By Brady Betzel

If the leaves on the trees are starting to turn, that usually signals a GoPro Hero update. And while that is true, this year is a bit different. In addition to GoPro upgrading the Hero 10 Black to the Hero 11 Black, it is also adding a mini GoPro: the GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini.

The GoPro Hero 11 Black is priced at $399.98 for GoPro subscribers and $499.99 without the GoPro subscription. For more detailed info on pricing, see the end of this review.

I’ve been using the GoPro Hero 11 Black for about two weeks, and I have to say, the release of the Hero 11 Black along with the GoPro subscription begins to close the production-to-post workflow loop on the action camera-to-cloud ecosystem. I’m always asked what cameras I would recommend. Usually it’s “My kid wants a camera, but I also want to shoot some professional-looking content. What should I get?” Over the past few years, I would say GoPro, but with the caveat that getting the footage offloaded and edited is tricky. But with the updated release of Quik, GoPro’s iOS and Android editing and organization app, as well as the relative ease of downloading proxy and/or original-resolution footage from GoPro.com, I can confidently say GoPro now has a very simple workflow for everyone, from beginner to professional.

I have even been found myself downloading footage from the cloud instead of connecting the GoPro to a computer. It sounds a little ridiculous (because it is), but being able to charge my GoPro Hero 11 Black and have it automatically upload my media to the GoPro.com subscription account lets me get dinner ready while my camera charges and uploads footage. The GoPro subscription service is $49.99 per year and is worth every cent. Along with online capabilities, soon GoPro will be adding cloud-based editing and the ability to change digital lenses on your footage after it has been recorded to the Quik app.

The Camera
The GoPro Hero 11 Black has major features that have been rumored for a while: larger sensor, 10-bit color and an easier on-screen menu system. And let’s not forget the new GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini. While I didn’t have a chance to test out the Hero 11 Black Mini, for the most part it has the same internal parts as the full-sized Hero 11 Black, so your image should be almost identical. What are the differences? The Hero 11 Black Mini doesn’t have a screen; its battery is slightly smaller; and it lacks the tools Hindsight, Scheduled Capture, Duration Capture, Webcam Mode. Oddly enough, it also lacks advanced metadata — including GPS info — so there is essentially no Photo Mode except for 24.7MP frame grabs from 5.3K, 8:7 video, mono audio (no stereo) and on-screen presets and adjustments. That’s because there is no screen. (You can access the specs from the app or get basic info from a rudimentary menu on the top of the mini.) One of the coolest features to me is the addition of a mounting point on the back of the camera in addition to the standard mount on the bottom. The GoPro Hero 11 Mini will be ready October 25 on GoPro.com.

GoPro has increased the GoPro Hero 11 Black’s filmable aspect ratios from 16×9 and 4×3 to 16×9, 4×3 and 8×7. That’s because the newest sensor measures 1/1.9 inches. Why is the new image sensor size so important? Because it can simultaneously record UHD horizontal (16×9), vertical (9×16) and 4×3 in one 10-bit 8×7, 5312×4648 resolution file, opening the door to easier formatting for different social media and television aspect ratios without losing a lot of detail from resolution loss.

There are a lot of numbers there, but simply, shooting with the 5.3K 8×7 settings allows you to keep a relatively high resolution no matter the social media format. For now, keep in mind that the 5.3K 8×7 aspect ratio can only shoot in a wide digital lens format, so there will be some fisheye effect. There is no linear option yet.

When shooting photos, the Hero 11 Black, along with its new 8×7 sensor, can shoot up to 27MP. This is an amazing feature that a lot of professionals forget about. When shooting content for YouTube thumbnails or thumbnail images to go on a streaming provider’s home page, GoPro’s image capture is very good in well-lit outdoor settings — something to keep in mind if the streaming network or television network requires still images that are not frame grabs.

