GoPro Hero3: Black Edition Camcorder Review

Color

In bright light recording, using the camcorder's auto white balance system, the Hero3 managed a color error of 4.25 and a saturation level of 109%. These numbers are a tad better than the Hero2 produced last year, but the Contour+2 was a stronger model in this test. Still, these are good, even colors for the Hero3: Black Edition camcorder. More on how we test color.

Low Light Color

In order to get a better idea of the Hero3's overall color performance, we ran the camcorder's low light color tests using a variety of different shooting modes. The basic 1080/30p mode without ProTune turned on did the best: 3.99 color error with 92% color saturation. Those numbers are a bit better than the competition, so they're very good for an adventure cam.

For those who are curious, the Hero3's color error went up to 4.24 with ProTune turned on while recording 1080/30p video. The saturation level also dropped down to 83% using that mode. Shooting 2.7K and 4K video, both with ProTune, resulted in similar numbers as the 1080/30p ProTune recording. Basically, using ProTune mutes the colors a bit, but that's all by design. The mode is meant for you to make color changes in post production, so accuracy and saturation levels aren't that important here. More on how we test low light color.

Noise

Noise results measured around 0.78% for the Hero3 in our bright light test. This number represents a massive improvement over the Hero2, but compared to other models it's not an exceptional score. The Contour+2 again outperformed the Hero3 here, while the Sony Action Cam showed a bit more noise. More on how we test noise.