Imitation GoPro Cameras from China. Any Good?

[Divetech99]

Yup. Agree as well. Frame of mind is the SJ4000 is disposable . CT-Rich nailed it.

I do find the iOS app for the wifi download from cam to phone to be poorly done. You accumulate several video/still shots per dive and you have to press download on the app for every file. For video files, it can take quite sometime of babysitting the download. Wished there was a "download all" or "select files to download" option so you can just press download and do other things.

Hopefully SJCam fixes their iOS app. One updated version wouldn't transfer the videos to the iPhone. Had to find another app (apparently an older version of the broken updated app) to download. Well, you get what you pay for, sigh.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I've been eyeballing the SJ Cam sj5000x. It seems to have good sensors plus it has the built-in image stabilization and accessories seem to be readily available. From what I have read it is an updated sj4000 and those seem to be popular on this thread Unfortunately the specs seem to change with the individual listings: one says 4K, another says 2K, one says 15MP and another says 12MP. Often the eBay listings with say one thing and picture another. The good news is that there is at least one US source for whatever that is worth.

Anyone have any negative opinions about the 5000x?

 

[H20doctor]

the 5000x is the newest version ... it has a sony chip , rather than the A7 chip in the 5000+ , im sure someone has done a review on Youtube of the 5000x .... for me I like the 5000+ because it uses the Ambarella A7LS75 chip , which is the same as the GoPro black 3 ...

 

[JamesBon92007]

I found a couple of underwater YouTube videos taken with the 5000x in familiar waters and they looked good except they seemed a bit jerky, as though occasionally it would stop and start going again. Could this be a result of shooting with the lower FPS settings and is it possible it would go away by switching to a lower resolution with higher FPS?

 

[CT-Rich]

without seeing the video it would be hard to guess. Jerky camera movement I would think is more operator error. I did a time lapse video of a snow storm recently and it came out pretty well. A lot of the outcome with a video is all about editing and software correction. Knowing what to do to make a video look its best is what separates the good from the bad.

 

[Kharon]

Is there anything like the GoPro Session that will go to rec depth or near? The Session only goes to 30 feet. No where near deep enough to dive with.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Is there anything like the GoPro Session that will go to rec depth or near? The Session only goes to 30 feet. No where near deep enough to dive with.

There is an "optional" underwater housing for the Session that is probably rated for about 40 meters. I've seen them on eBay for around $15-$25. Red filters are also available.

 

[sealark]

SJ 4000 20 dives max 90 ft not a single problem wi fi works great. like previously stated instructions suck and the date reverts back. You can even set it up and use it as a security camera. The guts are probably the same as Go pro. here's a picture of my 4000 mounted on the plastic rim with 5 minute Epoxy.

 

[JamesBon92007]

without seeing the video it would be hard to guess. Jerky camera movement I would think is more operator error. I did a time lapse video of a snow storm recently and it came out pretty well. A lot of the outcome with a video is all about editing and software correction. Knowing what to do to make a video look its best is what separates the good from the bad.

What I'm seeing does not appear to be camera movement, but brief lapses in the recording or playback, as though it's starting and stopping for extremely brief periods. IOW, not buttery smooth. I have in my possession a bottom-of-the-line HD 1080p that didn't even rank high enough to be awarded a model number. It was a free sample, and almost worth every penny The color saturation stinks at anything but the lowest resolution and the playback is not so smooth. It also has a tendency to produce white dots whenever it sees something white. According to the reviews that I have read the GoPro Hero 4 Black is very smooth. However, the SJCam SJ5000X has the same specs as far as pixels and fps goes but the only usable video that I've seen that was taken with it was not smooth, and the auto-exposure kept changing abruptly. In this particular case, however, I would say the jerkiness was caused by camera movement. So much for the gyro stabilization. I installed VideoPad on my computer and when I use it to stabilize a video sometimes it looks better, sometimes not.

Do you have a short underwater video that you can upload here that I can look at? I have some taken in Cozumel with a GoPro 3 that look very good so that would be my comparison. I also have some taken (free diving) with my Nokia Lumia (cell phone) in a plastic bag housing that look way better than my bottom-of-the-line action camera.

 

[CT-Rich]

This is a video made with an SJ4000 last summer. Keep in mind that superficial descriptions mean different things to different manufacturers. 60 fps on a Gorpro are 60 unique images. On an SJcam it means 30 unique images shown twice. The Newest versions of the SJcams have, I am told the same sensors as the Hero cameras, but the other elements like software to run it and the algorithms to compress and store the data may be very different and result in degraded video.