ruirui

a group of us had been thinking of getting helmet cam for a while now, but no one really thought about pulling the trigger on it.

i was going to buy the contour+2 with GPS features, but found out they went out of biz last month. so would have no support if anything goes south with the cam.

gopro is very popular, but seriously on a road bike helmet? i already look like i have a mushroom head with my helmet on.. haha.

long story short.. this weekend, we were riding on shannon road from los gatos to san jose, when a buddy of mine was dropped from the group on the climb. so we waited for him on the descent. it took a while before he finally showed up and he said he got ran off the road.

that was the first time i've ever heard a car not yielding to cyclist. he said the driver honked at him which startled him and kept pushing him to the edge. next thing he knew, he fell over. good thing there were bushes to hold him and not edge of the cliff.

since then, we decided to get cam to protect ourselves in the future.

so, would like to hear feedbacks and suggestion from fellow cyclist on which one you use, good and bad, and how it was mounted on helmet or on bike, etc. most of all how long it can record, because sometimes we are out riding for more than 3-4hrs+.

TIA

walrus1

I'm thinking about getting a helmet camera too. See my thread. https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...d-to-your-bike

B. Carfree

I have a GoPro hero 2. I get one and one-half to two hours of video per battery, so I bring an extra battery. I don't wear it on my helmet. When we're on a tandem, we put it on the handlebars to get a bit of scenery/other riders. The video is sharp when the light is decent and the holder isn't fogged in and covered in rain. (I'm in Oregon; rain happens.)

When I am in problematic terrain for riding, I mount the camera facing backwards out off the left side of the handlebars. It's quite visible to overtaking motorists and I think that helps improve their behavior. However, the handlebar mount extenders aren't really designed to handle the kind of shaking they get when hung out there like that, so every so often I have to go back and get the camera out of the road when the mount breaks. There are some metal ones available on the interwebs, I just haven't bothered to obtain them since I don't do this very often.

It can be challenging to get a good shot of a motorist from a bike. Most vehicles seem to have just enough tinting in their glass to prevent a good picture of the driver. Add a bit of glare and you can forget about identifying the driver. The way our laws are interpreted, if you can't identify the driver, you've got next to nothing. You would need law enforcement that actually cares about whatever occurred and they would need to do some legwork. If you've got that, odds are your incidents will be so few and far between that the expense/hassle of a camera isn't justified.

That said, I think having a camera prominently present can improve people's behavior. At worst, you will get some video skills and have some nice footage of your rides.

ruirui

@walrus1: thanks.. subscribing to ur thread..

@B. Carfree: thanks for the feedback. that's really helpful. u should check out oregon scientific. it seems they make a good camera too with LCD display.

KonAaron Snake 

Sony makes an excellent one. I have a Contour without the cool features - I find that I rarely use it.

ruirui

i saw the sony one before.. seems bigger than the gopro. i really like the contour, but now they are out of biz.. very hesistating to buy it.

aubiecat

I knew that Contour went out of business but I purchased two Contour Roams anyway. Got a bike mounting kit also.
I will begin using them tomorrow.

ruirui

How much did you pay for them? Any good places to get them at?

longbeachgary

I use both the gopro Hero 2 and the Hero 3. I have both front and rear mounted cameras but no helmet cam. The hero 3 is at bestbuy for $249. You really can't find much of a discount becasue GoPro corp does not allow discounts.

aubiecat

I got them from Amazon for $129.00 each. I really like the low profile of the Roam but I wasn't going to sink a lot of money in them knowing they went out of business. That is why I bought the Roam instead of the Roam2 or the Roam+2.
There is a way to mod the Roam into the Roam2 with a firmware update.
I also didn't need cameras with a lot of bells and whistles. Just something that will record in 720p. I have seen enough video shot with these cameras to see they are good enough for my intended purpose.

My motivation for these cameras is like many. My son and I were almost taken out by some dumbass girl texting. I we hadn't had rear view mirrors on our bikes one or both of us might be dead.

ruirui

@aubiecat: wow.. good to hear you and your son is ok! crazy texters...

ItsJustMe

I have owned the following: GoPro Hero3 White, Contour Roam, Sony ActionCam, several off brand Chinese cams.

I have sold them all and now use an RD32II from eBay. The picture quality is as good as I've gotten from any of the other cams if not better, it's a less stupid looking mount than the GoPro, and it sells for $125 shipped.

