Top 10 best action cameras
Action cameras are unlike any other kind of camera. They're designed to be attached to helmets, surfboards, cars and other objects, not hand held.
Typically, they're small, tough and simple, with a lens on the front that captures the world in a fish-eye perspective. Their small size and dramatic POV ('point of view') footage has made them popular with extreme sports personalities who capture their adventures by attaching cameras to themselves or their equipment.
They're also used by TV production companies where using a regular video camera would be impossible. GoPro to is the market leader with its iconic box-shaped Hero cameras, but action cams also come in a 'bullet' style, like the iON Air Pro.
Don't just buy on brand. Think about how and what you want from an action camera. If you're helmet mounting, then a bullet cam will probably be the best choice. For a chest mount a box design will be more stable. And when it comes to features, do you really need Wi-Fi, 4K, GPS or even a screen?
We round up ten of the best action cams to compare their features and their uses.
1. GoPro Hero4 Black
4K video from the biggest name in the action camera market
Price: around £290
Buy: GoPro.com | Jessops
The GoPro Hero4 Black is the companies flagship model, featuring a wealth of video options and accessories that help to ensure the model and brands popularity. These options enable 4K or slow motion full HD video at 120fps along side more standard 1080p full HD options. This makes it a great choice for professional videographers as well as home users who want flexibility over the video quality and resolution settings. If however you just want a camera that captures the action then the the GoPro Hero4 Black may just be overkill.
Read: GoPro Hero4 Black Edition review
2. Garmin VIRB Elite
Record your GPS location as well as the action
Price: around £210
Buy: Garmin | Evans Cycles
The VIRB shows Garmin's GPS expertise, incorporating tracking technology seamlessly, so you can not only record the action but also your location. The camera is well designed with a simple slide switch to start and stop recording. The Garmin arrives with a GoPro mount adapter so can easy be used with any of the GoPro accessories. The whole package has been incredibly well thought out with software support from the VIRB Elite App for iOS and android along with editing software for Mac and PC.
3. Drift Ghost-S
Recommended for high impact sports
Price: around £329
Buy: WEX Photographic | Amazon
A heavyweight in the action camera market the Ghost-S looks and feels like it has been designed to withstand a warzone. A sturdy mount design enables the camera to be attached flush rather than sitting proud like other designs which is a huge advantage. A small screen and Wi-Fi connectivity are an added bonus, but what really appeals is the straightforward, without fuss operation. The Ghost-S doesn't bother with 4K or GPS. It has been designed solely to capture the action and withstand the crashes.
4. Sony AZ1 VR
Compact action camera with live view wrist remote
Price: around £260
Buy: Amazon | John Lewis | Jessops
Sony's action camera does away with the screen on the body and instead gives you a handy wrist remote with liveView, this is useful when your camera is mounted in a place that is difficult to reach, or you are unable to see such as on a helmet. This gives you far greater control than the average two to three button remotes from other manufacturers, enabling you to have complete control over the operation and settings as well as see what it is you're recording. The waterproof case and small size make this action camera extremely versatile and the quality of the footage is excellent.
Read: Sony AZ1 review
5. iON Air Pro 3
Vibration alerts and simple slide switch operation
Price: around £279
Buy: WEX Photographic | Snow & Rock |
The bullet cam style of the iON Air Pro 3 makes it popular with motor sports and cyclists who don't want a camera that stands sticks out or protrudes from their vehicles. The no fuss solid design with slide switch to activate makes this a great get out and go camera. Vibrations along with leds indicate when recording starts and stops, so you always know where you are without visually checking the status.
Read: iON Air Pro 3 review
6. Muvi K-Series K2NPNG
Comprehensive package containing everything you need
Price: around £239
Buy: Calphoto | Ordnance Survey
Veho has put a great deal of effort into making sure that their Muvi range of action cameras is a major contender in this competitive market. The box design and wealth of mounts included in the box is a great move. Looks and build show that it is built to withstand the action and an ultra tough dive case quotes a maximum depth of 100m, far greater than we're able to test.
