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GoPro Hero 12 Black: The Complete Beginners Guide

I’ve just published my full GoPro Hero 12 Beginners Guide, as a follow-on to past beginners’ guides – including the GoPro Hero 10 Beginners Guide, which has amassed more than 1.4 million views. In this guide I take you from opening the seal on the box, through to pairing up the camera, all the components, how to use the different modes, and plenty more. That includes getting into specialty modes like the night effects and TimeWarp, as well as more advanced tidbits like enabling LOG recording, HDR, and more.

As usual with any of my beginner’s guides, it’s not so much a review, as more a tutorial on how to use the products, after using it a ton myself. In this case, if you want the GoPro Hero 12 Black In-Depth Review, you can find that here.

Everything has YouTube chapters, so you can easily skip around to learn about the sections you’re most interested in:

0:00 Quick Intro
0:24 Hero 12 Unboxing & Hardware Components
5:55 Pairing & Initial App Updating
7:23 Hero 12 Main Video/Camera Modes
14:32 Camera Settings
19:04 Video Presets & Customization
22:22 Timewarp and Timelapse
25:35 Night Effects (Vehicle Lights/Star Trails/Light Painting)
27:23 Hero 12 Photo Modes/Interval Modes
30:25 HDR/LOG/High Bitrate/10-Bit
33:18 Bluetooth Mics
35:18 GoPro Media Mod
37:02 GoPro Max Lens Mod 2.0
39:28 GoPro Quick App Top Features
43:15 Top GoPro Accessories

With that, thanks for watching!!!

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26 Comments

  1. Audun

    Is there a written in-depth review of the Hero 12? I can’t find one.

    Cheers,
    Audun

    • Peter

      Looking for the same. I thought the second embargo expired. Perhaps the device is really so awful that Ray pulled the review!

    • Not yet a written one, but there is the full in-depth video one: link to youtube.com

      Given how crazy the last week has been, I had to prioritize somewhere, and for action cams especially, my written review is basically a slightly more verbose version of the video transcript, most people watch the video instead.

      That said, as this craziness settles down over the next few weeks, I’ll circle back and get that buttoned up.

    • Audun

      Thanks, sounds good. Even though your videos are great, and the chapters are super useful to find whatever sections interests me the most, I still like written reviews better. And many times I am in a room with other people, not wearing a headset, like at work or with my family.

      So thank you for keeping up the written content, even if we are a minority 😊

      Cheers,
      Audun

  2. Simon Overton

    Hi Ray, big question… can you put it out there the gps is missing on the gopro 12… but importantly if or when there may be a work around, external device or howto in post edit???.. please and many thanks…

    • Yes, I highlighted it in both my Hero 12 videos to date.

      None of the workarounds are great, though, it’s also something many have been using for years: Which is to use a 3rd party GPS (like a watch/bike computer/etc) and then merge those files afterwards. But how you merge depends a little bit on which video platform you’re using to do the overlays.

    • David

      Why do I have a feeling this will play out like the year they made the lens non-replaceable only to change back a year later… Hero 13 will have GPS is my guess.

    • Yeah, I’d probably agree with that. I think they misunderstood how important that feature is for a small but notable set of their customers.

    • Sam

      Is there a guide on how to incorporate GPS overlays with GoPro12? I trying to decide if it is better to use Garmin 830 GPS in conjuction with GoPro 12 or just opt for GoPro 11 for cycling videos.

    • Paul S.

      There are two ways that I know about. The first is to find a copy of Garmin’s VIRB Edit (I think Garmin still has it up). It hasn’t been developed or updated in years now, but it still works well on my M2 Mac mini (I guess that’s a tribute to the quality of Apple’s Intel emulator more than anything else). The trouble is that the last VIRB (I have a 360) was not as good a camera as a GoPro is (I have a Hero 11), so VIRB Edit won’t handle any of the more advanced video modes that a GoPro can produce.

