Originally Posted by
Troul
went for a ghost 4k drift & snagged it for the same price as the x. Have not put it to use yet while riding as I am waiting on the bar clamp kit for it to come in from chiiiiineaaa. It does have a slight learning curve, but I hope to iron that out before putting it to use on the bicycle.
I have it [supposedly] to auto record video, but I am still leary as if it'll kick on all by itself to record the wild streets of AM city life.
I'm not sure whether the Ghost X HD has any sort of auto record feature. I'll need to check the instructions. I've used audio recorders with vox auto-start/stop, but I'm not sure how that would work with video.
And I haven't used the video tagging feature because it would require manually pressing a button to record a particular incident. I got the camera for recording worst case scenarios in which I'm incapacitated. So manually tagging a video section wouldn't help. I prefer to just let it run continuously in 5 minute segments, using a large enough media card, and saving that one 5 minute segment later if appropriate. Most rides are uneventful so there's no reason to review or save them. One of the few occasions I've saved a video clip this year was to show some rural fireworks displays from this July 4. Due to the pandemic some folks bought a lot of really elaborate fireworks and put on displays that would rival the shows put on by our rural volunteer fire dept back in the 1960s when I was a kid.
Eventually the tech will get sophisticated and cheap enough to consider auto-recording only when needed: sensing the approach of moving objects, etc.
I discovered a weakness in the Drift roll bar clamp mount when I crashed awhile back. The pivot lock is slightly different from the standard handlebar clamp mount. A little disc with fingers or nubs are supposed to interlock, preventing the mount from pivoting when cinched down. I've had to farm rig a way to keep the mount from pivoting. Eventually I'll drill some tiny holes and rig up a cotter pin to lock it mechanically.
Because I have more than one bike and don't want to bother with moving the clamp mounts every ride, I've affixed one of the simple adhesive shoe mounts to one of my helmets so I can just wear the camera while riding. Not ideal because the Drift Ghost X lacks image stabilization. My cheap but good VanTop knockoff of a GoPro does have image stabilization, but the mount is the weak point. Also, the boxy VanTop camera is awkward, and the batteries last only 90 minutes each.
Despite a few minor quirks I'm still satisfied with the Drift cameras after several months of using them on every ride.