7. Rollei Actioncam 400
Feature packed and great value for money
Price: around £97
Buy: Amazon
Following the tried and tested box design the Rollei packs in good all round performance at a very reasonable price. The removable case is styled along the same design as GoPro's dive case and features the same mount design, this means that if in the unlikely situation one of the supplied mounts won't do, you can make use of any GoPro mount. You get a 2 inch screen and Wi-Fi, which makes this a good first choice camera.'
8. iVue Horizon
Sunglasses with integrated action camera at a great price
Price: around £125
Buy: Bambuzo
The iVue Horizon is a perfectly good pair of glasses with swappable polarised or clear lenses depending on your needs. They also feature a built in action camera that gives a true point of view perspective on the action. Recording options and control over the settings are limited with just a single button mounted on the side to control the operation. However this simplicity has a great deal going for it, especially when all you want to do is get on with the activity rather than worry about mounts and settings.
9. Panasonic HX-500E
Unique design best for head mounting
Price: around £319
Buy: Amazon | WEX Photographic |
Panasonic have taken a different design approach to the main swathe of action cameras by splitting the device in two, the camera and main unit. The two sections are connected by a cable which means that you need to find two different ways to fix the camera to your person or vehicle. However video quality is excellent with options to shoot 4K as well as HD formats. NFC, screen and Wi-Fi are all welcome features.
10. HTC Re
Simplicity itself with this crossover between action and lifestyle camera
Price: around £124
Buy: Amazon
The RE is a great concept with action camera style and design, but rather than being made for the extreme sports enthusiast it's made for the everyday. The always on state means the RE is always ready to capture the action, primed and ready without waiting for it to power up like other cameras. Unfortunately image and video quality is really no better than most smart phones.
Read: HTC Re review
What is (a) GoPro?
GoPro has become synonymous with extreme sports, action and adventure videography, but GoPro is a specific brand, not a type of camera – but it's become so successful and so strongly associated with this kind of video that it's now a household name.
But there are plenty of other makers too in a rapidly growing market. GoPro, Contour, Drift, iON , HTC and others all make cameras that fall into the Point of view (POV) camera category.
These a camera for the 'doers' rather than the 'watchers', whether you're skittering down a muddy track on your mountain bike or creating a timelapse of your daily life.
Within this POV category you can break cameras down into two main divisions, 'action' and 'lifestyle', according to the ruggedness of the camera and the conditions in which they can be used and still expected to work. There's more on in this in the 'What is a POV/Lifestyle/Action camera?' section later.
The GoPro phenomenon
GoPro is the company, Hero is the name of the camera range. They're small, rectangular boxes which don't look much like a regular camera at all. On the front is a fixed, extra-wideangle lens, and the camera itself clips into a waterproof case . The camera is designed to go just about anywhere and can be attached to almost anything with the use of mounts. You can get mounts for helmets, skateboards, handlebars – even a dog harness.
This lets you capture a first-person POV (point of view) perspective of the action, rather than the more traditional observational style. Formula One coverage on TV, for example, can now switch between trackside cameras and car-mounted POV footage.
• See our GoPro Hero4 Black review.
GoPro Hero cameras first appeared back in January 2010, although the company itself has been around since the 1990s. What made the Hero different from what came before was the ability to capture 1080p footage in a small and relatively cheap case not much larger than a matchbox.
It wasn't just the technology, but the practicality too. This case could be quickly attached to almost anything, and this versatility was part of the reason why the GoPro brand became so popular.
• See our Top 10 GoPro Accessories list.
Prior to the Hero there was already a selection of POV cameras on the market that were in frequent use by the TV and film industry as well as by the military.
GoPro simply managed to tap into a popular market that quickly made them not only a household name and the cool must-have accessory for any extreme sports enthusiasts.
Clever marketing and getting the world's elite extreme sports stars on board has done the rest. It's how we got to watch the likes of Mathis Giraud ski off the edge of a cliff to avoid an avalanche and see Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of space and plummet towards the Earth, and all from their own viewpoint rather than that of a static camera at a distance.
Tough competition
Unlike more traditional cameras that have been designed to be handheld and carried on a strap or in a bag, action cameras have been designed for action, so dropping them, soaking them in water or exposing them to extreme conditions is all part of the design.