Here's a review:
https://www.techmoan.com/blog/2012/1/...sport-cam.html

agent pombero

I purchased a camera to keep motorists accountable for their actions. A few months ago I got the Contour ROAM from REI and it worked perfectly. High video quality that was able to capture license plates. Then Contour went out of business and I returned the camera to REI because I had a warranty-less camera. Got a GoPro Hero3 White. The GoPro SUCKED compared to the Contour. The profile got in the way of my Nite Rider light on the helmet. After a few short weeks of use, the GoPro eventually stopped working. It would turn on and then freeze, not recording a single thing. I contacted GoPro and they said they were aware of the freezing issues and told me to update to the latest firmware (already did that on day 1 of owning it), took it back to REI and got a new one. The second GoPro started freezing on day three of use. I am so infuriated at GoPro for making such a ****ty camera! I took it back for my refund. GoPro sucks horribly. They have a great marketing department...and that is about it. The shape of the GoPro is very obtrusive, the battery life is terrible, and the piece of junk has bricked on countless people. I encourage people who might buy a GoPro to read the negative reviews on Amazon, which there are a lot of.

ItsJustMe

I'm glad to hear it isn't just me. I had a GoPro Hero3 white as well. It's honestly a very bad camera. The firmware is garbage. Circular recording simply doesn't work, and I had 2 out of 10 of my MicroSD cards able to be used by it, despite the fact that every one of them works perfectly in all my other devices including other h.264 action cams. The video quality is less than the Contour or the Sony or the cheap Chinese RD32II. The wireless interface would come on (burning battery even when the camera is "off") and I would have to repeat the procedure to make it turn off sometimes 3 or 4 times before the blue light would stop flashing. I also had to remove the battery to reset it a few times.

Also once a card was formatted in the GoPro, it was sometimes not recognized by other devices. In one extreme case I had to put the card in one specific reader that saw that there was a card there but couldn't read it. I formatted it there, still couldn't read it but it made it so that my Panasonic still camera could see it. I formatted it in the Panasonic, got an error, formatted it again, finally it was working. Formatted it again in my PC and ran a full diagnostic on it, the card was fine but the GoPro had done something to it to cause this trouble. It wasn't the only time that happened, though that one took the most fiddling to remove the GoPro cooties from it.

When I ask their support people about these problems, they're very snotty. They all but come out and say that if there are any problems with their wonderful product, it must be my fault; I'm doing something wrong or I'm using bad quality memory cards.

turbo1889

I've heard some good things about those "808 Keychain Cameras" (google that phrase) and their price tag is very, very reasonable and the newer models are HD and have a loop record function. They are very small (made to look like a car remote door unlock keychain and same size and weight) and you can get waterproof cases and mounts for them on e-bay.

I'm seriously considering getting one or more of them and the weatherproof cases to use with them and moding them to run off a bigger external battery for reliable long run time (a mod that has already been done by others and posted online).

I just need to do some legal research first on my states laws for video recording since they are designed to be "spy cameras" and it could be argued that they are not an obvious camera which can create legal problems in some states so I have to do some research on my states laws and legal precedents. They do have a blinking red light but it is very small and side mounted and they are designed to be "camouflaged" as a keychain car door remote, although several of the water proof mounting cases for them on e-bay the outside case does look like a traditional security type rectangular box with lens on one end video camera only smaller size then normal so that may help with legal issues. It's my understanding that in some states "hidden cameras" are illegal even in an open public place and the camera has to be obviously a camera and have a visible red light to show it is recording, where as in other states so long as its an open public place hidden cameras are okay and that is why using an "808 keychain camera" may not work for everyone even though I've heard such good things about them and they are way smaller and way cheaper then a Go-Pro or similar. I've seen genuine brand new models (there are some counterfeits out there) for sale from reputable dealers online for less then $50 including shipping and sometimes even including accessories such as waterproof hard cases.

ItsJustMe

I used a pair of 808 #16 cams for a while. The video from them is adequate. You don't really have to "mod" them for external battery, you just run power in via the MiniUSB connector.

In my opinion however they're not really that reliable. I've gotten to the end of my ride a few times and found that they just stopped recording for no apparent reason. Also it's kind of difficult to know for sure that they're recording if it's bright sun out, there's a pin sized LED hiding a couple of mm below a pinhead sized hole in the plastic case that you have to peer at to see if it's blinking the right color. Inside a hard case it would be even harder to see.

