Best headcam for around £100

RLyons

Hi,

I have done some searching on this but can't really seem to find a definitive answer to my question. 2 of my biking buddies and I are looking to buy a cheap headcam to share as we pretty much always go riding together. We don't want to spend much, just get something with decent picture quality and battery life. If we actually use it regularly we can upgrade to something better but we're unsure whether it will just be another unused gadget!

I have been looking at the drift x170 and the dogcam HD, both self contained units for around 100 smackers.

Has anybody used either of these or got any other suggestions?

Sorry for the poor english and grammar, I'm on the blackberry and can't see what I'm writing!

RLyons

Does nobody use a headcam and want to give some comment....?

The Northern Monkey

I like the look of the dog cam..
http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/mtb-bmx-bullet-cameras.htm

diy

Can't recommend much in the £100 range, but I have an 808 720p #11 spycam which cost 25 quid. They do one with a longer life battery for 35 quid.

available on ebay:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/digitalele889

note the #11 is 720p, they do a #3 which is standard wide screen vga for 8 quid.

see: thread

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

widge34

Used my 808 #11 today for first time. Great quality pictures, just need to find a way of securing to the helmet more firmly.

The Northern Monkey

How light are they?

Could use some strong velcro on the helmet if its super light.

Issue I have with these smaller units is that the sensors seems to be really fragile and prone to bad "wobble" over really rough ground... something you don't seem to get with a gopro or dogcam.

widge34

I do have it attached to the helmet with velcro, but the surface of the helmet where the velcro is not completely flat. So there was quite a bit of wobble.

diy

I have a band of velcro arount one of the cross bars on the helmet (giro Hex) and use a torch strap as a backup. It works pretty well. I'm not sure if the wobble-proof-ness of of the gopro is due to its wide angle lense, but yes the spycams need a bit of work to get them fixed tight.

How light ? - lighter than a car key alarm blipper.

Muttly1981

Sorry to hijack the thread but I've been looking at getting the gopro 960, my uncle works regular in America so he said he'll pick me one up cheaper over there if needed, Jenson USA have it at around £110 with the current exchange rate. But the last time he was over there he was looking to buy a HD camera to bring back but the guy in the shop told him that as they are NTSC he'd have trouble converting the files into PAL and i may have the same problem with the GoPro, does anyone know if you can swap between NTSC/PAL on the camera settings themselves or would i need to change the file format once downloaded onto the computer?

chris_sw

You only need to worry about NTSC/PAL conversion if you're planning on playing the files on a TV. Your computer will handle both types fine.

Muttly1981

chris_sw wrote:

You only need to worry about NTSC/PAL conversion if you're planning on playing the files on a TV. Your computer will handle both types fine.

i'll be planning on playing back some files on the tv but mainly will be editing on the computer then transferring to bluray and media player for watching on tv. I know an of an AV guy in town so he may beable to help me out.

RLyons

diy wrote:

Can't recommend much in the £100 range, but I have an 808 720p #11 spycam which cost 25 quid. They do one with a longer life battery for 35 quid.

available on ebay:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/digitalele889

note the #11 is 720p, they do a #3 which is standard wide screen vga for 8 quid.

see: thread

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

£25 sounds appealing! But I am worried about camera shake, do you have a video of you riding as a demo??

bails87

The ContourHD is down to £148 on Amazon.

diy

I haven't uploaded my latest stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_plNO1buK2g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxicFGNFaE

some better quality vids...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaCNoKaWZhw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAJXw36MjFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyR8YPXcJPQ

felix.london

Don't know what you want to do with the movies i.e upload to YouTube etc or watch on your TV or PC but I'd say you should spend a bit more and get a Drift HD170, a ContourHD or a GoPro HD Hero.

These are proper sports headcams and fixings for helmets, bikes, snowboards etc are available and you can get some cool slow motion with their higher frame rates and obviously they are all HD

bails87

I've curerntly got a cheapo camera from 7dayshop: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product ... _id=110355

A short video showing the quality is here.

