GoPro cameras are best known for video. But they’re also very capable cameras for taking pictures. They have small sensors, and they don’t give you as much manual control as some other compact cameras, and their wide-angle lens isn’t a good fit for every scene, but you can get some fun and unique shots with a GoPro that would very hard, or even impossible, to get with a “normal” camera.
I’ve put together below a collection of pictures I’ve taken with the GoPro HERO 4 Silver that give some sense of what its photos look like.
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The HERO 4 Silver has a small 1/2.3-inch sensor that produces up to 12MP images at 4000 x 3000 pixels. It was also the first GoPro to have a built-in screen on the back, and that live view makes it much easier to compose the shot. And it comes with a waterproof housing as standard, so you can put them in places that most cameras can’t go.
The settings for each picture are included in the caption below it, although you only have fairly limited control over the exposure settings. The aperture is a constant f/2.8, which the camera automatically adjusts the ISO and shutter speed. The rest is mostly automatic exposure, although you can apply exposure compensation from -2.0 stops to +2.0 stops. You can also set the minimum and maximum ISO settings to have some influence over the automatic exposure (from 100 to 800 ISO). Starting with the HERO 5 Black, some GoPros can now shoot in RAW. But that’s not an option with the HERO 4 Silver–only JPGs.
The newer HERO5 Black has the same kind of sensor. Despite a few tweaks in the processing engine, its photo quality is very similar. It does, however, have quite a lot more control over the exposure settings through its Protune features, so if you’re after more control over the exposure, you’ll be better off looking at one of the newer Black models.
You can click on each image to open a higher resolution version.
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₂₅₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₂₃₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₄₀₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₅₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₈₅₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 104 | ¹⁄₆₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₈₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₈₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 149 | ¹⁄₅₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₂₉₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 107 | ¹⁄₆₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₇₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₈₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₂₅₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₇₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 800 | 1.2 sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₈₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 376 | ¹⁄₃₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₆₁₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 150 | ¹⁄₂₅ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 460 | ¹⁄₃₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₈₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 426 | ¹⁄₃₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₂₀₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₄₀₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₂₅₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₁₁₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₂₃₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 169 | ¹⁄₁₅ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₂₉₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 100 | ¹⁄₃₅₀₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 206 | ¹⁄₃₀ sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 800 | 0.6 sec at ƒ / 2.8
Photo taken with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver | ISO 800 | 1.4 sec at ƒ / 2.8
Wrap Up: Taking Photos with a GoPro HERO 4 Silver
The HERO 4 Silver is an older model now and has been superseded by several generations of newer cameras, but if you’ve picked up one used or gotten your hands on one from a friend, it’s quite a capable still camera for taking pictures. Hopefully the photos above are useful for some sense of what it’s photos look like.
John says
The GoPro Hero 4 takes pictures at 12MP. It is hard to tell from these scaled down images what the image actually looks like. I am trying to determine if the image quality is any better than my $40 action cam. I’ll search the web for better examples but maybe you could post 1 image at full res?