GoPro HERO 6...First Blush
GoPro HERO 6 Black Quick Takes
What I like (for baseball/softball):
1.) Digital Zoom. Usually photo and video guys aren't too keen on digital zoom. But if you find you have to slightly crop your video in post...never again. Slide the zoom bar ever so slightly to crop the shot.
2.) 5GHZ wifi. I can't speak to the stability yet, but 5GHZ means much faster wireless video/photo transfer. I hope it also leads to potential streaming options....please GoPro...make it happen!
3.) Additional (and higher) Frames Per Second, up 240 FPS at 1080P. But...see below in the "What I don't like".
What I don't like:
1.) Narrow and Medium Field Of Views (FOV) are gone. I know zoom probably will allow you to take Linear FOV and turn it into Medium or Narrow. But unless I have to, I'd rather not digitally zoom the shot as it may come with a quality cost. And no zoom or non-FOV on 4K. So, no improvements there. 2.7K, 60 FPS, Linear FOV is still the most usable resolution available, which the HERO5 has as well.
2.) High FPS is great...but you lose most FOV. At 1080P and 240 FPS, the only FOV you have is Wide. I'm sure this was done to save processing power. But it makes it unusable to me.
3.) Still not compatible with Livestream. LiveStream works with GoPro HERO 4 cameras, but not with the HERO5 or HERO6. I really hope those too can get along in the future. This would be such a great option.
4.) Kind of buggy. There is an update that I need to push to the camera. But I like to run them in their factory state just to see what the updates actually do. But my camera occasionally will not shut down. Press and hold the side button until you hear the beeps. But the camera stays on and is unusable. Pulling the battery is the only solution. Really hope that is fixed with the update.
Things I'm concerned about:
1:) My camera gets warm. I am testing a lot of things I won't use in the field. But heat (especially in a cold room) is generally a very bad thing. Nothing definitive at this point, other than I know my 5 doesn't get this warm so quickly.
More to come...stay tuned.