The GoPro Max is a really good 360
camera slash action camera hybrid and is definitely worth buying.
However, before you do, I wanted to share 20 pros and 10 cons I
noticed from my time using the Max that you should consider before
you make yourself $500 poorer. The first pro is it's waterproof. You
don't even need a waterproof housing, you can use the Max directly in the water. Here I am taking it for a swim in a
public fountain in Sydney and it worked without issue. It kept rolling and recording 360 video
and sound the whole time. However, that does not mean you should use it
in the water because the issue with 360 cameras being used under water without
an underwater housing is called lens refraction. Where basically you have water hitting
the lens on either side and it causes a magnifying glass effect and when the
two sides are combined together into one 360 image, it doesn't stitch
properly around the seem line. As you can see here from fountain cam,
this footage is basically unusable. If you're using only a part
of the 360 footage though, this won't be as much of an issue. So to me this means you can
use it around the water, yes, and you don't have to worry about
your camera being ruined. However, under the surface, 360 mode isn't going to be of much use
unless you have a proper waterproof housing. Now straight out the box,
the Max does come with these bubbly, domey things, which it looks
like would solve this problem. However, GoPro do not recommend that you use this
underwater because it's not water tight and water is likely to leak into one
of these things and ruin your shot. However, these lens protectors are pro
number two. This is a great feature, you just simply clip them on and it
protects your lens. With 360 cameras, it's so easy to smash a lens. If I had a dollar for every 360 camera
I ruined because it blew over in the wind, well I'd have $3 but
still you get the point. The lenses are fragile, they can break easily and
this is something that will
be super useful if you're into extreme sports or you put
your camera at risk at all. Yes, they do look very silly, however, they do not affect image quality and
will be completely invisible in your 360 shots. The next pro is that it has a rugged
body and it's not going to break easily. Because it's made of rubber, it's going to absorb shock a lot
better than the average 360 camera, and while it would be easy to
smash the lens or the screen, at least the body offers some
kind of protection. Next, the Max is really easy to use. Even a complete beginner can pick it up
without reading the manuals and start shooting within two minutes. I know with
me personally, maybe it's an ego thing, but I just like turning on a camera
and pressing buttons until something happens, I don't like reading manuals,
I just want to get straight into it, and I found I was able to
do that with the GoPro Max. The menus are easy enough to follow and
you can start shooting in whichever mode you like relatively quickly. I also love
what you can do on the actual screen. You can change almost any setting
within the camera. You can change modes, you have a live view of what the camera
sees and you can watch back your footage instantly after shooting. No other point and shoot 360
cameras have offered that until now. That's awesome. It has a pretty chunky battery and as a
result the Max has great battery life as well. I found when I went out shooting, I would have been actively using
the camera for between an hour, an hour and a half. It started on
80% battery and ended with 30%. That's really good and it's above average
for a 360 camera. It's USB-C as well, so it charges quickly. The first con, and while it's a small one it is
important, is the pouch it comes with. This is not very good quality. There's also two hidden pouches
inside to put these bulby, lensy things and that's not a good
place to put them and it'd be so easy to smash them in here. To be honest, I didn't even notice they were there
until a few days later after I bought the camera. Not good. Instead, what I've been using is my case from the
previous GoPro 360 camera, the Fusion. The Max still fits perfectly inside
this and this provides so much better protection, I know I could drop this
right now and the camera would be fine. It does come with lens caps, great
feature. However, with them on, I found it dramatically affects the
time it takes me to take the camera out, set it up and start shooting. Sometimes you just need to get the shot
straight away and with the lens caps on, it takes significantly longer to take
them off and start shooting as it does with not even using them to begin
with. So I use these sometimes, but not all the time. The next con is the specs have not
been updated that much since the GoPro fusion. It's been two years since the fusion and
we still have the exact same resolution for both photos and videos. I haven't
yet tested them out side by side, but I've got to say I'm
a little disappointed. It would've been nice to see even just
a tiny little upgrade with these things, but we got the exactly the same.
