GoPro has launched a “new” action camera—we say “new” because it’s technically the same GoPro Hero 10 Black that debuted back in September last year but worse, or better depending on who you ask. The Go Pro Hero 10 Black Bones is, as its name implies, a bare bones version of its flagship action camera that has had any and every unnecessary feature cut off it so that it’s super light at just 54g.
Basically, the GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones was designed with first-person view drone pilots in mind. FPV drone enthusiasts have for years been grabbing GoPro’s cameras and hacking away at it to get it as light as possible, before strapping them onto their FPV drones. Doing so makes it easier for the drone to operate as you’re basically getting rid of excess weight, making the drone more nimble mid-air. There’s no need for things like screens and speakers for instance as FPV drones typically already use a low-latency analog camera which the pilot uses to navigate in first person.
The GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones achieves its super light weight by stripping away the display, the speakers, the door, and even the battery. Doing so means that this new drone is 100g lighter than the regular GoPro Hero 10 Black. It’s even lighter than the cubic GoPro Session. GoPro says that they wanted to make this somewhat niche product having seen pilots cut parts off their regular cameras, which has the downside of sometimes causing overheating.
However, with no actual battery onboard, you’ll need to hook it up to your own battery. GoPro themselves suggest that you solder the battery leads of the drone to the GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones to power it up and it’ll be just fine. This is thanks to a built-in regulator circuit in the camera meaning that you won’t need to worry about how much voltage the drone’s battery is providing; the GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones will work with anything between 5-27 volts. One possible issue here though is that drone batteries are typically not known for their long battery life, and adding on a camera to it might make it worse.
Apart from that though, it’s more or less the same GoPro Hero 10 Black from before. It has the same GP2 processor under the hood for powerful performance, as well as the same 1/2.3-inch image sensor that will let you capture 5K video at 60 frames per second, 4K video at 120 frames per second and 2.7K video at 240 frames per second as well as 19.6MP stills. There’s also HyperSmooth 4.0 stablisation onboard for some of the smoothest footage you can get, as well as ReelSteady which can track your gyro metadata for stabilisation control in postprocessing. However, like most cameras in this segment, you are limited to just 8-bit colours rather than 10-bit colour.
The GoPro Hero 10 Black Bones is so far only available in the United States, with no word yet on if they plan to bring it to other markets. It’s priced at USD499 (~RM2,111.02) regularly, though you can also snag it for just USD399 (~RM1,687.97) if you also sign up for a one-year GoPro Subscription plan. Seeing as that’s the same price as the regular GoPro Hero 10 Black in the US, it’s certainly not cheap considering you’re technically losing a bunch of features for the sake of cutting on weight.
If you’re in the market for a more standard action camera, the GoPro Hero 10 Black is still perhaps one of the best in the market. Rory took it for a spin earlier this year and pretty much loved it, finding it faster and snappier than previous GoPro cameras. It officially launched here last September for RM2,399 and since then can be found for cheaper too. You can check out Rory’s review of the GoPro Hero 10 Black here:
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