The GoPro Hero 11 Black also introduces full 360-degree horizon lock when filming linear in the digital lens settings. The horizon lock will work for most resolutions/frame rates except for 5.3K 60fps, 4K 120fps, 2.7K 240fps and 1080p 240fps, which will be able to use horizon leveling up to 27 degrees. The full 360-degree horizon lock is interesting, and I could see it being useful, but when I tested it, I noticed a touch of artifacting. It was almost like when you stabilize footage in a nonlinear editor, and it has some ghosting on the parts that were stabilized the most. Speaking of stabilization, GoPro has introduced HyperSmooth 5.0 with the Hero 11 Black. If you’ve never used the HyperSmooth stabilization built in to a GoPro camera, believe me when I say it’s incredible. It won’t solve everything, but I have never seen any camera (not on a gimbal) look as smooth as a GoPro using HyperSmooth. It really is a modern marvel.

Because the new 8×7 sensor allows for more information in an image capture, GoPro smartly (or maybe it was a happy accident?) decided to squeeze that image down into a 16×9 frame to allow for a gigantic field of view. GoPro prefaces this new HyperView with the idea that it looks best when the footage is shot from a person’s point of view — a very niche but intriguing concept.

GoPro has simplified the Hero 11 menu system even further than before by having two options: Easy and Pro controls, both of which can be toggled on or off in the settings. If you want to pick up your camera with minimal options to get your footage or photos looking great, leave it on Easy. But if you like or need to really dial in color settings, exposure, ISO, etc., then click on over to the Pro controls. This is a great addition, in my opinion.

GoPro has also included three Pro control-level presets: Light Painting, Star Trails and Vehicle Light Trails, all of which came out of GoPro’s internal event, GoPro Hackathon. All the presets are for nighttime time lapses. Light Painting lets you create bright-light visuals with slow shutter speeds, possibly to spell out words or paint with light. Star Trails uses the Earth’s rotation to create shots with long or short star trails. Vehicle Light Trails, as you might imagine, helps create shots with long light trails from moving vehicles. All of these presets are amazing and tons of fun to mess around with. And for those that think these are kitschy little presets, they aren’t. Previously, these types of shots took a lot of knowledge and multiple applications to create properly, but now you can hit it with one button and no post production.

Finally, for creators who use GoPros to record footage that will be played on large screens (at least larger than a phone), the GoPro Hero 11 Black has introduced 10-bit color and a 120mb/s data rate. I single out larger-than-phone-sized screens because, for the most part, anything above 1080p on a phone will look relatively good. The true test for footage is to play it on a large, color-calibrated screen to see where the noise floor lives and whether the sharpening causes moiré or other technical imperfections.

I am an online editor by day and am constantly scanning footage for imperfections — so much so that my wife can often be heard saying, “No one can see that.” And while GoPros still have some room to improve their low-light capture, introducing 10-bit and 120mb/s recording is a gigantic leap forward for them. The higher data rate is used in the 5.3K and 4K resolution video settings. But the 10-bit color setting is the real prize in this entire Hero 11 release.

Previously, GoPro Hero cameras used 8-bit color, which allows for 16,777,216 colors. The Hero 11 Black can now record in 10-bit color, which allows for about 1.07 billion colors. The easiest way to understand the differences between 8-bit color and 10-bit color is to think of a sky that transitions from light blue to dark blue. With 8-bit color there are fewer shades of blue available to create a smooth transition from light blue to dark blue than when recorded with 10-bit color. Sometimes this will create artifacts that will look like bands across the sky. This is very problematic in television, streaming and theatrical releases. In my day job, we typically run all shows through a quality control process that looks for and flags imperfections, including banding. QC will often find these imperfections and reject entire shows or movies until we correct issues like excessive noise and banding. And no, a simple blur on the issues, such as banding or noise, does not work. But with 10-bit color, there will be less banding present — a win all around.

