HERO4 Session (CHDHS-101)

(I'm not the person you asked, but...) One of the problems with helmet cams is that your head moves a LOT more than you might think! From wobbling and wiggling tiny amounts, to the abruptly yanking your head and looking over your shoulder, helmet cams seem to spend a considerable amount of their time looking at everything except for that which is in front of you. \*Obviously I'm exaggerating some, but the truth is that they *do* tend to produce results that are anything but "clean". Even with decent image stabilization you will still end up with a lot of movement, "in general". (referring to how much we move our heads when riding). I still ride with a chin mounted camera plus a \*smaller one mounted to the bike regardless though, I mean, having something is better than having nothing IMO. But I record my rides for ME, not for public consumption. If something less than desirable happens, whether I stall it, get fixated on something, get hit by someone or I hit someone, I want to be able to go back through the video and figure out what went wrong and hopefully learn from it and/or have proof of it. (*Easily +95% of my rides end up being boring and uneventful, and I'm perfectly OK with that! Means I'm still in one piece and have no new stains in my britches!*) :) \*I use a GoPro Hero 7 Black on my helmet and have a Hero 4 Session that I mount where my left rear peg is, facing to the rear. It produces some steady footage from time to time, as long as I'm on a smooth road and keep the RPMs in a sweet spot, because if the RPMs are too low or too high it shakes like crackhead. But I digress. :) A 360 camera is definitely something I would like to try though, I like the way some riders' footage comes out! Having the ability to pan the image around "after" it's been recorded seems like it'd be the best way to never miss anything!

I’ve got an old hero 4 session and it’s perfect. Small form factor and decent quality with the GoPro ease of use.

I had Hero 4 Session before it got stolen from my bag at work. It was awesome, and i would love to own 5 aswell

Wow. I am willing to bet you’ve never done a side by side comparison or gopro, insta360, and dji. It has NOTHING to do with influencers. It has to do with GoPro quality and functionality compared to the their competitors. I started on GoPros with a Hero Session 4 (small cube camera). I loved it. After a while i bought GoPro 8. The resolution was an upgrade and still enjoyed using it. But cracks started appearing in my enjoyment. Battery life was horrible. I had to buy 3 extra batteries (off brand) with a charging case that allowed “action” with my action camera. The chargers that come with GoPro dont allow that. Overheating was also an issue. Then i got a GoPro 10. I used both together to get varying shots like outside car / inside car simultaneously. The 10 would shut off automatically when i placed it on the bumper of my car. Still have idea why. Its an action camera, it shouldn’t do that. Overheating on the 10 is WAY worse. And battery life is terrible. Bought 3 more (off brand) batteries with same “action” charger. Then i bought a Max 360. Absolute trash. The color was horrible. The bit depth was so bad a blue sky looked like it was “printed” from a 1990s printer. I used it for like 6 months then sold it. Since i bought that 360, they have been “announcing” a new 360 for over 5 years. Still hasn’t happened and the competition has not only come out with better 360 cams, but taken the market lead away from GoPro. About 7 yrs after buying my GoPro 8 the 2 batteries that came with it failed. They deformed and expanded out of their case. One was in the camera at the time and luckily i was able to get it out before it caused damage. Now 4 yrs after buying GP10, one of the original batteries deformed. Now I stopped using the ones that came with it and have 2 enduro batteries and 3 of the off brand (Telesin) batteries. So my love of GoPro has gone from a high point to ultra low because of the companies lack of quality(overheating, bad batteries, etc), and not keeping up with the competition.

I filmed my wedding with a couple gopros. They were 4s back in 2015. My only recommendation is don’t film a wedding using GoPros. But if you absolutely want to I bet the 13 with that anamorphic lens could get some good shots.

Plus one for the action cams. I don't know about the knockoffs, but there's plenty of GoPro knockoffs with durable cases. And you can find a used GoPro Session in the $60 range. Even a Hero 3 is still a decent option over a toy camera.

Hate to ask but because you aren't going to have any good options I gotta... "Why?" And, naturally, you simply can not get good battery life out of something that small if you intend to have proper quality as opposed to like... Something where quality may be less a concern like dash cam or trail cam but even those aren't tiny. I too would like a magical product lol... We're just not there yet. I've seen people try the Ray Ban glasses but, it has all kinds of quirks. Like recording limits. (Likely for overheating or to reduce the obvious battery drain.) So who knows... We could be close. But the form factor specifically is going to limit battery life as well as thermal issues for like... Even 1080p60 or 4k30 etc I did like my GP Session though. I miss those, but am not trying the new minis they made. And did consider the insta GO but like you mention, just too many compromises. I have a gp12 and insta ace, which is slightly bigger but a better camera imo