GoPro HERO Session Waterproof Digital Action Camera

I use this camera for fishing, boating, and most often paintball. I’ve written the review below specifically regarding using this camera for recording tournament paintball:

The GoPro Hero4 Session is the best action camera I’ve come across yet for paintball. I personally use the camera with a Grizzly Mounts Pole Mount ($20 on Amazon). The mount is similar to other pole mounts, but that it is made of a really tough rubber. This means it won’t scratch your barrel and also doesn’t crack when you tighten it down or take a dive. Definitely a recommended accessory for the Hero4 Session that is useful for paintball as well as limitless other activities. I’ve broken down the camera review into the features of the camera that make it an excellent option for paintball players.

One-Touch Operation

The Hero4 Session is unique in the GoPro line in that it features one-touch operation. This means that the camera is powered off at all times unless the user is adjusting settings or recording. Simply press the record button, and after a couple second delay, the camera is powered up and begins to record. When finished, press the button again and the camera finishes recording and powers down. This has a couple of advantages on the paintball field.
First, it allows a single battery to last an entire day for tournament paintball. The Hero4 Session’s battery is rated for about 2 hours of recording, and does not drain when the camera is not recording since the unit powers itself off. By pressing the record button before the start of each point, and pressing it again after the flag is hung, a player’s entire tournament worth of play can be captured on a single charge.
The other advantage to the one-touch operation of the Hero4 Session is the simplicity of use. With previous GoPro models, the user would have to press and hold the power button, wait for the camera to power on, then cycle through the operation modes until “Video Recording” is selecting, and then finally press the record button. All of this is taken care of in one press of a button with the Hero4 Session, which is saves a ton of time while practicing, but is priceless during an XBall match where every second in the pits or walking out to the start box is precious. One touch of the button and within seconds you’ll be recording.

Size and Design

The GoPro Hero4 Session is the smallest GoPro as of the time of its release. The shaved down dimensions are very noticeable when mounted on your barrel, especially if you choose to mount it upright, on top of the barrel. Previous GoPro cameras were significantly wider, which meant more of your vision was blocked when looking down the barrel while playing. The Hero4 Session is also narrow enough that it does not hit the ground when sliding and crawling with your marker sideways against the turf/grass. Maybe the most important aspect of its smaller size is the smaller target that the Session provides for your opponents.
The Hero4 Session also features a centered lens in its design. In other GoPro models and many other action cameras, the lens is placed off-center on the camera. The Session’s centered lens affords the camera an unobstructed view when snap shooting on both sides of a bunker, as well as viewing straight down the barrel instead of on a slight angle. The Session captures paint streams better than ever before because of this one easily overlooked feature.

Automatic Image Rotation

The GoPro Hero4 Session features Automatic Image Rotation. This means that when the camera begins a recording while it is upside-down, it will automatically correct the video to right-side-up. This saves quite a bit of time that would otherwise be spent manually rotating the videos in computer software or changing the camera’s orientation settings on other action cameras. This is an important feature for when the camera is mounted hanging below the barrel, allowing the player better vision down their barrel from above.

Exposed Microphone

One of the most important features of the GoPro Hero4 session are its exposed microphone and case-less waterproof features. Since the camera is waterproof and shockproof without a fully enclosed plastic shell, the microphone remains exposed to open air. This results in superior sound clarity that was never able to be captured with previous generation GoPro cameras. Instead of just the muffled sounds of the marker firing, the Session records the voice of the player behind the camera as well as his/her teammates on the field. This feature alone puts the Hero4 Session above other action cameras.

Price Point

The GoPro Hero4 Session comes in at a price point of $199. Compared to the other cameras in the Hero4 line, it is the most affordable below the Silver at $399 and the Black and $499. At the lowest price point, this camera still packs in features that the others do not that are essential to recording first-person paintball.

I’ve had this camera for a couple of years now. I’ve had two, actually. I lost my first one to the bottom of a river due to some unfortunate planning on my part, but bought a replacement the same day. It’s that good. This camera, at this price point [$129 at the time of this review] is a steal. It’s tiny, and the video quality is amazing, so it’s a great choice for someone who likes to film while on the move. The versatility of the GoPro mounting system means you can stick this thing just about anywhere.

