Review: Which is the right new GoPro for you?

GoPro has two new cameras out: the GoPro Hero 4 Silver edition and Hero 4 Black. USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham takes them for a test run to see which one is the best buy. VPC

HOLLYWOOD - I'm standing on Sunset and Vine, shooting a video street scene with a tiny camera a third of the size of a Hershey bar. It's mounted upside down to a street pole on a big, beautiful day with a massive blue sky, and I'm capturing all the cars and people zooming by.

I am doing it in 4K Ultra-high def. That's four times the resolution of standard HD, and it looks amazing. To say this footage snaps, crackles and pops - when shot in great light - is an understatement.

I've been shooting video selfies, time lapses, slow-motion action scenes and straight up photos on the new GoPro Hero4 Black edition, the latest and greatest from the company that revolutionized digital imaging. The GoPro experience allows us to bring cameras to places most of us had never imagined - such as ski jumps, bike runs, sky dives and underwater swims with sea lions.

The new Hero4 is a great sequel for a company coming off a killer 2013: It sold nearly $1 billion in cameras and accessories last year and took Wall Street by storm in 2014 with an IPO that's up 240%.

Sunset and Vine was shot in 4K on the new GoPro Hero Black edition.(Photo: Jefferson Graham)

The Hero4 Black edition is the most advanced GoPro, the first to shoot 4K at 30 frames per second. It's a stunner - if you can suffer through the limitations of a camera with a hard-to-read menu that eats batteries up in minutes, as opposed to hours. (In our tests, we got a little more than 30 minutes for non-stop 4K shooting.)

I believe most consumers will navigate toward the new $399 GoPro Hero4 Silver edition, the first GoPro with a built-in LCD preview screen.

This is the easiest to use, most consumer-friendly GoPro camera. (There's also an entry-level Hero at $129, the lowest priced Hero. GoPro didn't make it available to review.)

Spec wise, GoPro says video quality on the Silver edition has been improved marginally from the previous Hero3+ models, although not as drastically as with the Hero4 Black.

An LCD may sound like a ho-hummer - most cameras have LCD screens to compose images and play them back. Not GoPro, where it's all about snapping these tiny cams on a car, bike, kite - you name it - to watch life from a different point of view. You're not being a photographer, per se, but a life capturer.

Human nature is that we like to see what we just recorded and play back the file, so count me in the camp that loves having the LCD.

GoPro doesn't have an LCD for the Black edition because of the 4K footage. The company says the files are so massive it would heat up the back and make an LCD inoperable.

Hollywood gift shop in glorious 4K, shot on GoPro Hero 4 Black edition camera.(Photo: Jefferson Graham)

There are two good solutions:

*GoPro sells a $79.99 LCD accessory that snaps onto the back of the Hero and allows you to compose, play back and navigate the menu. Be warned: When the LCD is on, the Black edition will eat at the battery even harder.

*Use the free GoPro app for Apple and Android devices to compose, view, share and download footage. You can also use it to get through the GoPro options menus.

The app isn't more battery-friendly than the LCD back, so here's my big tip: Buy extra batteries before you run out on a shoot.

The GoPro batteries cost $19.99 a piece, so buy at least three of them. (Bad battery news for GoPro customers: The new models take redesigned batteries. Your old ones won't fit in the new Hero models.)

GoPro started as a way for founder Nick Woodman to take selfie surfing shots and has morphed into a worldwide phenomenon. Its YouTube channel - mostly consisting of user-generated action clips of backflips, sky dives and bike jumps - has nearly 575 million views and 2.2 million subscribers.

Jefferson Graham takes a video selfie with the GoPro Silver Edition, attached to a GoPro clamp and a microphone.(Photo: Sean Fujiwara)

While traditional camera manufacturers are hurting - the point-and-shoot market has collapsed in the wake of smartphone cameras' popularity - GoPro has shown that consumers will still buy cameras and hundreds of accessories, if the camera does something that a smartphone can't do.

In this case, that's being waterproof and able to snap into any imaginable place.

Bottom line on the new cameras:

*Though the Black edition is the one serious videophiles will lust after, the 4K footage is massive and not aimed at folks who like to share clips on YouTube and Facebook. This is a serious camera that has a menu that's tough to navigate. You'll need the LCD back, huge memory cards and multiple batteries for the Black edition, and the $500 bill will easily grow to nearly $700 by the time you've checked out.

*Though the footage from the Silver edition isn't as jaw dropping (in great light) as the Black edition, it did seem slightly improved from the previous model. The added features - the LCD, the easier to navigate menu and the new placement of the battery underneath the camera - make the Silver edition a great addition to anyone's camera bag.

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