(should probably go into “Equipment” section but there’s none so…)
Some time ago i found very cheap GoPro3 on Aliexpress: 47.31€ |Original Für Gopro Hero 3 + silber Vollversammlung Bild Sensor LCD Montage Objektiv Motherboard Reparatur Teile|Karosserieteile| - AliExpress and decided to buy it.
Arrived in paper box, bit better than just soft package. So:
Good:
- Cheap!!!
- Superview included out of the box, #amaze
- with some minor tinkering lens can be rotated and entire camera may become even more aerodynamic
- very good dynamic range and 1080p@60FPS+superview usable
Not so good:
- 30.6g as-is, but ~10g can be taken out by replacing front plate
- HDMI-out is not so great (see below)
- no top (shutter) button, but can be soldered on (see below), controlled via serial (everything can be set via serial…) or scripts
- something is not right with mainboard. Seller photos shows correct GP3B board. I also had few and remember that shutter button was 3-p connector. But board i got looks more like white (or silver?), with 5-p connector. It still records 1080p@60 and reports as GP3 Black on serial console and on version.txt so probably this is just some strange board revision:
{
“info version”:“1.1”,
“firmware version”:“HD3.11.03.03”,
“wifi version”:“4.0.36.1”,
“wifi bootloader version”:“0.1.0”,
“wifi mac”:“d4d9191d3ceb”,
“camera type”:“HERO3+ Black Edition”,
“camera serial number”:“H3B+EDITED”,
}
Now about HDMI - without superview everything is fine. I’m using cheap ali HDMI2CSI converters, if superview is turned off - then it works every time, at least for me.
With superview it’s a bit worse. Need to turn on camera, then connect HDMI, only then image will appear, else - just black screen. I did not had this issue with GP4B, but again, i did not tested every possible mode.
I did not tested every possible combination with GP3, but looks like 1080p@30FPS+superview has this issue every time, @60FPS looks a bit better, but when plugging both camera and RPI at once is still not reliable.
So, great deal if you can live without superview (ambarella + protune => amazing videos, also you can get some kind of superview by using AE, avisynth scripts…), not so great but usable when using superview.
Pictures:
(HDMI will go into another post)
