helmet cams

[Bork]

Now that more of you guys have them, How about some feedback or reviews. Which brands, price & user friendly, quality of vids, pros & cons, etc...

[motojunky]

Now that more of you guys have them, How about some feedback or reviews. Which brands, price & user friendly, quality of vids, pros & cons, etc...

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[Taylor]

Now that more of you guys have them, How about some feedback or reviews. Which brands, price & user friendly, quality of vids, pros & cons, etc...

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[phoo]

Gopro makes good videos during the day, not good at night. I have a problem where the case is a bit noisy, but I edit that mostly out with software. Also, the lens has a fisheye effect, which I also mostly edit out. Battery life is good. User interface is decent. Costs a lot.


Patrick

[RadioRyder]

I use the Contour Roam. It's an older model, and now the new ones have built in gps tracker so you can download your vids and tracks then meld them with DashWare (dashware.net) for some really cool vids.

I'm cheap so I bought my Contour off eBay from someone who bought it new then never used it. It works great and even after multiple crashes with one that broke the helmet mount!

[Damage Inc.]

I have the Gopro H2. It's good but hard to tell if I'm recording when it's mounted on my helmet. I can't hear the beep very well with the bike running and often have a few vids of me taking the helmet off and putting it on my handle bars then looking into the camera...

[JMK015]

I got the Monoprice MHD camera bout a month ago. It is TOTAL SHIT! Yes, its cheap at only $100, but its not even worth $20. The 'joke' of the cell phone camera and tape is a better choice. I actually taped my old (5 years old) Motorola phone to my helmet to do a side by side comparison with the Monoprice MHD... and the old phone did a better job. I also borrowed a friend's GoPro Hero 3 for a side-by-side comparison... and there is NO CONTEST. THe GoPro makes clear, smooth, high quality videos... even whem mounted right next to the Monoprice MHD. The Monoprice MHD sucks. Lighting a $100 bill on fire and watching it burn would give you more enjoyment that buying this camera.

Lets break this review down into several parts:

1) The website and box claim that it will record for 3 hours. This is false. My battery dies between 20-30 minutes of recording. Yes, I know how to charge it up, and the indicator light shows 'full' charge before I use it. If the battery dies while recording, it corrupts the video file and makes it un-playable. To avoid this, you need to record 5-10 minute videos back to back so that you only lose the last one when you battery dies.

2) There is no anti-shake feature. I knew this going in, but this camera seems to be more sensitive to movement and vibration than my cell phone camera. I assumed that an "action cam" could handle movement, but the Monoprice can't. Anything faster than a walking pace, makes it go out of focus. Forget about using the handlebar mount (included with the camera), because it shakes too much. The image is so blurry, it looks like 20 images overlaid, but 1/2 inch off in each direction. The video is not even watchable. Using the helmet mount (an extra $30) helps some, but the video is still largely out of focus and too shaky to want to watch. Plus, the helmet mount involves using 2-sided tape to stick a crappy looking plastic bracket to your helmet.

3) The light / exposure adjustment sucks. I'm not talking about extremes either, I mean when going from partial sun to partial shade the video is nearly solid black for 10-15 seconds before it adjusts. When going into more light, the video is all white and washed out for 10-15 seconds. This is too much adjustment time, my old phone adjusts in 1-2 seconds! When riding along a road with spotty tree shade, your whole video will be mostly black followed by mostly white... with very little visible image. "Overcast" is about the lowest light condition this camera can handle. Forget about dusk, tunnels, or heavy tree cover... you will just get a solid black video.

4) The "auto rotation" feature BLOWS. This feature looks great on paper: mount he camera upside-down, and the video comes out right-side-up. Great! It does not work, and actually further ruins my videos! The vibration from my handlebars 'confuses' the camera as to its orientation, and makes it randomly flip my videos upside down. Wearing the camera on my helmet 'fixed' this problem...

I contacted customer support about my above complaints. I at least expected to get a replacement or fix for my low battery life issue. I mean, 30 mins is not even close to 3 hours!! I was told that camera performance varies slightly, and that poor video is often due to user error. WHAT!?! I guess 3.5 hours of battery life is a 'slight' variation...

[Rut Row]

I have a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition. Video quality is great. No fisheye. Battery life is decent unless you also use the wireless feature. The wireless control sucks and is hard to use - the buttons are finicky.

Here's a sample

[youtube][/youtube]

[phoo]

Anyone else notice that the screenshot of the "no fisheye" video has fisheye? :)

But yes, I agree, the new GoPro Hero 3 is way better than the HeroHD that I have, which itself was way better than the original Hero.

EDIT: Also, I have noticed the fisheye is less with the 3 than the HD, though a lot of that has to do with the recorded aspect ratio.


~Patrick