GoPro Hero 13 Black’s mods are a fundamental lift, but this sensor’s race is run

There are very few things that actually work like clockwork in the real world. This time of the year, every year, the morning’s start to become a tad nippy, transcending into properly chilly. There is a sense of positivity in the air, also because the festive season is round the corner. And, first strains of the farm fire smoke is blowing into New Delhi. Within this paradigm is American tech company GoPro, which announces its annual Hero action camera upgrades, inevitably a big step forward from the generation it succeeds. The GoPro Hero 13 Black will not have it easy, because it is building on a definitively excellent GoPro Hero 12 Black. Yet, they’ve found a way to not let this look like an incremental, generational transition.

That is, without looking very different. If you don’t notice the 13 and the 12 written in that subtle blue colour on one side of these action cameras, you’d struggle to tell them apart. So much so, the 2.27-inch display and the 1.4-inch front display, continue as is. As do the physical buttons and their placements. Unless the GoPro Hero13 Black has one of its new skillset, that is the new lens accessories, attached. It is indeed the Hero 13 Black’s real flex, the set of a Macro Lens Mod, Ultra Wide Lens Mod, and the four natural density filters for motion blur effect.

Look closely, and you’d notice there is a barely perceptible grille just beneath the lens—this should take care of some level of ventilation, to keep the camera cool when shooting outdoors. Also, gone are those blue specks on the dark grey finish. The magnetic latch for the mounting system is an option alongside the screw mechanism, and should be the choice if you need to quickly swap mounts.

One of the predefined combinations bundles an Ultra Wide Lens Mod, the rest need to be purchased separately. Here is a top tip—attach the mods to the camera using the silicone case, which means that when you twist to affix, you’ll accidentally not end up smudging the glass. The macro lens mod has a manual focus ring, not the easiest to use unless you’ve the GoPro mounted somewhere securely, but it goes quite some way in building towards an authentic shooting foundation. In fact, this is the lens that gives this GoPro something its predecessors never had—the ability to shoot up close, instead of the wide angled and at an arm’s length approach. The ND filters can be fun too, as long as you get the pairing right to go with the lighting, to add a sense of motion blur to the captures.

It is perhaps a bit of a weak(er) link, that the GoPro Hero 13 Black is using the same sensor as the GoPro Hero 12 Black. It was perhaps in a better position twelve months prior, but the ageing is more apparent now. That is not to say the video quality is substandard because it absolutely isn’t and the 8:7 aspect ratio still has its advantages. But transition to low light videos, and you begin to realise how much the photography ecosystem has moved forward in handling that scenario.

You will notice the advantage of in-camera noise reduction that’s at work, and I must note GoPro has kept it rather subtle—the urge to make this an aggressive implementation must have been there, something we often experience with cameras. There are generational improvements with HLG videos, since the Hero 13 Black upgrades to the 10-bit LOG colour profile. And a rather unique 400fps slow motion burst mode, if you are ready to compromise with the 720p resolution—limited use case, but good to have an ability to record at 400fps on the fly. The 5.3K 120fps is its sweetest spot.

The need for a sensor upgrade becomes all the more essential when you resort to still photography. While that is absolutely not the primary use case for this action camera, it didn’t need to be so far behind the expectation curve. Battery performance sees a slight uptick, a combination of larger capacity than last year’s camera and some restraint in thermals. The finer detail here is, these batteries aren’t backward compatible with previous generations.

If it weren’t for the more versatile mounting system and the dynamic range of lens mods, the GoPro Hero 13 Black was risking being an incremental generational upgrade. All in all, it isn’t. And that is where the conflict is—do these changes justify splurging on this action camera, if you have the predecessor (or if I may so, even the Hero 12 series)? Particularly if you start accumulating the lens mod, and that’s when you’ll notice the costs going up—the Hero 13 Black itself is priced ₹44,990 and the lens mods are ₹6,990 upwards. The next GoPro generation needs a new sensor. I’d say that isn’t up for a compromise. The mods themselves may be a future proof investment, because I’d expect GoPro to have compatibility ticked off for the next half a dozen generations at the very least.