Have you ever questioned the durability of your GoPro camera? I’m not talking about how well it withstands a fall from a car, or how well the case protected it in rain or snow, or even how long the battery lasts. I’m talking about the hours of usage you put on the camera.

If you’re a typical GoPro user, your interaction with the camera is for 2 or 3 days a week for a few hours of usage. That’s great, no problems with your GoPro charging, recording etc. But how about putting that camera through its paces with heavy recording and constant charging?

That’s the case in the place I work. For the Last two and a half years we have been producing a daily TV News program that airs in the #1 and #4 TV markets in the country. What’s different is we shoot all the content in the field on GoPro cameras. Each day I have 8 people in the field shooting 1-3 hours of footage. Now remember, that’s 5 days a week that we are using the GoPro and putting on average about 2 hours of recording time each day. Surprisingly we have had a long, very long life on the cameras. Some cameras are going on nearly a year and half and having over 600 hours of usage on them.

One of our Original cameras is a Hero2 and has been going strong since 2012. All the other cameras are hero 3 and 3+; we have just started rotating in some Hero4 units. These cameras were not just built tough for temperature changes and shock drops, etc. but built to last through heavy production use. Many shows use the GoPro cameras for an alternate angle, or cool master shot during production. Some even use them to get every shot they need in a construction vehicle, like on Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel.

We use the cameras to tell a news story. It works great for the reporter to shoot themselves. It also helps tell the story better by putting the camera in places that normally are harder to shoot when it is a full-size shoulder or handheld camera. Want to show how tires are doing on a snow covered road…no problem.

Doing a story on Electric Linesman in a bucket lift…no problem.

Going on a delivery with a truck driver, mount the camera in the cab….no problem. The possibilities are endless.

This was just a quick post to talk about how well the cameras stand up to LONG usage. We have had a few die due to mishaps like getting run over by a car or getting drenched when a case was not put on properly, however in the long haul the GoPro has been exceeding our expectations.

I welcome your thoughts on your usage of the @GoPro. Tweet me @paulporowski or comment below.