Hero10 Black Bones | GoPro’s New Drone Camera
GoPro has announced a new lightweight version of its flagship camera. The Hero10 Black Bones requires you to get your soldering skills out!
The GoPro Hero10 is an incredibly popular action camera, with fantastic stabilisation and some serious capabilities. The built-in Enduro battery offers around 56 minutes of battery life when shooting in impressive 5.3K60, and the tough housing makes it waterproof up to 33ft. All these amazing features have a drawback, though. They mean the camera is a little too heavy for drones.
First Person View (FPV) drone pilots tend to enjoy shooting epic, fast-paced action, meaning their kit needs to stay light. A famous example of this is the FPV bowling alley video, which went viral last year.
Speaking about videos like the bowling alley one-take wonder, GoPro’s head of product, Pablo Lema told The Verge, “those are all done by people who took the time to try to make a GoPro lighter”. Lema went on to say that some pilots were even cutting their GoPro cameras in half in order to make them lighter and more compatible with drones.
Solving this problem, the Hero10 Black Bones brings all the goodness of a Hero10 – sensor, lens, processor, and HyperSmooth built-in stabilization software. The changes come by way of the newly ventilated casing, preventing any overheating issues. The bare-bones camera weighs in at just 54 grams, compared to the Hero10’s 153 grams.
Recognising that FPV is becoming an important perspective for filmmakers, GoPro wanted to create a camera that ticked all the right boxes. A camera that can take of unique vertical shots, without compromising on image quality. Considering the consumer the Hero10 Black Bones is aimed at, Lema stated “customers for this product aren’t going to shy away from a soldering station; attaching motors and control circuitry is how they build their drones to begin with.”
Getting comfortable soldering is definitely advantageous with this neat camera. The built-in regulator circuit means you can use it without worrying about how much voltage your LiPo is supplying. Supposedly, you can simply “solder [it] into the battery leads of your drone and it’ll work just fine.” The theme of ease is continued when it comes to the controls. If you don’t want to use the GoPro app or optional remote, you can wire it up to your drone controller.
This reveal of the Hero10 Black Bones comes shortly after the announcement of the GoPro Volta, which is all about adding more, rather than stripping down. The purpose built FPV camera is available exclusively from gopro.com, currently in the US only. It’ll set you back $549.98 without a GoPro subscription, or $399.98 with one.