what bike camera?

kevcampbell

hi all

so i do not yet have a bike but as some of you may know i will have early next month, after a while of having a new bike i am interested in having some fun in recording videos, i searched on google for a bicycle camera and one of the results was for this http://bit.ly/bEfqRc

i watched a youtube review, the video quality looks good, but audio quality not so great, so i am wondering if anyone has any experience with this or if anyone would suggest something different for about the same kind of price?

thank you

mrfmilo

What's your budget? The most common ones are the GoPro and the CountourHD

jay12

for a helmet cam a go pro is your best choice really

Skonk

I've owned both GoPro and ContourHD cameras and I would defo go for GoPro.

Currently rocking 2 GoPro HD's

x-isle

Oh god, here we go again... :P

GoPro vs ContourHD..........

For the record, I've a ContourHD as it's profile is easier to mount on the bike. Some people say the Contour's quality is better, some people say the GoPro's quality is better..............To be honest, they are as good as each other, I only chose the ContourHD due to it being eaiser to "hide" on the bike.

The first ContourHD (1080) that I had wasn't the best as it was one of the batch that had dodgy lenses. The (free) replacement is far superior and the quality is amazing!

Link below is to 2 videos from Long Mynd if you are interested.

http://xisleuk.pinkbike.com/channel/Lon ... July-2010/

kevcampbell

well my budget is cheap as possible, so i want something super cheap, but want it to be good, so what options do i have available now :P

jthef

you want cheap?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180515553065&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
Ive got one, and it is ok. At work so can't link to you tube but user name jthefish if you want to search.

HTH
Jon

NDawn

I am still looking at buying something like a kodak zi8 (£100) ish and making my own chest mount, some nylon webbing/clips would be fairly cheap and I'd have some form of pouch with the lens cutout, probably neoprene. Obviously I'd have to possibly have some padding behind the pouch to adjust the angles of the camera to give the best shot when I was on the bike.

kevcampbell

item location hong kong and price £9

sounds too good to be true to me, so i do not think that is for me

i have been looking at some youtube videos of gopro hero 5 i think it is called, anyone got one of them, how are they? and is that the cheapest model gopro do, or do that other company do anything cheaper?

thank you

NDawn

those cheap veho muvi clone cameras are surprisingly good, no where near the quality of the contour or go pro etc obviously but they might be good to allow you to get used to setting up a camera, getting footage etc.

I think I might buy one and see how it does.

The Northern Monkey

How about this?
http://pointofviewcameras.co.uk/drift-x ... oduct+feed

I like the look of them, lots of mounting options in the box adn 32g card capacity.

Northwind

I've got one of the Ebay ones, can't complain for the price but it's very basic. Pretty poor quality, occasional desyncs, and a pain to mount ironically as it's so small! But it's good fun and does well as a spare/second POV, or just to try the video thing out. And it works at least as well as the old ATC2K I paid £120 for a few years ago.

I'd still recommend Gopro, but all the higher quality cameras are going to tip over the £100 mark at least. Gopro old with an SD card and the chest mount (best option IMO) is £150-ish as is the Drift. Gopro HD is around £200 delivered from the states and is IMO the best option just now but not cheap.

Whatever you choose, consider mounting and replacement parts, a bike cam will get knocked sooner or later and if you scratch the lens cover and can't replace it you'll be annoyed. Not sure how this works out for Drift, ebay ones are disposable, most compacts won't allow it of course or will need expensive shop repairs. Contour and Gopro have parts available to buy and DIY fit though they're not cheap. Also consider battery life, the old Gopro was a slight pain with AA batteries so lasted only 2-3 hours but on the other hand you could just put in some more, just like the Drift. New one has a compact, lightweight lipo battery but if you want more than 3 and a bit hours you need to buy another one for £20!

merlie

just seen this on offer ...

http://www.gadgetshop.com/ViewAll/Actio ... /EPN316430

Daz555

merlie wrote:

just seen this on offer ...

http://www.gadgetshop.com/ViewAll/Actio ... /EPN316430

Generally pretty poor from what I've seen - the main problem being video "wobble" and the narrow FOV - narrow FOV really sucks for helmet cameras as they make shake look far worse and totally remove the feeling of speed from the footage. All in all not a great deal better than many of the 12 quid ebay specials.

For budget (ish) standard def camera the Tachyon XC Micro is not a bad shout at about £130 notes if you can find it.

NDawn

I'm not sure on any details but Go Pro are reportedly bringing out a cheaper 960p camera.

So not the full 1080p for big bucks but cheaper, with slightly lower resolution. If it comes in at the estimated price it should be much cheaper than the Go Pro HD.

here

R0B75

I have a Drift x170 and think its decent for the money. As said above it has decent mounting options and is only £150 but will drop in price I think as the HD version is coming out.

Anyway, check out the footage below.

Clicky

chris1001

x-isle wrote:

The first ContourHD (1080) that I had wasn't the best as it was one of the batch that had dodgy lenses. The (free) replacement is far superior and the quality is amazing!
/

How did the problem manifest itslelf? An out of focus picute when used at both 720 and 1080, at any frame rate? I've got the 1080 COntour HD thats pretty good quality when used at 720p/60fps but very poor when used at 1080. Just wondered if this is a known problem.

Cheers.