Which Action Camera Should You Buy in 2024? Insta360 X3 vs GoPro Hero 12 vs DJI Action 4

so this is the GoPro Hero 12 and this is the osmo action 4 and this is the insta 360 X3 and if you're wondering which action camera to buy well that's what we're trying to figure out in today's video and at the end of this video I'm going to let you know which camera I prefer to use and [Music] why [Music] now before we start let's dig into the term action camera what's really an action camera nowadays I mean a lot of us aren't really using an action camera for Action anymore but more as a point and shoot camera or as a vlogging camera and I think the word action in action camera has a different meaning these days so it's not really action based anymore it's more like durability based like how long can it record for and will it break if I drop it and also think most people are using these cameras now for vlogging or vacations and everything which is not action based really and only a handful of users are actually utilizing the term action and action cameras and that also means we have higher demands when it comes to these Brands right so the action 4 in example has become more low light base than any camera on the market and the X3 which is actually in a different category but we still categorize it as an action camera because it's waterproof down to 33 ft or 10 m and it can shoot the same things as a regular action camera but more since it has that 360° recording and we also have the GoPro Hero 12 which has always always been the same with the same vibrant colors and the same design but when you're buying an action camera the first thing you're really interested in is the price right because you want to pay the least amount of money for the best possible camera the GoPro Hero 12 comes in at $400 which is the same price as the action 4 and the X3 is actually on sale right now so you'll get that for just around $400 as well which is actually pretty awesome so that means as of this video these three cameras have the same price so you know that going to make your decision even harder I guess now with the GoPro Hero 12 at $400 you do get an extra battery which is always nice but that's basically it so in order to utilize the action camera more you would need to have some extra accessories so you would probably want to step up to the accessory combo which is $450 and this will give you that floaty grip and a head strap so we will have a little bit more to play around with and it's going to be a little bit easier to use the GoPro right out of the box because you can't really utilize an action camera if you don't have any accessories you don't want to run around and hold it like this you're going to have additional shakes to it and it's not going to look that professional or good and with the action four at $400 you do get some extra accessories you get this uh accessory plate or this Mount plate which has 3M tape on it which you can mount anywhere but this is basically when you put it in place it's going to stay there so you would need to get some accessories for this as well and you could get that scheme combo which adds a selfie stick for a total of $448 so the same price as the GoPro there at $450 for some additional accessories which will help you start shooting your Vlogs or videos right out of the box I still think you need some accessories when you're getting these cameras because it's kind of worthless without and you would prefer to mount these in different places so I would say another $100 would probably be what you need to pay for additional accessories if you don't have anything laying around and then we have the X3 Standalone which is about $400 as well so in the same price range as the hero 12 and the action 4 but this comes with the camera only so you're not going to get any additional accessories but you can add another $22 and you can get the 114 CM selfie stick and that's basically the only thing that you need with a 360 camera because you have that 114 CM selfie stick so you can just put it in your jacket in your backpack and create some really nice looking shots and another thing if you're going to mount it to your motorcycle for example and you can have it facing backwards or anything you can actually secure this in place with these zippers uh if that's what you call it and it records 360° so we can reframe everything later and that's something you can do with these two cameras so about $430 for the X3 with the invisible selfie stick right now so the X3 is actually cheaper than both the GoPro and the action 4 since you would need some accessories to really take advantage of these which will bring them up to about $450 maybe $500 but with the X3 you only need that selfie steak now when it comes to image quality there's not really much that can compare to a GoPro on a good day but why do I say that well I still have these issues with my GoPro so sometimes it works and sometimes it won't so I actually have some pretty mixed feelings when it comes to the hero 12 I do like the image quality though it looks amazing but since I prefer to use these cameras in different scenarios and not only in my backyard I need them to perform in different environments and this is where I think the GoPro 12 struggles and comparing it to the action 4 I do see the benefits of both but un like GoPro with the action 4 I always know what I get and it's always good unless I shoot low light which is not as good as you might think the quality is good but the overall video you get might not always be as good the action force still struggles with artifacts and stabilization but it's not as bad as the GoPro and most of the times it performs good so that's also something to note that even though I have like 30% bad low life footage I still have 70% good low light footage but with the GoPro I have 100% not so good low life footage because of the stabilization is always off and it's so grainy and it does it just doesn't look good but I don't think GoPro was ever made to be used in Darker environments it's like mainly water sports bright sunny days and yeah so I think GoPro needs to fix that with the GoPro Hero 13 just to make it a little bit more user friendly and you know give the user