Helmet Camera

DonDaddyD

I've asked this before but where can I get a decent quality helmet camera for a reasonable price?

ThatBikeGuy

The only two i have heard of is the GoPro Hd Heros and the Contours.

The GoPro's look to be between 200-300 depending upon the model.

Contours are slightly cheaper, but that depends on how much you want to spend because a few hundred quid is still a fair bit of money.

First.Aspect

Depends what you mean by good quality. Are you after something small enough to be unnoticed? Or full HD dude see how much air I got youtube quality?

As far as I can tell, if you want tiny, go for that little Muvici matchbox shaped one or one of the Camsports bullet cameras. But small tends to mean a bi inconvenient to operate, as far as I can tell and shorter battery life.

I confess I bought a Camsports one in a fit of pique after being run off the road and then verbally abused by a cabbie (who had a fare with him at the time....) but in reality they are a bit of fun for videoing daredevil descents on the weekend ride and so on. If you are going to work, how many fiddly little gadgets do you really want to bother with?

No I didn't the camera with me when I was hit by that car in May.

cloggsy

I've just bought one of these, I'm just awaiting a memory card to be delivered so I can start using it...

Some footage of the camera being tested can be seen here

bails87

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product ... _id=110355

I've got one of those. The quality is enough to see what's going on and get car reg's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9QOAJISEJo

The viewing angle isn't as wide as a Go Pro or Contour, and the quality is obviously worse, but it's a twentieth of the price

It's actually pretty easy to use, just the one button, I leave it on 'standby' so the time and date is stored constantly, no need to reset it. I press the button once to bring it out of standby, once more to start recording and then once more at the end of the trip to stop recording. It auto-deletes videos when the SD card is full, so I just recharge it through the mains and don't bother clearing the card.

The battery is pretty good, I got 2 hours out of it, it still hadn't run out but I was using it the next day so recharged it. I had an MD80/Muvi clone and the battery on that (two of them actually) was useless, 30 mins at best, typically 15 mins.

EKE_38BPM

Paging Jeremy Rundle to the thread!

Don't bother getting an MD80 clone. Cheap, but the video quality isn't great and (as Bails said) unless your commute is less than 15 minutes you probably won't get it all recorded.

Kieran_Burns

I can't complain about my Contour 1080p - not much change out of £200 of course but using it has shown me:

my shortcomings on the bike (which are not as rare as I would like) stuff I've missed; you would be amazed at how many things are going on around you that you simply don't see VERY clear footage of the events I have captured a chance to analyse events to see what I could've done differently

worth the money in my opinion

veronese68

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Paging Jeremy Rundle to the thread!

I was thinking that. Will he have to get an Airzound or two as well?

stuj15

I use the Muvi Veho, £35 ish. Quality not too bad, obviously not HD but it fits nicely in one of the front holes on the Spesh helmet. Battery life over 3 hours but recording size is limited unless you upgrade to an 8Gb card. I can get 3 hours footage with that.

bails87

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Paging Jeremy Rundle to the thread!

Don't bother getting an MD80 clone. Cheap, but the video quality isn't great and (as Bails said) unless your commute is less than 15 minutes you probably won't get it all recorded.

That's why you need 8 of them, set them off in sequence and you get 2 hours worth of filiming.

EKE_38BPM

Veronese68 wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Paging Jeremy Rundle to the thread!

I was thinking that. Will he have to get an Airzound or two as well?

I've got an Airzound on my winter commuter. Its so slow (or rather, I am so slow on it) that I fell a little safer having it there. No need for it if I can keep up with the flow of traffic.

dhope

stuj15 wrote:

I use the Muvi Veho, £35 ish. Quality not too bad, obviously not HD but it fits nicely in one of the front holes on the Spesh helmet. Battery life over 3 hours but recording size is limited unless you upgrade to an 8Gb card. I can get 3 hours footage with that.

Muvi Veho is identical to the £7 eBay MD80s knocking about, so if you're looking at those then you can save a bundle.

bails87

dhope wrote:

stuj15 wrote:

I use the Muvi Veho, £35 ish. Quality not too bad, obviously not HD but it fits nicely in one of the front holes on the Spesh helmet. Battery life over 3 hours but recording size is limited unless you upgrade to an 8Gb card. I can get 3 hours footage with that.

Muvi Veho is identical to the £7 eBay MD80s knocking about, so if you're looking at those then you can save a bundle.

It's really, really not.

stuj15

bails87 wrote:

dhope wrote:

Muvi Veho is identical to the £7 eBay MD80s knocking about, so if you're looking at those then you can save a bundle.

It's really, really not.

