down the aperture. There were no optical zoom features and the electronic stabilisation only worked for the videos, not photos.

Captured from my balconyThe street of Orchard. The camera did not cope with high dynamic range that well.I did some post-processing dodging to bring out the coloursLet's start with the pluses. The whole setup was light and easy to use. There were not many buttons needed pressing. Just power up and you were good to go. If you needed to toggle a few of the options, the touch screen was a boon.

The lens as I mentioned was much sharper than I expected. Since it was a wide angle, at any distance, you were very likely to get all your subjects in focus. Point and click at its finest.

Nice effectFrom the top. Captured at ISO 800.A semi close-upThen came the part of transferring the captures either to your smartphone or computer. For the phone, I just switch on the built-in wifi on the GoPro, select the GoPro app on my iPhone. I was able to transfer the photos in seconds.

Bicycle in the crowdI must say I have no issue with this perspective ...The shadows seemed to be captured well at low ISOBack at my study, I used the supplied USB 3 to USB-C cable and using the GoPro Quik app, the transfer was just as straight forward. Charging the GoPro was also easy since it worked with any USB-C charger cables. It worked with my Samsung cable.

Gone GoPro

I finally succumbed. The final straw was when one of my nurses brought her little GoPro along at one of the ward lunches. I had to give that a look.

GoPro had a bad Xmas. Their sales were not doing very well. They announced that they were closing their drone arm - which I thought they were doing very well at until I read about the technical issues they were having. They were now looking for a buyer for the company and the prices of their cameras were being slashed.

I managed to get a decent deal and bought the Hero 6 Black, just in time for our Singapore trip. I planned to take only small cameras for the trip - which would likely mean the GR II and the GoPro. Too much hassle to carry the Sony or Fuji as time would be limited and were planning to fly and travel light.

So far, I had only had the chance to use the camera around the house. The photos and videos were much better than our old GoPro. I fact I was stunned by how good the stills were. The control were neater and having a dedicated touch screen and GPS were definitely bonus.

Some of the earliest photos from the GoProNext, I would like to see how well the snaps transfer onto the phone apps. That would make sharing that much more straight forward. The trip this weekend should allow me to do some field test with the camera.

Swafoto?

I’ve never been at the cutting edge of all things Bahasa Malaysia. I always took it for granted that the Malay word for selfies would be something with the same sound. It turned out that I couldn’t be more wrong.

The word is “swafoto”.

That came as a shock. I wonder what would wefie be?

Bring on the Theta

The Theta S is a unique camera. It brought to the masses - at least to me - the ability to capture a scene in its entirety, a global snapshot of what was going on around you at that particular moment in time. This ability was possible before through combination of multiple cameras after which the snaps would be stitched using a special software and then presented again using special monitors to whoever interested.

With Facebook embracing the 360 degree media for its user, the photos can just be uploaded to Facebook which would recognise the photo in its app and would display the photo appropriately. The user would then turn their mobile device around and the scene would be displayed as if they were at the focal point. All that was left was the ability to snap the initial picture readily and with minimal tweaking was ready to be presented to the timeline.

This was where the Theta S excelled. A quick push of the button on this camera with the twin 180 degree fish-eye lens, I just needed to link it via wifi to my phone and press upload to Facebook. Walla! It was that simple.

Considering the compact size of the camera and the size of the lens and sensor, the snap was remarkably sharp. Each sensor captured an 8MP image, and stitching them together would generate a16 MP file. This could then be transferred to the computer for a bit of Photoshop magic if needed, but for me, just a quick tweak on the phone with Snapseed was what was needed most of the time.

If you were feeling adventurous, there was the ability to capture a VR type video which could be uploaded into YouTube using the same concept. The resolution however was relatively poor as the upload was in 1080 HD resolution, which was expanded further to cover 360 degree. But as a prove of concept it was good enough, and I was sure in the next iteration of the device a 4K file could be coming out from the camera.

I have been using the camera for almost a month now and in the first few uploads everybody was fascinated by what was on offer. In fact some were disappointed if some of my uploads were in normal 2D format! They tried to turn their phones without success.

For practical purposes, I was really surprised why shop owners, interior decorators and estate agents had not been using these cameras. They could easily sell their products to show them to their clients just as easily in real life or on their website or social media. I know I would have ....

The camera did cost quite a bit - although less than the current crop of flagship mobile phones. You would also have to get used to its limitations, but on the whole I could see myself using more and more of this device in the future and am interested in seeing what the next generation of them brings .....

The Edgy Camera

iPhone had always been the go to smartphone for photographers. It gave a consistently pleasing results, and with each iteration of the phone, the results kept getting better and better. It is a given that any flagship smartphone would come with a great camera.

The Lumia series then redefine the concept of a cameraphone. I own a Lumia 930 and the results had always been fantastic. But the main drawback with the Windows platform, was the lack of software, although the Windows 10 looked promising. Hopefully more apps would be available of the likes of Snapseed and VSCO cam for a bit of post-processing.

Even the Blackberry - at least on the Z10 - had a decent camera. I really like the output from the phone, but it was grainy and blotchy on low light. It also relied heavily on post-processing as the out-of-the-camera result wasn't always that great.

Then came the Android. They tended to be a mixed bag. Sony tended to have great sensors for their camera. LG was not far behind although I was disappointed with the Nexus 4 - which was made by LG. Oppo made great hardware and screen, but their camera was always so and so. The we came to Samsung. They were improving over the years and the output from Note 3 and S4 was pretty decent.

The S6 edge was a different beast however. The 16MP - or in my case 12MP since I use the 3:2 format - snaps I was getting from the phone had been mind-blowing. Yes, they tended to be oversaturated one minute and subdued in another, but overall I was not expecting it to be this good. I would have bought the phone on the camera alone, let alone the scrumptious screen and form factor.

The jpeg had issues in high contrast situation struggling to cope with a wide dynamic range, but it held its own pretty well. On par if not better than my iPhone 6 plus in most situations although it occasionally tended to underexpose indoors. The iPhone tended to get the exposure right compared to the Samsung. Low light performance? Astounding. However, I still rated both the iPhone 6 and the S6 lower than my Lumia. The Lumia could challenge even a half-decent compact cameras at times.

At the moment, I was pretty happy with the results from the S6, and paired with Snapseed, it was definitely worth a look as a compact travel shooter. As they say, the best camera was the one you have with you at the time.