Overheating and limited recording times came to everyone's attention with the launch of the Canon EOS R5 and its limited 8K shooting time (now improved by a firmware update, incidentally). But it looks as if smaller sensor action cameras aren't immune either.
YouTuber GadgetsBoy reports in his GoPro Hero 10 Black review that his camera shut down after about 20 minutes. We asked GoPro for a comment and this is the official response:
"Processing at high-performance modes requires a lot of power, so GoPro has put safeguards in place to protect consumers and the cameras from overheating when the camera reaches a certain temperature. The HERO10 is engineered to support what we know a majority of HERO owners use the camera for: to shoot shorter clips in environments with natural airflow.
GoPro’s research shows that 75% of videos shot on GoPros are less than a minute and ten seconds. HERO10 Black can record 5.3k at 60 fps for 20 minutes with zero airflow - approximately 16x the average length of a GoPro video. HERO10 Black can record 4k at 60fps for 25 minutes with zero airflow – more than 21x the length of an average GoPro video.
So for the filming scenario when long clips at highest resolutions in a static environment are required, we recommend taking the necessary steps to provide some airflow. This will improve the camera’s thermal performance and allow for longer video capture."
Our take on this is that high-resolution, high-frame rate recording requires a lot of processing power, which in turn produces a lot of heat. The more powerful video cameras become, the more this needs to be factored in. GoPro may be correct in saying that typical users will never approach this camera's thermal limits, but there may be many who are quite surprised to learn that it has them.
• Read more: GoPro Hero 9 vs 10 Black
GoPro Hero 10 Black new features
One of the main changes in the GoPro Hero 10 Black is a new GP2 processor, which broadly doubles the available frame rates across the board, so that it can now shoot 5.3K video at 60fps, and 4K video at up to 120fps, for example.
Physically, it's largely indistinguishable from the existing GoPro Hero 9 black, but the Hero 10 does add a latest-generation Hypersmooth 4.0 stabilization system, up from the Hypersmooth 3.0 on the previous model.
It's now possible to transfer photos and video from the Hero 10 to your smartphone by cable, which is reckoned to be around twice as fast as using Wi-Fi (which you can still do, of course) and has the potential to extend the battery life.
Read more:
• GoPro Hero 10 Black announced
• GoPro Hero 9 Black review
• Best action cameras
• Best GoPro cameras
