GoPro Hero12 Black review: a superficial refresh

2023-09-24 10:00:00

Same sensor, same image

While the last update of the sensor dated from the GoPro Hero9 Black, the brand surprised everyone with its Hero11 Black and its atypical 8:7 format 27 megapixel sensor. The 2023 version thus uses this configuration designed to film in vertical format, particularly for social networks, and crop without too much loss. The camera is thus capable of filming in 8:7, using the entire sensor, in 16:9 or 4:3. In all cases, the definition is maximum, at 5.3K and 60 fps.

Just like its predecessor, the GoPro Hero12 natively offers 3 virtual focal lengths of 12, 16 and 24 mm. Obviously, the shortest focal lengths offer the greatest angle of view, at the cost of visible distortions. They will be reserved for certain action sequences rather than “lifestyle” scenes, the typical rendering fisheye being too unflattering to film faces.

GoPro Hero 12 Raw

GoPro Hero 12 JPEG

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Details but little detail

GoPro has never really stood out for its sharpness, and despite its exotic format 1/1.9” sensor, the quality of the images remains substantially identical to those of the Hero11 and 10 before it. Too much cropping will have the effect of revealing the technical shortcomings of this type of material, but we must put things into perspective: we are not in the presence of a professional device and the videos, which will have the main purpose of sharing memories on the social networks, remain flattering on a smartphone screen and even on a 4K TV, as long as you don’t focus too much on the details. Obviously, professionals will be able to set the camera in 10-bit D-LOG to calibrate their videos as desired.

GoPro Hero 11 / 5.3K

GoPro Hero 12 / 5.3K

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Pronounced smoothing

Photography is not the strong point of action cameras and GoPro is no exception. Jpeg photos suffer from very aggressive processing, significantly smoothing out details. If the images remain usable up to ISO 800, the smoothing becomes really marked beyond that, the fault of the small size of the sensor. Obviously, the camera offers the possibility of shooting in Raw, but we then lose all the practicality of this device and it will be necessary to spend time in post-production to erase the grain visible on the images.

Stabilization as effective as ever

Like every year, GoPro takes advantage of its new camera to upgrade its stabilization to the next level. The Hero 12 is therefore entitled to Hypersmooth 6.0 stabilization. Without being able to detect any difference in performance, the camera is still particularly effective in erasing vibrations and shakes. Depending on your use, it will be wise to choose your auto stabilization mode (activated or Boost), because erasing movements generates more or less significant cropping.

Locking the stunning horizon

Introduced the year before, the internal 360° horizon lock is still in the game. At the cost of heavy cropping, the camera is able to erase camera rotations to maintain a perfectly straight horizon line. This mode is perfect for the most muscular mountain bike or motorcycle outings or, more rarely, for aerobatics sessions in an airplane…

In any case, this mode remains astonishingly effective and can be used up to 5K at 30 fps or 4K at 60 fps. On this point, GoPro still does much better than the competition from DJI which requires lowering the definition to 2.7K at 60 fps.

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