Which is why I see the Max as a camera that's very similar to the GoPro Fusion,
just with a lot of the issues handled. Without having compared, I can tell you already it's going
to be better in terms of workflow, the app and so many other things. However, the image quality I know already
is going to be quite similar. Also, I've taken a few photos with it
and I'm really not impressed. The images are underwhelming, the
dynamic range is not that great. Here I am at the Strand
Arcade in Sydney and yes, the lighting is a little bit challenging, but I'm pretty sure the Fusion
would have handled this. I know for sure the Insta360 One X would
have because it has inbuilt HDR mode. The Max however doesn't and it also
doesn't have RAW which both the One X and the Fusion do have, so to me that says this is not a camera
you would buy if your focus is photos or 360 photos. And that's okay, it can't
be good at everything for only $500. Another weakness I've found is the
stitching around the base of the camera hasn't always been great. I'm
sure they will improve this, but if you're using the camera handheld
or on a selfie stick like I am here, if you allow your viewers to see that
area directly beneath the camera, there is going to be a noticeable
stitching imperfection. I'm sure you noticed earlier too,
the stitching ain't always great. It still is pretty early into the Max's
release and I'm sure they'll fix this, however, I found it to
be pretty hit and miss. The next pro is stabilization
and yeah, it's good. Also, it's got to be said, it's
got really good video quality. I've been really impressed with the videos
I've taken with it so far in terms of contrast, clarity and really nice colors. Every single clip in this video has
been taken directly out of the camera, I've not done a single bit of color
correction. From my tests so far, it's also been pretty good in low light. I had a lot of comments on my last
GoPro Max video about how nice the shots looked of me walking past the
Sydney opera house. So yeah, I think it's a pass for low light.
The next pro is sound quality, and while I saw some really good sound
samples in other GoPro Max reviews, this is something I had to put to
the test myself. In this first shot, I had three competing sounds, me,
the water fountain and the wind. Right, this is an audio test for the
GoPro Max. It's pretty windy out, I got a fountain to my right competing
with me. Can you hear me, is it clear? Or is it not clear? And that wasn't that great,
was it? So I tested it again, but this time without my own voice Now that was a whole lot better. In fact,
I'd actually say that's pretty good. So the sound quality will definitely
be better than most point and shoot 360 cameras, however, it will depend
on the circumstance you're in. Speaking of sound, it has spatial audio,
which means 360 audio. As you can see, it has microphones on three sides of
the camera and this means if you're watching back in 360 mode, the sound
will move as you move around the 360. A con is you have limited
control over the video setting. There aren't too many options to choose
from in terms of resolution and frames per second. Also I found the time warp mode to be
pretty underwhelming because of this. You can only speed your footage
up to four times as fast. When sometimes you're
traveling a long distance, you want to go 10 times as fast.
Also, there's no slow motion, just 24 or 30 frames a second, which it's got to be said is a
downgrade from the GoPro Fusion. Another pro is Hero mode
where it essentially allows
you to use the camera as a normal GoPro, capturing a fixed
perspective in front of or behind you. They're branding the GoPro Max as three
cameras in one and I guess this is technically true because you
have one perspective there, one looking back at you and then one
when they combine together into a 360. And while yes, this technically is true, all 360 cameras can already do this. Where the Max is better
though is it allows you to
record one individual site at a time without the need for reframing. Whereas with other 360 cameras you
have to go into an editing software and reframe the footage before you
add it to the rest of your video. No question this makes it a
great camera for vlogging, because there are so many ways you
can use it and shooting in 360 mode essentially means you
won't miss the moment. This is why 360 cameras are so amazing, especially when they have such good
stabilization like the Max does. It literally means you can shoot first,
point second. When you're shooting, you may have no idea how the
edit is going to look later on, but when you are editing, you may decide that 10 seconds in it's
better to have the shot point towards my face and then 12 seconds in,
point to the thing I'm looking at. Or you can reverse that. You don't have to decide then
and there while you're shooting. You simply can't do that with a regular
GoPro and this is the unique selling point of 360 cameras. Hashtag 360NERD. Another thing that makes it a good
vlogging camera is it's fast to connect to your smartphone. You don't need to
manually search for the wifi connection, it will pick it up straight
away and connect. Also, it's got a great app that not only