Currently there are three GoPro models: GoPro Hero4 Black, GoPro Hero4 Silver and the base model Hero. The Black and Silver are also available in different editions; Standard, Surf and Music, each with different accessories.
But while GoPro might be the best-known brand of action camera, it's just one of a large selection on the market right now. Other key players include Drift, Contour, iON, Garmin, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba.
POV action vs lifestyle cameras
Point of view (POV) cameras capture the world from the viewpoint of the user, so they need to be tough, small and simple.
Unlike regular cameras, there is often no screen to preview or review the composition of the shot. Instead, the camera's lens has a large field of view – in the case of the GoPro, the field of view is 170 degrees – so you capture almost everything that you'd see through your own eyes across your whole field of vision. This means that as long as the camera is roughly pointed in the right direction you should capture the event or action you're trying to film.
These cameras fall into two distinct groups: action vs lifestyle. These two types have many things in common, including a fixed wideangle lens, mobile device connection, a range of mounts and 'wearable' mounts.
The main differences are in the ruggedness of the design and the kinds of thing you want to shoot.
The Autographer is a good example of a less robust 'lifestyle' camera designed to be worn around town in normal day to day life, and not submerged in water, attached to a kite or bonnet of a track bike.
• See our Autographer review.
The difference between action and lifestyle POV cameras starts to blur with cameras like the HTC Re, which is waterproof and tough, so it could be used as an action camera, but it's mostly designed for shooting and sharing social activities.
Look at it this way – if you need to wear any type of safety equipment such as a helmet or harness to do an activity, then you need an action camera. For everything else a lifestyle camera will be fine.
Action cameras and Lifestyle POV's are designed to be simple, so while many models do offer scope for adjustment over the quality and shooting settings the main focus for these cameras is to simply record and capture as simply as possible.
Who uses them?
This simplicity is what has made these cameras so popular with the extreme sports market – the users probably have other things on their mind, so all they really want to do is attach the camera, hit Record and go!
Although primarily adopted by the extreme sports enthusiast, these cameras are quickly becoming popular with a wide spectrum of users.
The no fuss approach to video capture means they can be used by anyone with no prior experience of capturing video, and the fixed wideangle lens (and the lack of a screen to fuss over composition) means you can concentrate on what you're doing, not the camera.
The wideangle lens means there's no need for focusing, and everything from the foreground to the background will be sharp. If there is any softness, it's usually covered by movement, so will go pretty much unnoticed anyway. Wideangle lens do introduce some distortion, but for action cameras that all a welcome part of the 'POV' look.
The small size, low weight, simplicity and relatively low price make these cameras ideal for all kinds of film productions, including home video and commercial productions. You can fix these cameras to places and things that in the past were impossible. Action cameras have been used by the award-winning filmmakers of the BBC natural history department, and Guy Martin's production team in the Speed series.
The small size of most POV cameras, the relatively low cost and the ability to shoot full HD and record audio makes them an easy solution for both pro and novice filmmakers.
How do action cameras work?
The majority of action cameras are designed to be attached to something rather than handheld, so the shape and size reflects this, as does the fact that there is no viewfinder, ergonomic grip, touch screen or EVF. Instead the majority of action cameras simply have a Start/Stop button and a few options you can quickly scroll through using a combination of button clicks or sliders.
So the first step is to attach the camera using a mount, and every manufacturer has their own system. The most widely supported is GoPro's but the principle is generally the same throughout the industry. Simply select what you want to attach the camera too, find the right mount and then bolt or clip on the camera. There's a huge selection including body harnesses, quadcopter, surfboard and bike mounts, and where there isn't a purpose-made mount you can often improvise with clamps and sticky pad mounts instead.
The operation of the cameras is generally a one-button start/stop affair, with focus and exposure handled automatically. Options and settings can generally be changed through either a computer or by connecting through Wi-Fi to a mobile device.
The GoPro Hero range all enable access to the settings directly on camera using a series of button clicks and using the small LCD panel on the front. Other cameras such as the iON Air only enable you switch between HD and Full HD, through a switch on the camera, and more advanced settings must be made through software.