It's ok, but not good enough to reliably show a number plate, unless the car moves smoothly through the centre of the image. I was almost smooshed by a TT jumping a red light the other day and I think a better camera would have picked up the number plate. This one didn't even get close. I've ordered the CountourHD, with teh 60FPS framerate and better resolution I'm hoping it'll be better as 'evidence' should anything go wrong on my commute, which is what I've bought it for.

bluechair84

I picked up a Kodak ZX5 for 140pounds. The image quality is pretty much as good as a gopro HD as it can shoot in 720p@60fps. It also has a small LCD which is pretty crisp so you can see what you are recording.
However, I would recommend getting the cheaper ZX3 (around 80pounds off Amazon) as it has the same recording modes but oddly a larger sensor so if anything, the image should be of better quality. Absurdly the ZX5s battery cannot be accessed unlike the ZX3 so no changing the Li-ion over. But the battery is crackin either way. They're both waterproof and shock resistant.
The only issue is its form factor - it doesn't easily mount to the bike or helmet so be prepared to make your own mounts or use a load of gaffa tape.

I uploaded an Alps vid to the forum last week, but it's also linked in my signature.

felix.london

this is a good video showing video quality of the three cameras I suggested;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5v36v2zpqQ


and this is a good features comparisson between the GoProHD & the Drift HD170

http://www.mypov360.com/knowledge-base/ ... son-chart/


..as you can see the Drift is water resistant and comes with SEVEN different mounting systems 8)

bluechair84

felix.london wrote:

..as you can see the Drift is less water resistant, and way over budget for the same image quality

fixed that for ya Oh the Kodak comes with an HDMI cable, that'll save you another tenner 8)

felix.london

hahaha - nice one!

I'm diggin that Kodak (especially at that price!) but no proper handle bar, helmet or goggle mount and I don't know if the image stabilization will work on a mountain bike. It's a hand held device. But gimme a link to a video and prove me wrong (as I'm just about to hit 'Proceed to Checkout' on Amazon with the Drift in my Basket)

bluechair84

well, there's a video in the sig. Go to my blog to find it embbedded there.

But be warned - image stablization will do f'all for a bike video. The amount they can stablize is thoroughly tiny and I barley notice it makes a difference on my DLSR during hand held shooting, never mind a helmet cam. So I wouldn't credit that as a selling point. The Kodak does have a standard camera thread in the bottom, and there are loads of camera mounting kits on ebay.

It's true that the camera is hard to mount, but the ZX3 is 80 pounds for the same image quality. Look through my vid and see the variety of angles we got (the vid is long mind so might want to fastforward0

felix.london

Cool movie!! Could've been an ad for Morzine & Les Gets! Well done - must've taken ages to put that together.

Well it looked good I'll give you that and the tripod mount is something I overlooked - very useful.

Definitely something to think about. Maybe the answer is a couple of ZX3's, a ContourHD on the bike, a Drift on my helmet and a GoPro on my chest...

bluechair84

whilst you're at it, a gunship helicopter shadowing you with drifts mounted in the rocket tubes, firing them past you whilst you nail some long snaking singletrack so you can get those awesome fly-by-wire shots, but without the wires.

For something in budget, the Kodak really is the only option. If you're prepared to spend more, then there is more hardware support for the other brands.

jairaj

Bluechair - Am I correct in thinking you used a chest mount at some point? Did you buy or make the mount? got links or pictures please?

bluechair84

nope, it was gaffa taped to the inside of my chinguard upside down with the lens poking out of the bottom. This is probably the shot you're referring to. The image was then inverted in the editing suite.

RLyons

Thanks for the help and advice everybody!

I will probably go for the Kodak but will check them all out on youtube first!

Anonymous

felix.london wrote:

this is a good video showing video quality of the three cameras I suggested;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5v36v2zpqQ

All equally bad then

bails87

I've got my ContourHD, I can upload some sample footage of that tonight if it'll be any use?

Anonymous

bails87 wrote:

I've got my ContourHD, I can upload some sample footage of that tonight if it'll be any use?

Was that the £148 deal from Amazon? What mounts does that come with?

felix.london

Still reckon the DriftHD is the one to get. Because of the waterproofness, the remote start/stop button, the LCD screen and all mounts that come with it

bails87

yeehaamcgee wrote:

bails87 wrote:

I've got my ContourHD, I can upload some sample footage of that tonight if it'll be any use?

Was that the £148 deal from Amazon? What mounts does that come with?

I got ripped off, I paid £149.95!

It came with the flat surface mount and the goggle mount.

Neither of those are any use to me, so I also bought the vented helmet mount.