My Rideye, for some reason, is now set to focus about a foot away. Clearly this makes it useless. I've emailed tech support, but have no reply. I tried new firmware, but no luck.

Is is possible to disassemble it and change the focus back? Any hints for me?

Sounds like a great design and terrible execution, based on the maker's website and the many negative user reviews. Too bad. It has most of the design features I'd want in a traffic camera.

Focus on these teensy sensor cameras is usually imprecise because not much precision is needed. There's usually a wide angle lens, moderately fast fixed aperture (around f/2.8) and zone focus to the hyperfocal setting with tremendous depth of field to get everything more or less in focus. If you can get inside the camera the lens is probably set in a threaded ring that can be turned in and out very slightly. Doesn't take much rotation with these things. Turning the lens mount ring in, reducing the distance between the front element and inside sensor, should return it to infinity focus or thereabouts.

If the camera is weather sealed you'll probably need to break something to gain access to the lens mount. Depending on the build it may be impossible to do without making the camera completely inoperable. To make it weatherproof they probably used epoxy and strong adhesive seals, along with inner plastic components that snap together rather than screw together. Cheaper to manufacture and assemble, a nightmare to repair.

If the company is moribund, as it appears based on many customer descriptions, it's probably because the camera isn't serviceable and they didn't do enough testing to minimize flaws before sales. They were probably faced with having to completely replace the cameras and couldn't afford it.

If you need another decent video camera and the budget is tight -- around $100 or less -- check out the Ion Speed Pro, Contour Roam, and various GoPro knockoffs sold under various brand names. But if you can afford it the GoPro Session is probably the best bet.

I bought the Ion Speed Pro this past summer and it's been good for the $50-$60 it cost. Only problem is an occasional glitch where it stops recording after 20 seconds or so when it's been turned off, then on again. So when I resume recording I have to check it again after a minute -- easy to do when mounted on my bike, a bit more difficult when it's helmet mounted. Ion's customer service rep said it's probably a glitchy media card. I'm still using the same SanDisk card I got with the camera. I should try a new Class 10 card just to see if that cures the occasional glitch. It hasn't bothered me enough yet.

If it's still recording, it's good to go until the media card is filled up, or the battery is exhausted. I've run it for hours off my external USB battery, so it'll run until the media card is filled. It's weatherproof, runs fine in cold weather (down to 20F the other night for an hour). Easy to operate.

But it lacks the bicycle/traffic specific features of the Rideye. I wish Ion would incorporate those features.

Thanks so much for your in depth reply. I think I'll try to pop it open this weekend. It's already broken, so there isn't much to lose.

It did work well for well over a year, and my wife's is fine. I think I may have dropped it, so I can't blame the company. At least it never fell off and got lost like both my wife's and my own Fly6. They seem to have changed the mount at last.

I do like the — I'm not sure what to call it — looping feature (?) where it overwrites the old footage. I didn't want a camera that required me to manage files. I commute daily by bike and don't need another thing to deal with.

Thanks again.

I removed every screw I saw, took off the back and removed the battery, but I can't get the circut board to slide out. It looks as if it should, but I pulled pretty hard with pliers and can't move it. I even WD-40ed the thing.

I guess I've lost my camera. Too bad, I really liked it.

Unless some electronics wiz has a suggestion....


RIDEYE by curtis corlew, on Flickr

If the aperture is set to f/2.8 you won't get very much depth of field at all. You need a really small aperture (say f/16) to get good depth of field.

If Curtis has access to a variety of lenses one approach would be to mount a second lens in front to change the effective focal length so the current focus position works right for far-away objects. You'd want to increase the focal length, so the additional lens in front should be a negative one, i.e. concave instead of convex.

That circuit board might be snapped into place, using those pesky plastic assembly snaps. Easy for assembly, very difficult to disassemble without breaking things.

WD-40 residue may cause problems after it seeps into stuff. Might be a good idea to use an evaporating spray for electronics to clean that out.

I sure would like to see Ion incorporate those features: looping; one button marker, etc.

That's true of the larger film formats and digital equivalents, but not applicable to the typical digital action/documentation video camera.

Most action video cameras use a tiny sensor, typically 1/2.5" or thereabouts. Combined with an ultra-wide lens for a field of view around 170 degrees or so, depth of field is virtually infinite with an f/2.8 aperture at the hyperfocal setting. The hyperfocal setting may be only 12" or less than a foot away, to get everything in reasonably sharp focus for video purposes.

While the typical action cam has an actual focal length lens around 3mm or so this isn't as useful for fisheye lenses as for rectilinear wide angle lenses. So most manufacturers specify the FOV. You'll notice that most action camera output is non-rectilinear when uncorrected, a near-fisheye effect with noticeably barrel-distorted edges. While this can be corrected in editing, the rectilinear correction results in cropping the edges. This might be desirable for artistic effects, but might lose crucial information in a documentary traffic cam.

On a teensy sensor like that an f/16 aperture would have the effect of a pinhole lens camera on film, with so much diffraction the image would be softer rather than sharper. There are no practical gains beyond around f/5.6 with a teensy sensor and ultra-wide lens. Even by f/5.6 diffraction is beginning to compromise resolution on a typical 5-6mm lens on a tiny sensor, so while many P&S digicams with teensy senors offer apertures smaller than f/5.6, these aren't often practical to use, other than rare situations where we might want a flower or bug at macro distance in focus along with a distant figure or horizon.

The optimal aperture for these teensy sensors would be closer to f/4 with a 5-6mm lens (roughly equivalent to a 28mm wide angle lens on a 35mm film/full frame digital camera). However the gains in DOF would be lost to increase noise in dim light. So f/2.8 is a reasonable compromise for DOF and nighttime performance in the typical ultra-wide lens and teensy sensor used on affordable action cams.

With this combination of factors -- tiny sensor, ultra-wide lens, fixed aperture around f/2.8 -- only a tiny bit of lens rotation is needed to adjust focus. It's likely vibration from normal use of the OP's camera jiggled the lens slightly, enough to move it away from the hyperfocal setting.

While it would be nice to have, say, a one-inch (or CX in Nikon parlance) sensor, for better resolution and low light performance, the cost would be significantly higher, probably starting at around $500 and more likely much higher. Lenses would be larger and mounting this mass more critical for vibration resistance. Smaller apertures would be needed for hyperfocal setting. This would offset some gains in low light performance. There probably isn't much market for this among bicyclists and hobbyists. If I'm recalling correctly only one or two high end Samsung phones have incorporated the larger 1-inch sensor. Most still use tiny sensors and improved processing to retain fine detail along with more elaborate noise reduction.

If the rideye uses a typical board camera you could replace the lens with something a bit longer in focal length and you can likely refocus depending on manufacturing methods because those lenses are threaded into place then usually a bit of hot melt glue is used to set them in place. A couple of hard twists usually breaks the relatively weak hot glue bond and then you can thread or unthread the lense some to get proper focus. Usually on these since you want to focus at the hyperfocal distance you start with infinity sharp and then back off the focus until it begins to look fuzzy, reverse the procedure for an eighth or quarter turn and your done. Ebay has a tone of board camera lenses.