All these cameras shoot HD footage, which by its very nature requires a large amount of storage space and this generally comes in the form of MicroSD cards. The popularity of the action camera market has led all of the main card manufacturers to create fast MicroSD cards especially for these cameras.
The MicroSD card format is already popular with the mobile phone industry, but the requirements are different. There are MicroSD cards with capacities as high as 32GB or 64GB, but the write speed isn't a major consideration for mobile devices – for HD video, however, write speed is crucial.
So while there are cheap, large capacity cards out there, you need to look for high speed cards rated at class 10 or with speeds equal to or above 533x. It's really the write speed rather than the read speed that you're after.
At the higher end of the action camera market, cameras like the GoPro Hero4 Black and iON Air Pro 3 feature Wi-Fi , BlueTooth connectivity and the Sony HDR-AZ1 comes with NFC. This enables these cameras to be connected to a mobile device.
Depending on the camera and the app, you have various options for camera control. This includes viewing the footage and images that you've shot, adjusting camera settings and, most importantly, operating the camera's record feature remotely.
Using the apps is generally far more intuitive and pleasurable than using the options and buttons directly on the cameras themselves.
Once the footage has been captured it can then be imported into the your chosen software – in the case of the GoPro this is the GoPro Studio, which is free to download.
GoPro Studio keeps things simple, but enables editors to quickly edit and upload their footage with relative ease. Most other manufacturers leave you to finding your own video editing package. Final Cut Pro X and iMovie on the Mac, or Adobe Premier/Elements on Windows, are great packages.
What do you look for in an action camera?
The market for action cameras is expanding rapidly, and while a large selection of new products are simply copycats of one or other of the larger manufacturers, the main players themselves are all bringing something new or innovative into the market.
At the moment, action cameras come in two main designs: the 'box' type (GoPro) and the 'bullet' type (Contour, Drift and the iON Air range).
Drift and Contour are often favoured by users who want the camera to be a little more discreet than the boxy GoPro style, so are often seen being used by drivers and motorcyclists as well as the military.
The iON Air range takes a no-nonsense approach and uses the bullet camera style to make operation extremely simple. It's currently the official action camera for the NFL in the USA.
The Garmin Virb appeared in 2013 and bought the GPS giant into this market with its own take on the action camera, adding GPS, a small LCD screen and stand out design.
There's also a new batch of action/POV cameras that cross over with lifestyle and wearable devices. The HTC Re is not as tough as a true action cam, but it's still waterproof and shockproof. The Autographer, meanwhile, is a wearable camera that automatically captures key moments in your day. It's not an action cam as such, but it's still a POV camera for recording your life.
If you want a camera that will attach to almost anything then GoPro has the edge with a huge and ever increasing range of mounts and accessories.
But if you're mainly going to be using the camera on a cycle helmet or attached to a motorcycle or surfboard, then the sleeker and less wind resistant design of the iON Air, Drift or Contour might be better.
If you want to record your route in-camera, then a GPS enabled action camera such as the Garmin Virb is probably the one for you.
A screen might not be high on the list of features for the traditional users of action cameras, but this genre is starting to capture the imagination of mainstream photographers who want to see what they're filming. So if you do want a screen to compose your videos then you have two options, either a Wi-Fi connection so you can view and compose on a mobile device, a camera with a built-in screen, like the GoPro Hero4 Silver or Garmin Virb.
Full HD video recording is a standard feature and for most users this resolution will be more than enough. However, some cameras can shoot at higher resolutions – the GoPro Hero4 black can shoot 4K video.
This is probably a step too far for most users – 4K video takes up a lot of space, needs a lot of hardware power to edit and does not play back on every device.
But the frame rate is important. The higher the frame rate, the slower you'll be able to playback the footage. So a good benchmark is the new GoPro Hero4, which can shoot full 1080p at 120fps – when this is slowed to normal playback speeds of 30fps, you're able to stretch one second of footage smoothly over four seconds for stunning slow motion.
At the other end of the scale, if you simply want to upload to YouTube or share videos with your friends, then 720p is probably high enough resolution, in which case a less powerful camera such as the Drift Ghost-S will be fine – it shoots full HD at 30fps, but it can capture 720p at up to 120fps.
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