GoPro
 

It's another company that fell into the niche market with a very popular product that saturated it's target audience. Unfortunately, GoPro isn't the only company that has fallen into this situation.

No big surprise. Their products are not exceptional really, they just spent a huge amount of money on marketing. Maybe too much. I bet they spent millions just on product placement in The Martian.

You can get cameras as good for half the money or even less. And I don't feel sorry for them, they didn't even innovate the market, there were plenty of other waterproof sports cams that were on the market before they were.

Maybe they need to drop their prices a bit, then redefine exactly what their target market is.

For me, I was in the market for one, and finally found a used one. My primary use of it is as a dash camera in traffic in the car and on the motorcycle. It will also be used on bicycle rides. None of my uses of it would fit into the "action camera" niche per my definition of what that niche market is.

Time will tell how it will all shake out.

Tough market, and I doubt most buyers really need a tough action cam for recording their mad skillz. I don't. I just want cheap and functional front and rear video cams for safety purposes and would delete anything that wasn't exceptionally interesting anyway.

I've recorded some of my rides using various digicams -- Ricoh GX100, Nikon V1, others -- and can't imagine anyone being interested in watching them. Only reason I might upload a few to YouTube would be to demo pleasant routes other folks might be interested in trying.

I'd like to get an action camera for when I finally do go on my first bike touring ride - like up the C&O Canal Path, or just up the WO&D to the end. The general public won't be interested but immediate family might be.

Since I'm not in a mad rush to get an action cam, I'm looking forward to seeing how this all shakes out. I feel GoPro stuff is overpriced too, but the alternatives have shaky reviews as well.

The real problem is that none of the action cams have a long enough battery life. The Fly6 isn't bad at 6 hours. Few others get over 4 and the Gopro generally gets only between 1 and 2 hours, which is useless for cycling.

Now that you mention it, I'm kind of holding out for a Fly12

Look up HD cameras on the RC sites. There's a ton of them recording at 1080/60 for anywhere from $50 to $100. That's why GoPro is going to have problems with trying to sell a $100 camera for $500.

I have a JVC Addixion 2. I got it from work through the catalog for 20 year anniversary. I haven't used it on the bike yet but I use it all the time on the kayak because I didn't have to go out and spend another $100 on a waterproof case. At $300, it is waterproof and shockproof. I don't know about the shockproof, but I've used it in the pool under water with the kids and in the water with the kayak.

The proprietary mounting system with GoPro is another big downfall. My JVC along with any other camera on the market takes a simple 1/4-20 thread to mount to anything. This means DIY as well as thousands of cheap universal camera mounts. I can get a $4 handlebar 1/4-20 mount that works perfectly rather than a $20 GoPro handlebar mount.

You are right that not only are there cheaper cameras and that the standard camera thread mount is common, but you ignore what has made GoPro and similar cameras so successful.

Durability. Many of those cheaper cameras can not handle the water or impacts. Not so cheap if they die on you...

And the GoPro mount has become very universal and there are thousands of them out there in hundreds of configurations.

Coincidentally, I bought a GoPro specifically for my ride of the GAP and C&O last spring. I stopped over at my sisters house in Cumberland for a couple of days after riding the GAP and forgot the camera when I left for the C&O part of the ride. It's a shame too, because while the GAP has a much better riding surface the C&O is a good bit more scenic.

My main complaint with the GoPro (at least the low end model I have) is that the fish eye lens is terrible at capturing wide open stuff. I've been disappointed with most of the videos of taken on really scenic rides. It's great for more closed spaces like cyclocross races. The GAP/C%O ride is pretty well suited to the kind of video it takes.

There are plenty of cameras with the same durability and image quality as GoPro for much less money as well, and many of them have better mounting systems. Just not as well marketed.

Sony, Drift, Contour are some major names that come to mind. When you get into second tier such as SJCam and Dazzne, you have almost exact copies for 1/2 to 1/3 the price, and the durability seems equivalent.

GoPro helped popularize action cams by spending a ton of money on marketing, but in the end it's a competitive market, and they really can't continue to sell product for 2 to 3 times what competitors can and stay in business. So they're either going to have to cut back on the marketing that requires them to maintain those profit margins, or just continuously produce really significantly better products (and have a market for those better products - no point in building an awesome new, industry leading feature if nobody needs that feature).

Some Sony models cost just as much as the top-end GoPro, unless I'm missing something:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-FDR-X1000...ony+action+cam

Yes, Sony along with JVC (the one I have that I got free through work) is around the same price as a GoPro. There are plenty of action cams at half the price of a GoPro as well. For every $200-500 camera out there, there are 3 or 4 cameras that are $100 or less like the Mobius cam, the SJCam, and I think Panasonic even has a cheap action cam. I just saw one at Sears tonight for $120. You can even get an HD keychain camera recording in 1080p for less than $20. For $20 each, mount 25 of them all over your bike for the price of a GoPro.

I like my JVC action cam. I use it on the kayak. I didn't pay the $399 (I think) retail for it though. I got it free as an anniversary gift through work. I'd never pay $200-500 for an action cam. I don't even want to pay that much for a still camera to replace the one I swamped in the kayak (though I'm going to have to as I need a new photo camera.)

True, but from my experience, that says to me "So why buy the GoPro?"

The GoPro is the worst shape ever devised for an action cam, with the exception of when mounting it on your chest. It's ridiculous on a helmet.

If you put a Sony and a GoPro both in front of me and said "Both are $250, choose one" I'd take the Sony every time, simply because it's not idiotic to mount and doesn't look like a brick strapped to my head.

[MENTION=40124]ItsJustMe[/MENTION], you're absolutely right. It seems those bricks could impale a helmet during a crash.

Hopefully the impending doom of GoPro will lead to Sony dropping prices on their action cams.

Then again, back in the days of the Walkman and portable CD player (yes, I had both as a teenager, then college student) Sony's models were among the more expensive.

Best bet for GoPro is to shoot for the 360 market, if they intend to stick with the high end. That's the Next Big Thing. Right now it's pretty much just the Ricoh Theta, which is smallish and lightweight-ish, but with mediocre resolution; and Nikon.

GoPro and Ricoh could merge tech and marketing savvy to own the 360 market if they wanted to. That makes the most sense. A single helmet mounted camera to record everything.

Bundle it with quick and easy to use software to isolate footage to the desired portion of the 360 spectrum. That'll help ensure more universal acceptance by penetrating social media markets and mobile devices that aren't yet 360 or 3D compatible.

Other than that, I don't see any future for single perspective action cameras that cost more than $100. In a couple of years even $100 will seem too expensive for a fixed perspective action cam, as the market will be saturated with sub-$50 action cams for car front/rear dashcams. To carve out a new niche an action cam for bikes will need to be 360.

I'm curious what you mean by 'fish eye lens is terrible at capturing wide open stuff'.? Is is so wide that everything is too small? What angle is the lens? I'm looking at this camera:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A27W2Z6R7RNEOR

It shows its 170degree.

This is the one I got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GXKTEUI

It also has a 170 degree lens. I'm not sure of the particulars.

GoPro's software has an option to "remove" this effect, but obviously once it's there in the original you can only do so much. Apparently some of their cameras have an option to capture narrower fields.

Anyway, my experience is that you get really great images of whatever is right in front of you, but that everything distant or peripheral looks even more distant and peripheral than it actually was.