There is another side to color fidelity that I need to point out: chroma subsampling. This is getting ultra-nerdy and into the weeds, but GoPro uses a chroma subsampling of 4:2:0 for both 8-bit and 10-bit color. I think of chroma subsampling as pseudo-color resolution. The higher the resolution, the clearer the image should become. With a higher chroma subsampling, the overall color fidelity will be a much higher quality and, in my opinion, is half of the equation when someone describes something as looking more “cinematic.” Typically, in television, 4:2:2 is the low to middle ground for chroma subsampling.

In my opinion, if GoPro decides to add 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, its images will be much easier to combine with footage from much higher-end cameras without the viewer really noticing. If you want to learn more about nerdy stiff like chroma subsampling, subsurface scattering and other topics that will lose you some friends after more than five minutes on the subject, color science is a very interesting topic, especially when applied to color correction and visual perception. But that is for another time.

Testing Color
When testing the GoPro Hero 11 Black, I wanted to use the new 8×7 sensor with 10-bit color to draw out as much detail and color as possible, but I also wanted to see how these new technical features would hold up with color correction. I color-corrected some Hero 11 Black 10-bit clips and really pushed the boundaries, essentially breaking the image. I also used some 8-bit clips from my GoPro Hero 11 Black for comparison. When working on the GoPro clips in Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve 18.0.2, I pushed the image pretty far to really show off the 8-bit artifacting (blocks and banding). And I was actually a little surprised… The 10-bit footage from the GoPro Hero 11 Black looked less blocky and had less banding overall. However, it felt a little noisier, and not your typical grainy noise, but more like GoPro’s built-in noise reduction had attempted to process the noise, leaving it a little blobby and less defined. So from a QC standpoint, the banding and overall blockiness was significantly lower in the GoPro Hero 11 10-bit clip. I would consider that a win for anyone looking to broadcast GoPro clips and has had QC trouble with artifacting. I am curious to see if upping the subsampling to 4:2:2 would improve the image even further.

Gumby!
One small addition that I absolutely love is the new Gumby mount that was included with my GoPro Hero 11 Black. It has long, rubber, twisty-tie-type things that can be used to secure your GoPro to objects that normal clamps and mounts might not work with. In fact, I used the Gumby mount to tie the Hero 11 Black to the bottom of a drone and fly it, and it worked! If you already own a GoPro, you probably have gone down the 3D-printed mount rabbit hole on Etsy.com, but if you haven’t run into something like the Gumby mount, I suggest you try it.

Summing Up
I know GoPro will continue to evolve its image science. At the moment, two major roadblocks for them in the broadcast space are poor low-light performance and low detail in shadows when shooting in high-contrast environments. (Think of the Alaskan tundra, with harsh shadows and super-bright white snow.) However, when I was playing with nighttime time lapses, I noticed the noise in the low lights was very minimal. It was actually very impressive. The GoPro Hero 11 Black is still a phenomenal camera in lots of different scenarios, including time lapses and well-lit outdoor activities. And it is continually improving.

In the end, GoPro has delivered again. The GoPro Hero 11 Black combined with the GoPro subscription is the actualization of what I really wanted GoPro to achieve from the first day I used one. GoPro has taken a lot of the troubleshooting and guesswork out of the GoPro post workflow and made it as simple as possible. Only $49.99 a year is an incredible price point for cloud-based editing and backup in the GoPro ecosystem. I’m even taking for granted the actual Hero 11 Black camera itself, which is a waterproof powerhouse of a camera that is constantly used in television shows and films. The introduction of 10-bit color combined with a 120mb/s data rate is improving the overall cinematic quality of GoPro images. If you’ve been holding out on a GoPro up to this point, you should go out and buy the GoPro Hero 11 black and the GoPro subscription service at GoPro.com.

In terms of pricing, here you go: GoPro Hero 11 Black is $399.98 for GoPro subscribers and $499.99 without the GoPro subscription. The Hero 11 Black Creator Edition, complete with Media Mods and Volta (Enduro battery-powered grip/tripod) is priced at $579.98 for GoPro subscribers and $699.99 without the subscription. The GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini costs $299.98 for GoPro subscribers and $399.99 without a subscription.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and Uninterrupted: The Shop . He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.