A couple of notes:
– Doesn’t do well in low lighting conditions. Don’t expect to get nice nighttime footage from this, or really any sports cam. You need a camera with a bigger sensor and manual settings for that kind of light. Low light performance is even worse shooting at high frame rates. Again, not really GoPro’s or the Session’s fault, just a natural limitation of the form factor.
– Battery life is good. You’ll get about 2 straight hours shooting at 1080/60 which is what I usually use. The battery is built-in unlike the larger GoPro models, and that means when your battery dies, you have to recharge it instead of just swapping it out. Note that it can be charging and shooting at the same time, so if you have a portable charging pack, you can extend the battery life significantly.
– Waterproofing works well. I’ve never brought it down to the supposed 33′ limit, but I’ve got about half that and it didn’t seem to mind. I have mine paired with a water-resistant gimbal stabilizer, and it’s really nice to know that a little rain or the occasional splash won’t do anything worse than get my lens dirty.
– App pairing works well. There’s a little bit of latency when viewing the feed in real time on your phone, but it’s to be expected and the app still works very well. It’s my preferred method of changing camera settings, although most of the main settings [frame rate, resolution, shooting mode] are all able to be changed right on the camera as well.
– No 4K or built-in image stabilization. You get what you pay for, generally, and those features are just a little too fancy for what is now a 3 or 4 year old $129 camera. Can’t beat it for the price though. If you have a gimbal and a little editing finesse you can still get incredibly smooth footage with this camera even while doing things like biking, walking, and snowboarding.
– Sinks like a stone. If you’re using this in the water, you could do worse than spend a little cash on a floating attachment. Don’t make the mistake I made.
– Sound quality is okay. Definitely nothing to write home about, but again, that’s not really GoPro or the Session’s fault, it’s the price you pay for the small form factor and caseless waterproofing. You’ll struggle to pick up conversion in windy environments, and really anywhere that the sound is coming from all directions, but normally the audio is at least usable. Generally people running a sports cam are doing active outdoorsy stuff, in which case the audio probably won’t be needed anyways. Set your video to some music or something. If sound is important to you, the Hero 5 and up have a little adaptor that lets you hook up an external 3.5mm mic, so you can get as fancy as you want.

If you have a little more money to throw around, it may make sense for you to spring for the Session 5 which is pretty much an all-around upgrade to this camera. That being said, this camera is worth every cent and is perfect for someone who’s looking to get started without going broke. It’s not my primary camera anymore, but I rarely go film stuff without it as a backup or secondary.

I use this as a dash cam. Er… I wanted to anyway. Protune settings are only available in the app every few tries if your lucky, and don’t always stay selected. This has been a known issue for years that GoPro won’t fix. Same with loop video clip duration setting. It just isn’t there half the time, and when it is, it does nothing. The settings menu will be different every time you pair the camera to the app, and none of your settings will be stored. The battery cannot be counted on at all below -4 Celsius, and even with Wifi standby turned off the battery looses 5% charge a day just being off. There is also no real “infinite loop” setting, and a new video is created every startup. Thus, the camera will always eventually fill the SD card and stop recording. Deleting the files on the SD card requires turning on remote function on camera, and connecting to the laggy slow gopro app. It’s a 3-5 min procedure all in all to delete files from SD. The clip is also immensely hard to undo from mounts. Takes a solid 20 seconds of firm wiggling around to get it to unclip. This camera is only held back by the laziness of GoPro to address fixable problems with it. Therefore, It will certainly be my last GoPro purchase. Even though I know its not a dash cam, Its listed features will make it sound like its capable of being one. and it really isn’t. I only really bought it because I cant bring myself to purchase a true dash cam when they are all made by unknown Chinese companies and have ridiculous sounding brand names and cheesy descriptions and marketing. Also tried all the Garmin dash cams and they are utter trash. No reliability at all, and another company that won’t fix problems. But this GoPro is basically Garbage. I haven’t been this disappointed in a product in years. I will go out of my way to make sure no one I know purchases another GoPro product, since they seem to put untested, incomplete products on the market with false advertising (loop video, protune, remembering settings, terrible app to name a few) Did I mention it’s slow? Takes almost a 2 mins just to connect to the app. Literally the only thing good that came of this purchase was the decent quality micro USB cable that came with the camera, lol. Works great for my other properly functioning electronic devices and cams.