Video whilst boarding - anyone tried helmet camera's ?

After two seasons of really shaky video of the ground and the sky that
makes the Blairwitch Project look like Ben Hur, I'm considering a
helmet-mounted camera from http://www.helmetcamera.com ... has
anybody any experience with these or other products and advice either
way ?

Thank you very much again,

chas

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:26:12 GMT, (chas) allegedly
wrote:

anybody any experience with these or other products and advice either
way ?

I personally wouldn't use a helmet cam as I don't always film where I'm
going, but of course I *look* where I'm going.

Modern cameras are really good with image stabalising, which whilst it
reduces the picture quality a little, it at least gives a good usable
picture. Not something you get without it.

Staying on wide angle helps as well. Keep the camera steady in relation
to the ground rather than your body.

That said, your body does act like a good shock absorber so pics taken
from a helmet cam should be pretty reasonable if the transfer to the cam
is good also.

- Dave.

--
The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky.
http://www.vpas.org/ - Snowboarding the worlds pow pow -
Securing your e-mail

The Snowboard FAQ lives here - http://rssFAQ.org/

(chas) wrote in
om:

After two seasons of really shaky video of the ground and the sky that
makes the Blairwitch Project look like Ben Hur, I'm considering a
helmet-mounted camera from http://www.helmetcamera.com ... has
anybody any experience with these or other products and advice either
way ?

Thank you very much again,

chas

Chas,

My buddy and I have been using the camera from helmetcamera.com for
almost 3 seasons now and we love the results. I would advise getting a
camera that supports mini-dv with a line in, and at least as many lines
of resolution as the helmet camera can put out. I beleive that the
current version of the camera is 450 lines, and most mini-dv camera do
around 600.

Also, thier is a product called a lanc adapter that you can use to
remotely control the camera, this makes the actual starting and stopping
recording alot easier.

I remeber having some issues with the batteries that they supplied,
but I am pretty sure that they are using a better system now. Having
high capacity batteries for the camera is also important. The other
important thing you have to remeber is that battereis suck in cold
conditions, so using some kind of thermos style bag is going to be
crucial to keeping the batteries warm.

The hardest part of the whole helmet camera thing is actually
dealing with all the footage you get afterwards, but if you have a good
video editing rig, it should not be a problem.

Good luck

Joseph liggett

Don't know anything about helmet cams, but 2 tips:

If you edit your video on PC or Mac, software image stabalization is
very good. I don't mean the stabalization that your video camera uses,
I mean software like SteadyMove that you can use alongside editing
software such as Adobe Premier. To use this stuff well, keep the
camera more wide angle than you would normally, that'll give you a
nice buffer around your subject. You can crop it back in to compose
the frame how you want in your editing software. You loose a little in
resolution this way, but that's better than shaky footage you can't
use at all.

Also, you can try building yourself a lowtech version of a steadycam:
a balance bar. Just stick a screw that fits your tripod mount on one
end of a 2 ft long tube, and maybe a small weight on the other end.
Stick a bicycle grip or some rubber or the like around the tube just
under the camera. Now you've got a vertical tube, camera at the top,
grip in the middle, and a little weight at the bottom. This will be
much easier for you to keep steady as you're sliding. There's plenty
of variations on this idea, like you can see in some of the warren
miller movies they have their cameras mounted on something like a
hoola hoop... not exactly portable or discrete tho .

Hi Jason,

Sorry for the late follow-up. Manic pre-holiday workloads.

If you edit your video on PC or Mac, software image stabalization is
very good. I don't mean the stabalization that your video camera uses,
I mean software like SteadyMove that you can use alongside editing
software such as Adobe Premier.

Wow, thanks for the heads-up on this one.
Definitely going to give this a whirl because even with the camera's
inbuilt image stabilization, the results are far from steady.


To use this stuff well, keep the
camera more wide angle than you would normally, that'll give you a
nice buffer around your subject. You can crop it back in to compose
the frame how you want in your editing software.

Makes sense.


Also, you can try building yourself a lowtech version of a steadycam:
a balance bar. Just stick a screw that fits your tripod mount on one
end of a 2 ft long tube, and maybe a small weight on the other end.
Stick a bicycle grip or some rubber or the like around the tube just
under the camera. Now you've got a vertical tube, camera at the top,
grip in the middle, and a little weight at the bottom. This will be
much easier for you to keep steady as you're sliding. There's plenty
of variations on this idea, like you can see in some of the warren
miller movies they have their cameras mounted on something like a
hoola hoop... not exactly portable or discrete tho .

Nice tip - will try experimenting, hopefully without risking
self-impalement...

Since you have experience using this, and sorry this is going a bit
off-topic (snowboarding) but what filters (if any) are you employing
in the snow ? (I'm finding I'm losing a lot of the 'relief' / graduations
in the snow/land as it all comes out white).

Thanks again,

chas

Thanks for the reply and testimonial Joseph,

My buddy and I have been using the camera from helmetcamera.com for
almost 3 seasons now and we love the results. I would advise getting a
camera that supports mini-dv with a line in, and at least as many lines
of resolution as the helmet camera can put out. I beleive that the
current version of the camera is 450 lines, and most mini-dv camera do
around 600.

I've already got a Sony PC3 digital video camera so that should suffice.


Also, there is a product called a lanc adapter that you can use to
remotely control the camera, this makes the actual starting and stopping
recording alot easier.

Yes, that's a huge plus.


I remeber having some issues with the batteries that they supplied,
but I am pretty sure that they are using a better system now. Having
high capacity batteries for the camera is also important. The other
important thing you have to remeber is that battereis suck in cold
conditions,

Yes, have discovered that. The stock/default Sony batteries were
lasting 10-15 minutes until I upgraded to the 3-hour large format.


so using some kind of thermos style bag is going to be
crucial to keeping the batteries warm.

That's one of my reasons for wanting to get the helmet camera
actually... so that, coupled with the Lanc adapter, I can keep
the camera itself in the bag, shielded from the cold, wind and snow.


The hardest part of the whole helmet camera thing is actually
dealing with all the footage you get afterwards,

Sorry, is it any worse or different from the footage taken with
the camera by itself (without the helmetcamera attachment) ?

Thanks for the input - feel much better about purchasing it now.

Chas

Since you have experience using this, and sorry this is going a bit
off-topic (snowboarding) but what filters (if any) are you employing
in the snow ? (I'm finding I'm losing a lot of the 'relief' / graduations
in the snow/land as it all comes out white).

No clue, I've never filmed snow . The other stuff I learned from a
video production guy doing stuff totally unrealated to snow. I can
imagine most cameras would just white it out tho... if your camera
lets you lock white balance and or exposure, maybe you could find the
right settings by trial and error before each run. :/

(chas) wrote in message . com...
After two seasons of really shaky video of the ground and the sky that
makes the Blairwitch Project look like Ben Hur, I'm considering a
helmet-mounted camera from http://www.helmetcamera.com ... has
anybody any experience with these or other products and advice either
way ?

Thank you very much again,

chas

I have two friends who have them (helmetcamera.com) and they work
great. The one problem that you want to make sure you avoid is the
problem someone mentioned with the remote control. One friend dropped
some cash (too much) on a wired remote control and found that it
doesn't do exactly what he needs. He still has to take the camera out
of the bag to turn it on and off or something like that, not exactly
sure. It could just be his recorder/camera combo but make sure you
check it all out before you drop the cash.

snoig