Helmet Cams

spen666

So, just been looking at the vast range of helemt cams available.

Some opinions please for cameras meeting following criteria


1. As long as possible battery life without recharge

2. Will take decent footage in poor light - ie street lights in winter

3. Easy & aerodynamic fitting ( wearing a helemt when using the camera)

4. Price not important


Do we have a section for webcams?


Wiggle like the Go pro cameras, but they do not seem very aerodynamic to me

notsoblue

Go Pro are pretty much the standard... I wouldn't worry too much about how aerodynamic it is unless you're riding timetrials!

rick_chasey

Massively OT - do helemt cam-wearers realise the effect crashing with said helmet cam will have on the usefulness of their helmet?

jds_1981

Rick Chasey wrote:

Massively OT - do helemt cam-wearers realise the effect crashing with said helmet cam will have on the usefulness of their helmet?

Depends on the mounting & what might have been hit - my contourhd sits on the top of the helmet & it'd need to be a fairly dramatic impact for that to come into play & may not be any worse than what the helmet might otherwise have collided with. /Might/ even provide extra crush area..

jds_1981

Contourhd look more aerodynamic than the gopro.

DrLex

Copied from another post:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

- there are dozens of threads on this subject... here's a selection...

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12800583
http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12796582
http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12779899
http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12788872
http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12783050
http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12776171
http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12762255

spen666

anyone got the link to the thread(s) Magnatom posted where he was reviewing HD cameras on here?

Origamist

http://www.magnatom.net/p/ultimate-ish- ... -part.html

http://www.magnatom.net/p/ultimateish-h ... art-2.html

http://www.magnatom.net/p/ultimate-ish- ... rt_20.html

spen666

Origamist wrote:

http://www.magnatom.net/p/ultimate-ish-helmet-camera-review-part.html

http://www.magnatom.net/p/ultimateish-h ... art-2.html

http://www.magnatom.net/p/ultimate-ish- ... rt_20.html

cheers for that

First.Aspect

Rick Chasey wrote:

Massively OT - do helemt cam-wearers realise the effect crashing with said helmet cam will have on the usefulness of their helmet?

Please, blind us with physics.

bails87

Contour HD.

The Go Pro is good for MTBers because you can mount it to your chest and get a better sense of the trail and what the bike is going. But I'd rather have a Contour for helmet mounting.

mtb-idle

I love my GoPro HD but use it mainly for MTB,

The main difference between GoPro and Contour used to be the variety of different mounting positions you could get for the GoPro but Contour have now launched more options so they are pretty similar.

Here's a video I made showing some of the mounting positions for the GoPro HD

Crash Remix

Kieran_Burns

bails87 wrote:

Contour HD.

The Go Pro is good for MTBers because you can mount it to your chest and get a better sense of the trail and what the bike is going. But I'd rather have a Contour for helmet mounting.

Indeed.

Well - you've seen my footage from my Contour HD. I've had it set to the 'dusk' setting you can use and in the street lights it gives you a pretty good quality image.

Out in the country - forget it. Nothing works out there. You have a pool of light from your front lights and that's it.

Saying that - I've just looked at the footage from this evening at about 6:30 ish and it's not bad!

mtb-idle

oh and as far as meeting your criteria:

1. As long as possible battery life without recharge

GoPro HD will last pretty much for a days recording. Can record circa two hours worth of footage throughout the day on one charge of the rechargeable lithium battery which is plenty enough footage for you to play with.

2. Will take decent footage in poor light - ie street lights in winter

It's ok in poor light; another example of mine here: winter commute

3. Easy & aerodynamic fitting ( wearing a helemt when using the camera)

it's not aerodynamic, it's small and square and noticeably heavy when you wear it on your lid for any length of time. I therefore swap mounting positions regularly (ooh-err missus)

4. Price not important

Good cos they are quite expensive. The GoPro HD 2 has just been launched too (got an e-mail from them just today re the launch)

spen666

Kieran_Burns wrote:

bails87 wrote:

Contour HD.

The Go Pro is good for MTBers because you can mount it to your chest and get a better sense of the trail and what the bike is going. But I'd rather have a Contour for helmet mounting.

Indeed.

Well - you've seen my footage from my Contour HD. I've had it set to the 'dusk' setting you can use and in the street lights it gives you a pretty good quality image.

Out in the country - forget it. Nothing works out there. You have a pool of light from your front lights and that's it.

Saying that - I've just looked at the footage from this evening at about 6:30 ish and it's not bad!

Kieran, where do you mount your helmet? Did the mounts come with camera or purchased as extras?

How easy is it too ount?

jds_1981

Actually, mounts tend to be expensive so yo'll need to factor that in..

deptfordmarmoset

This may be a daft question, but while comparing cameras I've seen occasional references to ''form-factor.'' Is this a technical term or does it just mean shape and size?

