Posted: 10/7/2011 8:06:08 AM EDT
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I have been looking into the various models of "headcams" on the market. For pistol pretty much any of the micro style recorders will do (countourHD, GoPro, etc.), but for long guns the angle gets a little messed up. Does anyone have experience with the lid cam form Rhino Outdoors? The lense angle rotates for bow hunters. I know it is only 30 frames per second instead of 60 but I might be able to look past that if it works well.
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Contour just went out of business, if that matters. You can still find them around, though. 30 FPS will look good, unless you're doing slow motion it should be fine.
I have Gopros, and like them, but they tend to need different mounting solutions than some of the others out there. |
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That contourHD video looks really good!
I've been considering a cam, but the GoPro footage I've seen recently makes it pretty obvious the lens is a huge wide angle/fisheye lens - anything beyond 10yards or so seems to suffer from pretty bad distance distortion, meaning things look MUCH further away than they appear. Is there a software solution to this, or other choices out there that don't exhibit this as badly? |
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The Gopro 3 has adjustable field of view, wide, med or narrow. On 'narrow' field of view, pics or vid from a Gopro look like an image from a pocket camera with no zoom. Normal, in other words.
The advantage to the Gopro as I see it is the durability. I have literally put Gopro's on cars and blown the car up. Cameras flying through the air, the whole deal. I have yet to replace a camera. I have replaced many lenses on the Gopro, but never broken a camera (and I have tried). The newer Gopros can do up to 120 frames per second at 720p. That makes for some cool slo-mo. The disadvantages with the go pro are the format of the camera itself..it's wider than it is deep... so when you put it on a rifle, it's big. If you mount it on a side rail, it sticks out pretty far. You can mount it on the bottom of rifle pretty well. The other issue, and all video cameras will have the problem to some extent, is the way the shutter works, when the weapon recoils, it tends to 'jello' (technical term for 'your picture goes goey for a frame or two'). I usually run multiple cameras, and cut to a non-weapon mounted cam during firing strings because it can be annoying to watch. The main reason I didn't go with the Contour early on was because they didn't initially have the water poof case. While I don't do much underwater stuff, I haven't killed a camera with blast overpressure since I started using Gopros in the waterproof case. The Contours also had a bunch of features I didn't want to pay for, like GPS. I won't bother with a Contour now (unless it was a giveaway price), as they will be completely unsupported, and there is newer/faster/higher res/more frames/more rugged just around the corner. The technology is moving very quickly, there are some new players getting into the POV video game with some neat stuff being released soon. High frame rates, and small size, perfect for rifle mounting. If you don't see anything you like now, wait a few weeks. |
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I picked up one of these CoiTAC cameras on Amazon for about $60.
Pluses: they are very small, run on a Micro SD card, and mount on a rail, so it looks down your sighting axis Minus: they only record in standard def. For $60 it's a fun little camera. The video quality is what you'd expect for $60. Here's a link to the camera on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0073YGHG2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
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Any body use those Pivot Head glasses with the camera in the center? I have a pair of the Pivothead Recon Jet glasses and they rock! One button video capture in 1080p, 30fps | 720p, 60fps | 720p, 30fps. 
They come with several different lenses including the yellow that are safety rated, which I wear when shooting. They are also great for shooting video with the family.. I've put them on my son while he is playing football and baseball games and have capture great video I can share with friends and family. I highly recommend them, take a look at their website: Pivothead Wearable Imaging |