randya

I saw a few of these being auctioned off at a recent BTA fundraiser, anyone have experience with the Oregon Scientific cameras vs. other brands/models?

https://www2.oregonscientific.com/sho...?cid=6&scid=14

SeattleShaun

I have an ATC3k. It's not a high res digital camera, but it does pretty well. It could do with a shock mount since it's a bit jiggly in the mount that comes with it...

The 3k will take a 4 gig SD card. IIRC, will only handle a 2gig.

duke_of_hazard

Can the ATC3k read license plates ?

WPeabody 

I have the ATC2K and use it on my rides. It does a decent job for the $, IMO.
It's not so good with the sound, (very muffled) and there's no viewfinder, so you have to experiment with camera angles and such when mounted on helmet or handlebars. You have to sight along it using the lines that are molded into the top and sides of the camera case.
On the plus side, it's aerodynamic, inconspicuous and water resistant.
It will show license plate numbers if you are within, oh, a couple dozen or so feet from the car while moving, and not riding on a rough surface. Maybe a little farther away than that, I haven't used mine in a while.

bikesafer

I use the ATC2K and the ATC3K. I recently wrote about it on my blog https://bikesafer.blogspot.com
They are also mentioned in this thread
post number 6 I think.

I use them in the lower resolution so I can get close to 2 hours of recording without having to change cards or reformat. I can get plate numbers from the video about half the time in that resolution.
Good Luck
Bikesafer
Jeff

duke_of_hazard

The blog is interesting alongwith the video clips! I did some more research and seems the Tachyon XC at $150 is a good deal. ANyone have any experience with it?

https://www.tachyoninc.com/main.html

duke_of_hazard

I bought $3 worth of velcro tape and attached my $110 flip camera to my helmet.

dougmc

One danger of mounting a camera to your helmet is that it's hard to tell exactly where it's pointing, so you might do an hour of filming only to discover that you've got an hour of footage of the sky.

Ask a friend to check it's orientation for you occasionally, or check it in a mirror/glass. After you've used it a few times, you'll get it adjusted right, but until then, have somebody check it.

I also tried mounting a camera to my handlebars once. Worked great, but it vibrated a lot which really decreased the quality. Mounted on my helmet had no such problem, once I got past the video of the sky ...

I've got an ATC2K. It's adequate, but not great. Note that the sound recording is next to useless, as it's so very quiet -- the microphone isn't exposed to the outside to make it water proof, which is nice, but it's also almost soundproof. Your average < $100 digital camera that can record at 640x480 will do as good of a job as the ATC2K, but of course it's a bit harder to mount, and the sound is usually much better. Also note that the video quality decreases rapidly as the light level decreases. Sunlight is ideal, overcast is bad and dusk is worse.

Shimagnolo

Somewhere on another forum I saw a posting from a guy who had figured out how to open up an ATC2K and remove the waterproofing from the microphone. He said the sound was fine after that. He was a cop who used it to film traffic stops, so he would have proof of what was said and done.

JoeyBike

My Setup

Click my sigpic to see vid samples. They are coming out with an HD version next month.

There are 2 lazers so you can tell where the camera is aiming and check for a level horizon.

-Joey

rabidchicken

I mounted a cheap digital camera to a helmet using a Flip velcro camera mount. The video was great, but the weight was very noticeable on my head.