Kieran_Burns

spen666 wrote:

Kieran, where do you mount your helmet? Did the mounts come with camera or purchased as extras?

How easy is it too mount?

I have mine mounted to the offside of my helmet (you can just see the side of my helmet on all my vids)

You have to buy a vented helmet mount as well (about £16) - the contour hd weighs about 100g so doesn't really get noticed but you do need to have your straps tight to stop tilt

Mounting the camera is dead easy - it just slides on and off and is VERY secure.

Oh the tilt issue is pretty much sorted by the rotating lens and you can use the lasers (yup I'm a cyclist with frickin' lasers) to sort out the orientation.

bails87

I've also got the vented helmet mount, but mine sits on the top of my helmet.

Bassjunkieuk

ContourHD 1080 user here, v.happy with it so far. It has since been "upgraded" twice now by Contour with newer models; the GPS offers (you guessed it!) the ability to track where you ride with speed, altitude etc and has a rather nice bluetooth function so you can view a live output from the camera on a suitably app'd up smartphone.

Their newest creation the Roam is much nicer. The design is much more waterproof and now offers a 170 degree wide angle as opposed to the 135 on the 1080. I think Gaz's latest footage is shot with the Roam and it looks positively weird when he looks down due to the distortion at the outer edges :-)

I personally preferred the design of the Contour over the GoPro but neither are going to be completely discrete (either a good or a bad thing depending on your opinion!) Yes I do get some funny looks but it has spurned some conversations with fellow riders and even drivers on occasion :-) Just last night a quick tap on the cam got one young lady to put her mobile phone down and mouth a "sorry...." as I pulled up alongside her at some traffic lights :-)

The great thing now about both the GoPro and Contour's being replaced is that you can pick up the still fantasic older models for bargain prices now. I think I saw the HD 1080 going for £130 somewhere....

bails87

Yep, ContourHDs were pretty cheap (relatively speaking) on Amazon a while ago.

lostboysaint

Oregon Scientific ATC9k.

Better range of mounts in the box, remote,GPS available. You can find the full kit for circa £170 whereas to get the same Gopro (all the mounts etc.) it's £300. Shoots in HD (60fps).

Use mine on bike, boards (windsurf and surf) and yachts and it's excellent.

Kieran_Burns

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

ContourHD 1080 user here, v.happy with it so far. It has since been "upgraded" twice now by Contour with newer models; the GPS offers (you guessed it!) the ability to track where you ride with speed, altitude etc and has a rather nice bluetooth function so you can view a live output from the camera on a suitably app'd up smartphone.

How? Please let me know how?

Origamist

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Bassjunkieuk wrote:

ContourHD 1080 user here, v.happy with it so far. It has since been "upgraded" twice now by Contour with newer models; the GPS offers (you guessed it!) the ability to track where you ride with speed, altitude etc and has a rather nice bluetooth function so you can view a live output from the camera on a suitably app'd up smartphone.

How? Please let me know how?

The Contour gps and Contour + followed on from the Contour 1080. The contour roam is another new offering, with a different spec.

Kieran_Burns

I know that - I thought you meant you got FREE upgrades

You can go away now, I am no longer interested in you

Origamist

Kieran_Burns wrote:

I know that - I thought you meant you got FREE upgrades

You can go away now, I am no longer interested in you

Well, you can get a "free" firmware upgrade

Bassjunkieuk

Kieran_Burns wrote:

I know that - I thought you meant you got FREE upgrades

You can go away now, I am no longer interested in you

I was just being lazy with my words as I CBA to type superseded ;-)

Contour also do some decent aftersales support. One of the small tags that holds the rear door on my camera snapped a while back. After a quick google I contacted Contour in the states directly and had a new door within about a week :-)

Kieran_Burns

and then there is Storyteller... the most maligned software ever written if you read the Support forums...

Use the old Easy edit to cut the bit you want and any other bloody software on the market... (that's what I do)

btw - how good are the dusk settings for the evening shots?

Bassjunkieuk

Kieran_Burns wrote:

and then there is Storyteller... the most maligned software ever written if you read the Support forums...

Use the old Easy edit to cut the bit you want and any other bloody software on the market... (that's what I do)

btw - how good are the dusk settings for the evening shots?

I don't bother with Storyteller, it was only installed on my works laptop as that's the easiest machine I had access to with Windows on to adjust the camera settings!

I was using a combination of PiTiVi and Arista on Ubuntu but have since been able to use just PiTiVi as the version in 11.10 can output straight to .webm - perfect for a quick upload to YT :-)

I think I have mine set on the "normal" settings and have had reasonable results on the dark streets of London :-) Some of my older clips along with some of the newer bits should show the quality. The newr bits are recorded at 960p (as that keeps the full 135 viewing angle, using 1080 narrows it to 111) then render @ 720p at editing.