Ran across Vivitar stuff at Walmart for $40-$60, anybody tried these or have any experience with cheaper go-pro competitors? Or is go pro the best way to go if you want decent quality? (Just decent is fine, looking to avoid grainy video that looks like it was shot on a flip phone from 2007). Any other thoughts welcomed...

GoPro can footage can have grain as well... that can come from iso being set way too high. If youre 'shooting' in the water, during the day your video shouldn't be grainy. Pixleated (from slow card or slow image processors), maybe, but grainy, not so much.

vivitar makes a decent one that works for guys I know kyaking and skating up here. Fuji has one for like $75 that seems good. GoPro just was the first, so , its the most well-known.

I use to carry GoPro and used them extensively the only companies that have a leg up on video quality is Sony FDR1000 and X3000. The only camera that is VERY competitive to the GoPro is Xiaomi Yi 4K action cam. GoPro still dominates the mounting ecosystem though but you can use that ecosystem on all action cams

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scientia potentia est




Edited: 05/05/2019 at 07:33 PM by The Political Thinker

The Yi looks very promising, checking out comparisons on Youtube, thanks for this.

A little out of the price range but nice to see others get into the market. Videos and reviews look pretty good.

The new OSMO is using the same internals as the Yi 4K+ but the DJI software is WAY ahead than Xiaomi / GoPro. GoPro is basically done now. GoPro was basically using cookie cutter boards from Ambarella but went out on their own and started building their own boards (big mistake) everyone else is still using Amabrella boards.

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scientia potentia est




Edited: 05/16/2019 at 09:58 AM by The Political Thinker