Action Cams
We've done some in-depth reviews on these, but things have changed. You can obviously get totally lost down a YouTube rabbit hole and go into a lot of depth on all of these but this is a simple, no bullshit, examination of what they are like for surfing and capturing the general adventure thing around surfing.
1. The GoPro 10 - it's a monster, 4k 120, 5.7k 60, mega stills frames rate, ramped up pixels for shots, all sounds cool, but would be shit without the increased power of the processor inside. Simply this is the king of action cams. The video is borderline indistinguishable from full pro cameras, and in good light it is a worthy main camera. You can crop into that ultra wide angle view and get great prints, and cropped in video from 5k as well. Essentially it is the master again, and unlike the GP9 the interface works, doesn't freeze, and can be worked even in gloves in the cold North Sea. Our tester paid for this, I borrowed it from him as well and can safely say it is the master once more.
2/3/4 - I know what a cop out here but each of these three cameras are letdown by something thus cannot occupy slot 2 in their own right so -
Gopro 9 - Powerfull, amazing image quality, the slow motion is insane, but try and change settings whilst floating in the impact zone on a heavy winters' day and it's hit and miss if you can. I believe the GP 1 processor is at the limit to handling everything the 9 has under the hood, and it makes the touch screen slow, and sometimes totally unresponsive. On land though, didn't have so many issues and the image is insane.
DJI Osmo original - good camera, resolution and picture not as good as the GoPro 9 in our opinion but the touch screen mostly works a lot better, and can be picked up cheap.
Insta 360 One R - Ok so this modular system is kind of cool except - The touch screen is laggy, and tiny, the 4k Mod image quality is pretty average compared to GP9 and DJI , the 360 mod is cool, and great you can just bolt it on. Where it really wins is with the One Inch Mod, amazing for an action cam in low light, and smooth slow mo to rival the GP 9, still suffers from the touch screen though.
5. DJI Osmo 2 - We've only had access to one of these for two weeks, quite like the modularity, the specs seem sweet, we suspect this will be second favourite after the GP10, but watch this space.
So to sum up, after a few years of imperfection GoPro 10 is king of action cams for surf and adventure again, the new processor and specs, and the new more detailed sensor is just winner.