In the end by the time I got done bodging together a camera, a hard case and external batteries and securing wiring and everything, I just gave up and spent the $125 on a RD32II.

mrodgers

The 808 Keychain camera is what folks in the RC hobby use for flight video. I haven't tried myself yet, but have seen plenty of footage of in-flight video as well as hat mounted for 3rd person flight view. The first thing I thought of when reading posts about using a video camera on a bike was the 808 keychain camera. Here's a youtube vid directing the #16 808 keychain with a GoPro, though I don't know which version of GoPro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEp_pOT0Kik

Folks in RC typically use a GoPro with video feed back to goggles for first person view flying where others mount the cheap 808 just for off-site video watching. The keychain cameras now have different lenses you can get for a wider FOV.

ruirui

wow.. that looks interesting. do you know how long it can record for and the largest capacity microSD it'll hold? i saw the #18 and it doesn't say the length of hours nor the storage space.

aubiecat

Just got the two Contour Roam cameras today. Going to try them out this afternoon if we don't get rained out.

ItsJustMe

The battery life on the HD 808s is < 20 minutes. I know it'll do 16GB, maybe 32.

The problem is that they're just not that durable. They have lousy charge controller chips so the batteries balloon up and fail after a few dozen charges in my experience. The newer ones may or may not be better.

They're not sealed against dust or moisture. It's easy for gunk to get stuck in the lens. The MicroUSB connector isn't really designed for durability so the connection to external power may be flaky.

turbo1889

I don't have any personal direct experience with the 808 keychain cameras but I've heard about them in the RC hobby and I've heard about them on this board a time or two.

The external battery mod I saw on an RC forum was a guy who wired in a female mono headphone jack in parallel with the existing battery and then wired a male plug to a 7,400mAh two cell 1s2p Li-po pack for stable nearly unlimited recording time (without going through the USB port which isn't reliable especially in an RC airplane making all kind of crazy aerobatic trick maneuvers).

I've been interested in them for a few months now, just haven't made the leap. The main attraction being at the low price I could rig up multiple units at multiple angles for the same price as it would cost me for just one other camera, the legal issue is something I've got to get sorted out first. If totally hidden cameras are legal in my state then I have another option I'm looking into which could work out to a similar price point with individual sealed lens micro pin-hole cameras that are just the camera unit with wire feeds in an epoxy sealed lens/case combo and you run wires to a central black box that provides power and digital recording processing to multiple such pin-hole sealed lens cameras.

ItsJustMe

For some 808s you need to do the battery wiring. If you get the right one, it'll accept power on the MicroUSB. You want an 808 #16 or one of the highly rated newer ones.

This is the source of all 808 information:
https://www.chucklohr.com/808/index.shtml

Lot's Knife

You may wish to check out the HD Wing camera from Hobbyking. It'll record for well over two hours on a full charge. About $40.

hotbike

This is a video I shot last night. Actually, it was two video clips, the jeep vehicle made a second pass at me, They were shooting pictures of me. I think it is somewhat amusing, but kind of dangerous.


IMG_0919 by AviationMetalSmith, on Flickr

Here is a view of the camera from my riding position, overhead slightly (above)


IMG_0914 by AviationMetalSmith, on Flickr


IMG_0917 by AviationMetalSmith, on Flickr

My Aerodynamic Handlebar Basket (Invention) is attached to the bike's Head Tube by Fiberglass Lashing (with Epoxy). The Fairing does NOT turn with the handlebars, BUT the Camera, is on a Tripod, which can be aimed or angled sideways, rearward , or perpendicular, while the bike is in motion. (As you can see in the Video).

I hope my photos show the Camera Mount clearly. The Tripod head is made of clear plastic. This picture was trick to shoot because I needed two Cameras, on to act as a prop, and the other to take the picture of the Camera.

the_tool_man

(Quote deleted by Admin)

The OP is asking for recommendations, advice or experience regarding a camera. I and others are interested in discussing these options, and learning from the real world experience of other camera users. While the video is interesting, it doesn't contribute to the topic of this thread, beyond showing that having a camera is better than not having one. As an interested party to such discussion, I'd rather see it stay on topic, rather than devolve into a discussion on the merits and myths of camera use.