But this is of little practical use: Without the waterproof housing, the camera becomes quite fragile, and there is no way to connect it to a tripod or anything else. Removing the waterproof housing improves the flare handling a bit. The Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens also handles flare a lot better: In the top right corner, the image quality using the Panasonic GH3 with the Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens is vastly better, as one would expect: Some 100% crops from the images make it easier to see the difference. I have compared the images with the Panasonic GH3 with the Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens, since they give a quite similar field of view.

This is primarily a video camera, but you can use the camera to take 12MP images as well. You cannot preview your images and videos at all, except if you use a Wifi connected smart phone. Unlike most other cameras, this one has no LCD viewfinder on the rear side. The battery is also behind an unhinged door. You can easily rub the lens against something: The lens protrudes a bit from the house, so be careful when handling the camera. The camera unit itself has a black, textured, rubbery surface, very good for gripping:īehind a rubber door, there are the usual ports for HDMI and USB connection, as well as the MicroSD memory card port. Here it is seen next to the Panasonic GH3 with the Samyang/Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 fisheye lens mounted: The camera unit is impressively small and light, even with the waterproof housing mounted. This can be quite awkward, so I would certainly advice to operate the camera by Wifi using a smart phone. The three metallic buttons on the picture above are the only way to operate the camera. In the picture above, I have used an optional tripod mount adapter, which allows you to put the camera on a normal tripod with a 1/4'' stud.

Here is the GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition camera unit, with the waterproof housing.

Even as Sony and Panasonic launches competing cameras at a lower price and with interesting additional function, e.g., optical image stabilization, they cannot dethrone the GoPro Hero. In test after test, the GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition is crowned the king.

There is little competition in the action camera market.

Why buy a compact camera, if your smart phone can do just as well? Due to the shrinking traditional camera market, this action camera has become dominating. This is due to competition from below with smart phones, and competition from above with compact, but advanced mirrorless system cameras.

The compact camera and consumer camcorder markets are shrinking.

Nowadays, the most selling camera unit is an action camera, the GoPro Hero 3+.

Gopro hero 3 vs 3