GoPro 3 Silver -> 7 Black: Should I?

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Buadhai

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Korat, Thailand
# of dives
None - Not Certified
For the past few years I have been using a GoPro 3 Silver for underwater videos. I'm not a great underwater videographer; I just like to preserve some memories.

The 3 Silver is getting very long in the tooth. The LCD screen is fading at the edges, the WiFi seems to turn on and off at random; the USB port is unreliable (jiggling helps) and the camera itself tends to freeze up now and then requiring battery removal to reboot. (Actually, it's been that way from day 1.)

The last time I used it was just a year ago. Putting up with all the defects was doable, but not much fun. After that I decided to give up on underwater photography and just dive. But, yesterday I spent most of the day viewing old videos. A wave of nostalgia overtook me and I decided I ought to start taking videos again.

I had myself convinced to buy a 7 Black, but then I read, among many other comments, this:

…. The 7 black is a fantastic action camera for above water but a complete lame duck for underwater. …. GoPro need to make a much higher capacity battery to make the 7 a viable underwater action camera.

In this thread: GoPro HERO7 Black Underwater Camera Review

So, now I have my doubts. Are there better alternatives in the same price range? (Keep in mind that I live in Thailand, so my options are limited.)

Finally, I offer up my final GoPro 3 Silver dive movie so you have an idea of what sort of videos I like to make:

 
my friend just upgraded from the 3 silver to the 7 black and loves it. I think some people expect weeks and weeks out of battery life running 4k video for hours. this obviously isn't realistic. add to that using the wifi setting to transfer pictures between dives to your phone and battery life is going to be really short. Just buy a few more batteries and a multi-slot charger and make sure they are all 100% before a trip and you'll be fine. the quality of the 7 black is pretty amazing. oh, and the white balance auto correct does reduce the need for a red filter but things still look much better with one. there's a video out there somewhere of two camera's side by side which was pretty cool.
 
I ended up buying a 7 Black. Just arrived yesterday. So far I'm impressed with the improvements in the interface, controls and display. I'm also impressed with the way they use both BlueTooth and WiFi to ease connecting with a phone/tablet.

I had a couple of spare batteries for my 3. That worked out well. They were from Smatree and lasted longer and performed better than the original GoPro battery. (After a couple of years the original GoPro battery swelled up so much that it would no longer fit in the camera. The Smatree batteries are still good to go.)

One caveat. Although the lens port (?) on the Super Suit is almost identical to that on the previous underwater housing, my Backscatter Flip just misses fitting. It's about a millimeter too big. I fashioned a shim out of an old inner tube which seems to work. I'll probably use a short tether in case it fails. There's probably a better solution.

I don't have a dive trip scheduled until next month. I'm anxious to give it a go.
 

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