and consumer a better experience when using it when you're outside traveling I use Auto on the action 4 all the time I use Auto on the insta 360 X3 all the time the only camera that struggles in auto mode is the GoPro 12 but these cameras are using electronic image stabilization which has always been decent not the best but if you use something like a mechanical stabilization the stabilization in low light would be so much better and you're going to have less artifacts but what's really strange is that these are using the same stabilization algorithm and the X3 is amazing when it comes to stabilization in low light there is no never any issues but with these two you're always going to have some sort of issues but again you have to compensate a little bit on quality but I think it's 100% worth it because at the end if your stabilization is off in low light you're not going to use the footage anyway so it might be worth dropping a little bit down in resolution and still get that perfect stabilized footage which you get with the X3 now comparing these two cameras to the X3 is not really fair is it or is it the X3 shoots a 5.7k at 30 FPS Which is higher than both GoPro and the action 4 but the 5.7k resolution has to be spread out through a 360° field of view which gives a wider use because of that 360° recording but it also limits the quality so the quality you're going to get from the X3 is about 2.7k when exported using the insta 360 studio app and when you export using progress but honestly I think the image quality coming from the X3 looks good enough to me image quality doesn't really matter that much I'd rather have that Dynamic experience which you get with the X3 and the versatility is definitely compensating for the lower quality and when you have all these crazy things going on which you can do with the 360 camera you're not really paying attention to all the details in the image anyway I mean you can do so much with this camera not only videos but photos as well then you also has a single lens mode which can shoot 4K 30 FPS so if you just want that standard action camera look which you don't have to do anything in the studio app you can just record your video and then just take the file directly over to your editing software just like you do with the action 4 and the GoPro I mean this has that too and it's super wide and it's actually pretty darn good so that's also something that the X3 has it has 360 and single lens mode so you basically get the best of both worlds but I do think a lot of people are a little bit too obsessed with image quality nowadays I'm not really sure but that's my thought I don't know let me know what you think down in the comments below now let's talk about stabilization all three cameras have amazing stabilization and it's only those extreme use cases you might benefit from one over the other but normal daily use or when you go on a vacation they all perform extremely well but I think it's a little bit crazy to compare the stabilization from these because it's those extreme use cases that you might benefit from it normal use like I think most people are using these like I said for vlogging vacation and stuff like that you don't need crazy stabilization but it is fun to see what these cameras are capable of and what they offer so what we have with the GoPro Hero 12 now is that Horizon 360 lock in 5.3k resolution which allows you to record in the highest resolution and still rotate the camera as you want with the action 4 we still have to go down to 2.7k in order to get that which is a little bit of a bummer but the X3 still has that full recording option 5.7k at 30 FPS and you can rotate this as you want it's always going to stay level no matter resolution no matter shooting mode it's always going to stay level you're always going to have this Horizon lock which is crazy of course you're not going to have that in single lens mode but when you shoot 360 videos you're going to have the amazing Horizon lock and it's just crazy how good this is and I mean you can move this as you want and you will always have the horizon LIC and steady in 360 with the GoPro you have whatever you film and that's it but this one you have it no matter how you reframe your footage in post which is crazy now let's talk about ease of use all these cameras are super easy to record with you're going to capture whatever you point it at anyway unless you know the X3 is going to record a 360 video so you don't really have to point it at anything but with the action for and the GoPro it's going to record what you point at and you press the record button and it will start recording the same with the X3 so it's basically super simple to get these going now the GoPro does also have more options to choose from so it might take some time to decide which profiles to use and whether or not you should go with HDR log or standard video the action 4 is a little bit less complicated since you only have two profiles to choose from so it's either going to be the normal or a 10bit delog m flat color profile and the X3 is more or less the same as the action 4 either you go with standard Vivid or the flat Pro profile and you do everything else in the insta 360 Studio or mobile app now when it comes to outof the Box use and mounting options which is a crucial part when you get an action camera you really want to mount it as fast and secure and easy as possible because it's going to be more convenient for you but I would say the X3 and the GoPro Hero 12 wins here when it comes to mounting compared to the action 4 which does not have a quarter in option on the bottom which both the X3 and the GoPro Hero 12 have here and the action 4 you kind of have to rely on the Feats unless you get some third party accessories but I mean out of the box it would be preferred to have a quarter inch option here on the bottom of the action 4 as well so because of that I would give a point to the X3 and the GoPro Hero 12 but the invisible selfie stick I would say is the biggest reason to get the X3 you basically have a camera that floats around you and it kind of reminds me of this guy from Mario Kart that floats floats around you telling you that you're going the wrong way and you have to