The video is shot at 5K 24fps and outputted to 1080p.
Obviously the video quality turned out less than desirable but that’s what testing is all about and seeing what comes out.
I’m no videography or photography expert but I do make fishing videos and take some photos.
Recently I got my hands on the new GoPro Hero 9 which will do nicely to take over some of the duty performed by my ageing Hero 6 that’s serving me well but is starting to show signs of problems.
Battery Life
The Hero 9 comes with a new bigger battery that claims 30% longer recording time under certain settings.
What sucks about this new battery is you cannot use the previous batteries and chargers that you may already own. What’s great is the longer battery life which is always a welcomed thing!
I fished from about 8am that day to 6:30pm. Had the camera turned on and off all day. Did not press record that much as it was a slow fishing day. Had the new HINDSIGHT feature on and set at 30 seconds (more of this below).
At the end of the day the Hero 9 still had 39% battery life left. Had the bites been better the Hero 9 would be recording more often and the battery will drain quicker but it still might possibly last till the end before it goes flat…maybe. Looking promising and the next session in two days will tell.
What’s sad is I only have one battery at the moment. Could not even find anyone who has stock to sell one!
Hindsight Feature
The one new feature that perhaps attracted me the most is Hindsight. If you do a lot of recording and editing you will understand how painfully time consuming it can be to store heaps of footages and having to sift through them one by one to find the juicy part that is worthy of inclusion into the final video.
How Hindsight works
You have the options of choosing either setting it at 15 seconds or 30 seconds.
You leave the camera on and when the moment you’ve been waiting for happens and you hit record, the camera records the 15 or 30 seconds before the record button was pressed.
That way you do not have to keep recording hoping you’ll capture that moment in the SD Card. It also means we save space in our SD Cards and do not end up with lots of video recordings with nothing happening (casts after casts and waiting for that eat).
The only caveat to using Hindsight is, because it is technically always recording (but not storing in the SD card), it is draining the battery. So you may want to use this sparingly.
The new bigger battery should help but is it enough? I need to do more fishing and recording to come to a more solid conclusion. But it is definitely a very handy feature in my opinion while we anticipate capturing that “strike” moment on video.
Size Does Not Matter
The new Hero 9 is slightly bigger in size than the previous models but it is really not significant and does not bother me. The bigger size is hardly noticeable when using it.
Camera Settings used during this test
- 5K 24fps
- Hindsight ON
- Front display OFF
- Rear display at 20% brightness
Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below and I’ll be happy to answer them.
Tight line,
Juan Wei