      The second is the currently developed and available Telemetry Overlay (https://goprotelemetryextractor.com). It does the job and I like the layout a little better than VIRB Edit. The only trouble I have with it is that I almost always use TimeWarp to record on my GoPro and Telemetry Overlay doesn’t understand TimeWarp. The GPS track and the video quickly get out of sync. But the time or two I’ve used normal recording modes it works well.

    • Steve

      Can the free version of Telemetry overlay be used to overlay GPS coordinates, speed etc?

  3. Seb

    I’ve been reading your website for almost 15 years, and I am still amazed by the quality and detail of your reviews and guides.

    Great work as usual!

  4. Jeff

    I am experiencing a problem where the Hero-12 (firmware v1.10) will not stay connected via Bluetooth to the GoPro Remote (fw v.2.0.0), especially in Multicam mode. When the 12 goes into power save, the remote freezes and needs to be powered off and back on. Then the Hero-12 must be re-paired to the Remote.

    I am not sure if this is an issue with the Remote to Hero-12.

    The Remote has no issue with the 11 and 11-mini in Multicam mode.

    I have an open ticket with GoPro support.

    • Did it offer to upgrade the remote?

      Mine offered to update the remote last month the first time I paired a Hero 12 to it.

    • Jeff

      No, unfortunately. The Remote is at the published v2.0.0 firmware level. The 12 is at the v1.10. The release note date for the v2.0.0 shows November 28, 2022… so I am suspecting the issue is with the remote not really recognizing the 12…

      link to gopro.com

    • Jeff

      AS a bit of an update, GoPro is replacing the Remote. I am skeptical, since the Multicam failure only happens with the 12. I guess I will find out.

      @Ray, have you tested the Multicam connection using the new Hero-12 and older GoPros? Just curious.

  5. Paris

    Got it today

    Max lens mode has no use except the horizon lock feature otherwise the hyper view is doing the job very nicely on the MTB

    unless I’m missing something :)

  6. Tony

    Ray, does GP still not allow custom naming of presets? I have noticed that there are only a few presets in some modes with option to create your own..great but you are limited to the naming list they provide….so I have a few “Custom” presets but no “Slomo” or HDR or handy presets as these do not appear in the list of names…means I have to keep checking the settings not displayed on the display to see if I have HDR/Standard/Log on etc etc….a bit annoying unless I’m missing something

    • Sadly not. Super annoying. I think I talked about it in the beginners guide. It’s annoying in the video mode, but frankly, far more annoying in the photo mode, because there aren’t all the silly labels to choose from. So literally everything is just ‘Custom’.

  7. Alexander Mumme

    Hello Ray,
    I hope you are doing fine with all the work. 😊
    Maybe you find the time to look into this topic.
    link to youtu.be

    Seems like the problematic issue of the year for the hero 12.
    GP-Log seems to be non usable.
    But probably with a possible fix in firmware.
    Thanks,
    Alex

    • Interesting. I don’t remember it being -2.0 (which is huge) for the LOG footage I shot a few weeks ago. I’ll have to go back and look. At the moment I’m heads down in a few other piles of stuff till tomorrow.

  8. Oscar t.

    Hi, just lost my GoPro and tried to use the subscription $100 discount. Seems only to work in the US store and not in my local Swedish store.
    Is this a general issue or something with my account? Anyone with a subscription who can try?

    GoPro support is looking into the issue since a week..

  9. Jeremy

    Any information on adding a GPS watch to geotag vids and add speed for motocross on the Hero 12?

  10. Todd

    I got my Hero 12 yesterday, and I’ve started by taking a few photos.

    All my photos just don’t seem as crisp as I was expecting from a digital camera. Some of them have been oddly wall-eyed.

    Am I misunderstanding that GoPro’s are actually video cameras rather than photos, or am I just possibly not using the correct settings or need more practice?

  11. Philip Hague

    Great info