makes it super easy to connect to your camera, change the settings and shoot, but also to edit and reframe your photos
and videos into any kind of edit you like. I'm a big fan of the smart phone workflow
and I think the Max and the GoPro app are helping lead the way towards doing
all of your editing solely on a phone. Also, these are the best transitions I've seen
when reframing 360 video on a mobile app. As I mentioned in my last video, it's kind of hard to export 360
photos and videos to your camera roll. You can technically do it, but you need to search deep within the
menus of your phone to find your exported content. Why not just make it
easy? Everyone else does it. If you prefer the desktop
workflow, then I've got good news, GoPro have a great desktop
software for both Mac and PC. What I love about it is it's basically
a computer version of the mobile app. It's super simple and user friendly and
they use a lot of the same elements as the app. So it's easy to recognize which icons
do what and what the overall sequence of the workflow is. They also have a fantastic 360 video
reframing plugin for Adobe premier, and this helps you get even more control
over what the final viewpoints of the end video look like. Yes, they
did already have this, however, it hasn't worked for the last
few versions of Adobe premier. And then there I was all excited
by this, I opened Adobe premiere, I applied the effect and
I'm getting nonstop crashes. Maybe it's to do with the recent
release of premier 2020. Again, this is something I'm sure
they'll fix pretty soon, but I haven't yet found
a work around for this. It could just be me and my computer or
it could be something that's affecting more people. I'll be sure to
report back about this ASAP. Something I'm a little disappointed by
is the maximum export quality on mobile and the desktop software
is 1080P. Yeah, WTF. I've been exporting 4K reframe 360 video
for the past two years now and this is going back to 1080P. Yes, I know it's not actual 4K
because when you start with 5.6K, and you're reframing to one tiny little
square within a 5.6K equirectangular video. The Maximum image quality in terms of
pixels you'll see in the window will p robably only be around 1080P. However, I like having the ability to export at
4K because I found it actually looks sharper and better than
exporting at 1080P. The only workaround I can think
of is editing in Adobe premier, starting with 4K sequence settings and
then editing from there and exporting at 4K. But still 1080P is so 2012. Also something that quite a number of
users are experiencing are unlevel h orizons in 360 photos and 360 videos. Here's an equirectangular 360
photo straight out of the camera. And this is basically unusable
when I import it to my computer. I'm going to have to open this in a
horizon leveling software and fix it photo by photo. To fix this, you'll either
have to A, when you're shooting, make sure the horizon is dead
level with every shot or B, share your 360 photos directly from the
GoPro app because the app does correct the horizon. Still though, kind of just
a tiny bit limiting. And 360 videos, yeah, that horizon isn't good, I'm
sure they're going to fix this, but they haven't yet. The final pro is the GoPro Max
has a great accessory range. You probably already know this from
seeing the hundreds of accessories you can buy for regular GoPro cameras.
And straight after release, the Max comes with a store full
of accessories you can buy. While most of them aren't necessarily, one you probably will need to buy is
one quarter inch tripod thread adapter. As expected, the Max comes with GoPro mounts and you
can move them to the side like that, but there's still no tripod thread there.
So you're going to need one of these, this is just an old one I've had
lying around for a few years now, but I found a really good one on Amazon
that's on its way and I'll link that in the description. Also, I'm using a 400 gigabytes SanDisk
micro SD card with the Max, and this basically means I can record
12 and a half hours of 5.6K 360 video. That's a lot, and don't do
that, nobody's gonna watch it. So I'll put a link to all my recommended
accessories in the description, including this as well as where you
can find the Max for the best price possible. I'm going to add one
more pro and it's the price. The Max is $500 straight after release
and that's a damn good price for such a good camera. Yes, it's not
groundbreaking in terms of 360 cameras, especially compared to
what we already have, but it has enough really good features
to make it a serious contender, if you're looking for a 360 video camera. I will be comparing it to the
One X in the very near future, so make sure you hit that subscribe
button so you don't miss out on that. Maybe I'll even compare it to its other
competitors like the GoPro Fusion and some of the other cameras that I due
for release very soon. Now I'm curious, what do you think of the GoPro Max, yay
or nay? Let me know down there. Also, if you can think of any other
pros or cons to add to this list, be sure to leave them down there
too. That's it from Mr Ben. Let me know if you have any questions,
otherwise, it's time I disappear.
