Why I Hate GoPro...

[FOUNDATIONER]

I LOVE my GoPro Hero Hd.
That being said, I HATE GoPro.
They develop a camera that is a casual diving videographer's dream.
It is small, ever fly with a bunch of video gear? Not fun.
It is in its own dive housing that will exceed recreational depths, included.
Ever look at the price of an Ikelite housing for any camera?
You can put hours of HD video on a tiny card.
Then they stick a dome lens in front of it so it is out of focus underwater.
Not to mention no way to hold the thing.
Then they leave an entire group of sportsmen (divers) to solve these problems
with the occasional tease that a dive housing is on the way.
Many individuals and organizations spent alot of time and capital making the
GoPro useful and fun for divers. Most of the solutions work exceptionally well.
As for the focus fix, I purchased two of the fixes before GoPro released the dive
housing. They work very well but with the slight caveat of a little vignetting.
So I bought the GoPro Dive housing. It is wonderful.
I also have an extra battery, an LCD backpac, and an SRP filter for the GoPro
housing, another problem GoPro ignored, all mounted on my old tray from
my 1.3 megapixel SeaLife camera rig, with the flash removed and replaced
with an Intova light. I love it all, It works awesome, My friends and family
ooh and aah and it is pretty much my logbook now.
Alright, problems solved, anything else ya want any DIYer worth his salt
can make himself. Wrong.
GoPro goes and scraps the whole thing with the Hero 3. Nothing compatible.
Not batteries, housing, filters. Nothing. Hero 1 appears to be discontinued,
my guess is Hero 2 will follow soon. All that time and effort by all those
small entrepeneurs, soon if not now, wasted.
Now don't get me wrong, I love free enterprise, one takes a risk in these
endevours. But it seems to me that GoPro could have made a lot more
friends had it addressed it's dive community buddies much sooner.
But now we have the Hero 3. Surely superior to what I'm using, but
not much. It comes with its own dive housing right away, duh. But
still no way to hold it and no filtering options.
And oh yeah, it's 400 bucks. No thanks.
I'll keep my antiquated Hero Hd which works great, until it dies,
by then the free market, (hopefully a diver) will have develeped
something that is actually better, cause it always does.

Or would you like me to tell you how I really feel.

 

[Interceptor121]

A camera for underwater photo or video lasts 3 years but costs 3 times more in terms of set up
A gopro costs one third but then you upgrade every year

I think a company with a similar strategy did a lot of money in the 90s it was called Microsoft

 

[g550driver]

It may be that divers are not their biggest customer base... so.. that being said.... we are not that much of a priority for them...??? Economics control everything..

 

[krawlings]

go with the Intova sport pro 1/2 the cost the quality is just as good as gopro and the intova you can do white balance @depth and as you change depth gopro I do not think they have addressed that

 

[rhwestfall]

Hey, at least it isn't like the Flip platform, where Cisco buys it and then decides to kill it.....

 

[Interceptor121]

It may be that divers are not their biggest customer base... so.. that being said.... we are not that much of a priority for them...??? Economics control everything..

The same is true for all camera manufactures to be honest I don't think they had in mind diving in the first place and this has been a. Bit of a coincidence
On a positive note it brings many people into doing video which is good
Due to the relative low cost of the products and the fact that the money is made on accessories I guess coming up with upgrades is a way to make more money but after all it is your decision to change you don't have to
Also many camera manicures don't even bother producing a housing let alone other accessories
I think the op starting this thread is a bit frustrated as you get when something new makes what you have obsolete on the other hand as he said he doesn't have to upgrade if the new features are not needed
I have for few years bought equipment that was just end of line and it has lasted me 3 years until unsold it or scrapped it can't really complain

 

[Marty Cerven]

It may be that divers are not their biggest customer base... so.. that being said.... we are not that much of a priority for them...??? Economics control everything..

Seeing it took them how many years to come up with a housing that focuses underwater, it shows we are not a big interest to them. The 60m waterproof housing was likely more just to get it tough for the other stuff and in the surf, the round lens issue show's it wasn't intended to be used diving to 60m when it lost focus in a puddle.

They have paid attention now but we are still only a very small slice of their overall market, Im sure the 3's will sell much better for divers as before you needed many more extras before you could use it underwater. Now the extras can help still but you can at least shoot video in focus underwater straight out of the box and many will be happy with just that.

 

[SurfnPics]

You have to remember that the GoPro was originally developed by surfers for surfers not divers! They have made an incredibly advanced video camera affordable to just about any sport with accessories and have grown from zip to over $2.5billion in a few short years. They won't get it right for everyone but their success proves they have come close. I agree there is nothing worse than buying something only to be outdated within a short time frame. But what do you buy these days that isn't?

 

[offroadr1]

sounds like the Iphone....gopro has hundreds of markets and thousands of uses. I imagine diving is a small percentage overall.