Taking great photos on your GoPro Hero 5 Black means knowing your camera settings. Here are the top 5 settings to change in your GoPro Hero 5 Black to get the best photos.
Switch from Video Mode to Photo Mode
Set your field of view to Wide
It appears as though this camera was engineered around being set in wide mode. The other FOV options seem to go through an internal conversion processs within the GoPro Camera and the picture just isn’t as good as what’s produced in Wide Mode.
Enable Protune
This will give you additional control over specific settings on your GoPro. While GoPro does a decent job with producing a nice image using their built-in presets, having more control over your image by enabling Protune will give you a cleaner image for when you’re editing your photos later.
Set your color to FLAT
Having your color set to GoPro will make your photos extra “Contrasty” which will technically have less color information and details to work with in editing software. Only utilize the GoPro color setting if you intend to upload without any editing.
Set Sharpness to Low
The internal settings do a good job, but again, you’ll want the ability to adjust that later with a nice clean image that hasn’t been affected by the Presets.
Decrease the ISO MAX from 1600 to 800
When you have an ISO of 1600, you will start to see a lot of grain in your photo. It is a lot easier to increase the exposure of a clean photo at a later time. You can also set your ISO Minimum to be as low as 100 as well. This might make sense to do when you’re out on a bright day.
Leave WDR turned off
This setting is intended to use for backlit scenarios and it will attempt to compensate for bad, uneven lighting conditions. However, in most situations you’ll be better off trying to find a practical solution like repositioning the subject or changing my angle.
Enable RAW Format
When you save in the RAW GPR format rather than in JPEG, a highly compressed image format, you’ll have more data to work with. Correcting shadows and overexposed parts of your photos will be much easier. Saving in both formats will allow you to quick share the JPEG for social media purposes, because of the small file size, and then you’ll still have the RAW GPR file to edit later.
Set the Date and Time
Whenever you get a new camera, or there is a time change, or you are in a different time zone, make sure you set the date and time. This might not seem like a big deal, but it will save you a lot of time and frustration later. Image sharing websites and photo software use the time stamps to organize your photos. If these settings are wrong, you will have a head ache trying to organize the mess it creates.
If you have the GoPro App installed, this is really easy. They have an auto update date and time button built into the App and it will automatically sync the correct date and time to your GoPro for you. Otherwise go to the Preferences Menu on your GoPro and adjust it manually.
Format the Card within your Camera
Always format your Micro SD Cards in the camera you are using them in, rather than another camera or computer. This will help you to avoid problems that might occur when the file directories are created on your Micro SD Card as well as compatibility issues.
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