VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

Aloha ..

Any video camera pro's out there that know something about miniDV cams and their capabilities in terms of action sport filming?

I want to buy and matchbox miniDV cam and sway between the Sony DCR109 and the Canon Optura 500. They're quite different in terms of price and maybe one of you has done work with one of them and can advise?

I'd like to 'abuse' that camera in terms of putting it on the kite/board/helmet/water .. also, dirtbike/mountainbike/snowboard etc etc. .. all the goodies ..

Lemme know if you have any tips regarding this, ok?
thanks a lot
matt

Hey Mat, early last summer I got a Cannon Elura 50. At the time it was the smallest thing I could find, the idea being the same as yours: to put it on various mounts and start collecting footage. It worked fine and, surprisingly, never got wet BUT it must have been jolted because now its little brain is FRIED and it won't work at all. I'm still not sure if the warranty will cover the cost of repair, they won't if there is any sign of abuse at all. So while I don't really have any advice about which of those two cameras to chose, I can tell you the odds of wrecking it are very high. So I guess my advice is get the cheapest one, build a killer protective housing for it, and be very careful. I think they're all much more fragile than we think, in any mini cam the parts are so microscopic it's a wonder they work at all, even before you glue it to your helmet and come down face first from 20 feet up... let me know how it goes G

Hey Grant,

thanks for the tips .. I guess there is quite a bit of risk associated with this .. not only 'salt-water' but also the g-forces .. hm .. Did you use a bullet-cam which you glued to your helmet or did you put the whole thing up there? Would love to see your footage sometime ..



Cheers,
Matt

Hi Mathis,

I think most 1CCD cameras our comparative regarding film quality. You are paying extra for size, still camera quality, and the editing features that come on the camera.

Your quality vastly improves when you go to the a 3CCD camera (3 chip)

When planning to do action shooting buying a cheaper camera and investing the extra coin in a helmet cam is a great way to go. You protect the camera (backpack) you get great angles with the shot and you have much less weight on your head, which after a long day of riding can hurt the neck and back.

We will have our new Viosport helmet cam at Nitinat and we would be glad to let you demo it!

Here is a link to some cam discussion

http://www.skypilotkiteboarding.com/For ... .php?t=349

Hope this helps
Skypilot
www.skypilotkiteboarding.com

really, at nitinaht, when you thinkin of doin that? all summer long, if so, man it would be cool to hook up and check this dodad out, could you let me know when you are heading over to the island either this winter (ie tofino) or the spring (nitinaht). That would be awsome to check this out

Dale

We will be over at Nitinat a few times this spring/summer

We will have the cam and we will hook you up for a demo! Should make for some cool footage.

Later

Skypilot

I think the cam should have a remote setting on the lines somehow to show the kiter's face when you guys are coming down from 20' and realize you are not going to land it!

I think there is an actual option that we can mount the cam about twenty feet up in the lines looking down... However, it would be ugly if someone blew a move and pulled the safety - bye bye helmet cam!

Should be a fun summer playing around with the cam

Man that would be super cool to be hooked up and camera rollin and able to see how things look, definately sign me up on this idea!

Hey Mat, getting back to your question, yes I did have a bullet cam attachment cabled back to the camera body and power source. It's very similar to the package that skypilot linked to, but it's homemade, I mean "custom built", yeah that sounds better. Surprising though that the weak link seemed to be the camera itself, and not any of the add-ons. So I've got footage from the helmet and from the lines looking down, and a few other spots. Over the summer I probably got 3-4 hours of footage, and about 4 more shooting from land while my broken rib was healing. Of that, maybe a total of 20 min. is worth editing into something, I've got about 10 min. done now. I lost a lot of enthusiasm after the camera broke in early Oct. at nitnat, and I thought I got a killer shot of a huge bear on the beach, and I came in and sprayed him (sorry bear, it had to be done), but the camera was dead and all I got was blank screen. I think I'm over it now, but it took a while. Anyway, I encourage everyone to stick with it on their camera projects, it's like fishing: you put in a lot of time, but then you get the big one... G

Hey Grant

It be great to chat over beers .. maybe we can salvage some of your stuff and 'build' a movie? How do I get in touch with you?

Matt

hey Matt, sorry I lost touch with this thread for a while, my email is . Sometime we'll have a beer and talk about video footage.