turn around it's just amazing how this technology works it's like a mini pocket drone that just follows you and the amazing part is that I can actually enjoy what I'm doing instead of always checking whether or not I'm capturing what I'm doing because it captures everything and because of the invisible selfis there's nothing in the frame that I have to worry about now when it comes to workflow though the action 4 and GoPro is a bit faster than the X3 which requires an additional step through the 360 Studio or mobile app but the freedom you have when reframing your videos definitely makes up for the extra time spent and you're not really limited to anything either which you are with the GoPro and the action 4 so you can zoom in out change aspect angle and basically do whatever you want which is something you can't do with the action 4 or the GoPro 12 and when you're shooting videos using the single lens mode you don't have to pull the footage through the studio app either this will be ready to import directly to your editing software but but the 360 video still requires that extra step though so it's something to consider but if you ask me I've been using this for over a year now and it's definitely worth it another workaround as well is that you can export the 360 videos and pull that directly into final Cod Pro and you can adjust the framing there or you can use the plugin from GoPro with after fix and Premier Pro and you can add all the key frames there but I personally prefer to do everything in the insta 360 studio app because I think it's faster it's better optimized because it's made for the files that's being recorded on this device but again it is an additional step that you have to consider but I still think it's 100% worth it as of battery life and overheating I've done tests here in the studio in the past and the action 4 is always going to be the winner followed by the X3 and the last will be the GoPro 12 but when it comes to battery life I rarely shoot longer videos and I've never had any issues either to be honest and I also carry some extra batteries for each camera now I mean I've been using these cameras for a very long time now and I've never had any overheating issues when it comes to real life use I also recently went to Hawaii and I brought all these cameras and to my surprise the GoPro didn't overheat either another use case which I've been eager to test out which is not that often for me since I live here in Norway is diving and I got to say this has been one crazy experience but when it comes to comparing these cameras I got to be honest the X3 is on a whole different level with the new invisible dive case I mean just look at this it's just crazy how awesome this looks and I can just move around and frame whatever I want so if it didn't look good in One Direction I can just move it to another location which looks better and this is something you can do with the GoPro and the action 4 so if you're trying to capture that Turtle for example you know if you miss it you miss it and you can't really do anything about it which kind of sucks when you get back home to check the footage but the X3 captures everything so you're never going to miss the shots I'm not another thing though is white balance and the auto correction when you take the camera from above to below water and both the GoPro and DJI claims to have the best underwater correction but to be honest I'm not really sure how they do it because my footage looks like this and I think it was on my third dive that the GoPro finally realized that I was underwater and the white balance got better I also had the same issue with the action 4 but this was on the opposite side so it was more purple and it just didn't look good so I'm not really sure why the X3 performed so much better when it comes to the white balance correction I mean I was shooting everything in the same area and the same location the same water the same Reef so it's a little bit strange that the X3 was so much better I mean I still have a lot to learn when it comes to using these cameras under the water but I think this is a good example of what you actually get when you buy these cameras but of course you can do some editing in post and change the white balance highlights shadows and all of that and hopefully that will be enough to make your footage look better now when it comes to which camera I prefer and which of these three gives me the best experience I would say the X3 it has more use cases for me and with the invisible selfie stick I can get some really amazing shots and even with a 3 m selfie sck I can also create these fake drone shots which is always nice especially in places I can't fly my drone or in places where I really want to get close to those trees to get this amazing cinematic follow shot and also Al when I'm out traveling I get more flexibility with the X3 compared to the action 4 and the GoPro for example and I can also get this super wide shot here which I can reframe however I want and with the invisible dive case now I feel like this camera has everything I want so to put things into perspective do you want to focus on filming and framing yourself or do you want to focus on having fun without thinking about framing whichever camera you get is going to be completely up to you but I know for a fact that the X3 has definitely made my life easier when it comes to shooting videos and now with the invisible dive case you know it is a camera that I can use for every single scenario whether I'm snorkeling diving or doing a hike or riding my motorcycle so I want to know which do you prefer let me know in the comments below

Channel: RobHK

Views: 26,477

Keywords: dji action 4, gopro vs dji, dji vs gopro vs insta360, action 4 vs go 3, dji gopro or insta360, hero 12 vs action 4, DJI Action 4 vs GoPro Hero 12, DJI Osmo action 4, GoPro vs DJI Action 4 vs X3, Action 4 review, dji action 4 vs x3 vs gopro, dji action 4 vs insta360 x3 vs gopro 12, hero 12 vs x3, Insta360 x3 vs gopro, DJI Action 4 vs X3, dji action 4 vs x3, gopro 12 vs x3, insta360 X3 review, dji vs insta360 vs gopro, insta360 x3 vs action 4, insta360 x3 vs gopro hero 12

Id: -rBQOPrSLlo

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2023