Yeh, only in size maybe. Plus if anything goes wrong I can't see Mr Chan taking any returns.

dhope

bails87 wrote:

dhope wrote:

stuj15 wrote:

I use the Muvi Veho, £35 ish. Quality not too bad, obviously not HD but it fits nicely in one of the front holes on the Spesh helmet. Battery life over 3 hours but recording size is limited unless you upgrade to an 8Gb card. I can get 3 hours footage with that.

Muvi Veho is identical to the £7 eBay MD80s knocking about, so if you're looking at those then you can save a bundle.

It's really, really not.

Pretty sure the output on both is near identical, same res, no discernible difference in quality.

EKE_38BPM

The output may be the same, but maybe the battery (and especially the protection against overcharging) is better?

gtvlusso

I think Gaz545 or Origamist have some good kit for this kind of thing.

EKE_38BPM

The father-to-be DDD said 'reasonable price' in his OP.
I think Gaz's set up (at least two HD cameras) would be a bit pricey for the newly frugal DDD.

Broadcast quality cameras give great resolution, but you pay for it and is a bit of overkill for a ride to work IMHO.

jds_1981

cloggsy wrote:

I've just bought one of these, I'm just awaiting a memory card to be delivered so I can start using it...

Some footage of the camera being tested can be seen here

Interesting, how do you mount it? I'm trying to find one I can attach discretely to my handlebars which the attachments for the contourhd definitely aren't..

DonDaddyD

I'm looking at spending under £100.

I'm liking the look of this:

http://www.chinavasion.com/sports-actio ... /cvngdc33/

Thanks to the person who suggested it.

cloggsy

DonDaddyD wrote:

I'm looking at spending under £100.
Thanks to the person who suggested it.

C'est moi

Mine got here in 4 days from China too 8)

My memory card arrived today too, so I'll be going out for a play later...

cloggsy

jds_1981 wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

I've just bought one of these, I'm just awaiting a memory card to be delivered so I can start using it...

Some footage of the camera being tested can be seen here

Interesting, how do you mount it? I'm trying to find one I can attach discretely to my handlebars which the attachments for the contourhd definitely aren't..

I've mounted mine to the top on my helmet; there is an attachment included to mount the camera to your bars, but I always think vibration through the forks is a problem & causes the vid' to be bad distorted at times...

notsoblue

cloggsy wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

I'm looking at spending under £100.
Thanks to the person who suggested it.

C'est moi

Mine got here in 4 days from China too 8)

My memory card arrived today too, so I'll be going out for a play later...

Thats pretty impressive looking for the price! Can you post a sample video when you've got some footage?

essex-commuter

I can't open the link to that specific camera (firewall) but can get in through Chinavision. Which camera is being discussd, I can see 4 listed from £19.82 to £60.78.

cloggsy

notsoblue wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

I'm looking at spending under £100.
Thanks to the person who suggested it.

C'est moi

Mine got here in 4 days from China too 8)

My memory card arrived today too, so I'll be going out for a play later...

Thats pretty impressive looking for the price! Can you post a sample video when you've got some footage?

Will do

cloggsy

essex-commuter wrote:

I can't open the link to that specific camera (firewall) but can get in through Chinavision. Which camera is being discussd, I can see 4 listed from £19.82 to £60.78.

It's the £60 one.

The Poseidon 720P HD Waterproof

essex-commuter

cloggsy wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

I can't open the link to that specific camera (firewall) but can get in through Chinavision. Which camera is being discussd, I can see 4 listed from £19.82 to £60.78.

It's the £60 one.

The Poseidon 720P HD Waterproof

Ah thanks. It looks massive :shock:

jds_1981

How well does it perform at night?

cloggsy

essex-commuter wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

I can't open the link to that specific camera (firewall) but can get in through Chinavision. Which camera is being discussd, I can see 4 listed from £19.82 to £60.78.

It's the £60 one.

The Poseidon 720P HD Waterproof

Ah thanks. It looks massive :shock:

It isn't too bad I think...



It's fairly light anyway...

I don't know how well it performs in low light conditions, but I guess I'll find out in due course

d.mart

Thought about getting something like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Spy-Sunglasse ... 1c1c405d00

anyone got experience with em? Only thing against I can tell is the monster arms to fit the electronics in...

DonDaddyD

cloggsy wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

essex-commuter wrote:

I can't open the link to that specific camera (firewall) but can get in through Chinavision. Which camera is being discussd, I can see 4 listed from £19.82 to £60.78.

It's the £60 one.

The Poseidon 720P HD Waterproof

Ah thanks. It looks massive :shock:

It isn't too bad I think...



It's fairly light anyway...

I don't know how well it performs in low light conditions, but I guess I'll find out in due course

Jesus Christ! I ride around with that on my head SO19 will come after me... Do they have smaller ones?