HD Camera Hire

[Alastair Cummins]

Evening all. Im going away at the end of September and I was wondering where the best/cheapest place is to hire either a GoPro or Contour+ HD camera? It would need mounts to secure it to the windscreen of a car and have an in car charger as il be using it for long periods!

Cheers

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Have you thought about buying a cheap HD Flip camera? I see them going for 75 quid on Amazon UK.

I use a Flip Mino HD mounted to the car using a suction cup mount (Fat Gecko Mount by Delkin)

Does a lovely job - and can be charged using a standard USB charge lead from the car.

Here are some samples:

Mounted to the exterior glass - 911 going up Hwy 89 to Yarnell in AZ (Select the 720p version in YouTube)

[video=youtube;m6T8sUsE64Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6T8sUsE64Y&hd=1[/video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6T8sUsE64Y&hd=1

Mounted inside the windshield of my Discovery II - off-road near Sedona AZ heading out to Devils Bridge. (Select the 720p version in YouTube)

[video=youtube;OiegZi93uPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiegZi93uPE&hd=1[/video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiegZi93uPE&hd=1

Great little HD camera, with lovely image quality, and light weight/small size.

The road to Yarnell is just an amazing drive - lots of twists as you climb the hill from the desert into the mountains.

[MAPS]http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&q=Yarnell+az&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1155l1915l0l2236l4l3l0l0l0l0l279l606l0.2.1l3l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1869&bih=1086&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl[/MAPS]

Zoom in and take a look at the road south of the town - this is the stretch in the first video

 

[Pete Askew]

Amazingly smooth video Chris. Is there any IS in the Flipcam?

 

[Hamish Gill]

I might know someone who can help on the gopro hire ... I'll send him a link to this thread...

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Amazingly smooth video Chris. Is there any IS in the Flipcam?

That model was the 1st generation and had no IS - the latest version does have IS built-in.

Both videos have been time-lapsed to speed them up a little, using iMovie - and that also helps iron out the shakes - but basically the car mount provides a very stable platform for the camera, because the car is actually pretty stable.

I tried fitting it to the front cowling of a go-cart at a track, and that was wobbly cam - you could hardly see a thing it was shaking so much! LOL

 

[Alastair Cummins]

That flip camera does look good, whats the sound quality like with wind noise etc

 

[Chris Dodkin]

If you mount it on the outside of the car, then wind noise is going to dominate at speed.

Inside there's no issue, and audio quality is good/excellent

Any mic without some form of wind sock is going to have issues at speed, unless it's sheltered

Here's some footage with the Flip mounted on the wing of the LR3, facing backwards to give it some shelter from the wind

You can hear me stomp on the loud pedal at 14 sec, and the V8 really take off

[video]http://gallery.me.com/c.dodkin#100114[/video]

http://gallery.me.com/c.dodkin#100114

 

[Alastair Cummins]

Well ive been looking around a fair bit and ive decided that im going to go for a Drift HD170 Stealth camera as with all the driving trips I like to go on buying seems a better option in the long run. The Drift HD170 looks ideal as its weather proof, the lense can be twisted in any direction and you can get an external microphone to get rid of the wind noise when mounted out of the car.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Drift-HD1...ctronics_Video_Camcorders&hash=item3a68f1f01c

I see the movies are recorded in .MOV format so could anyone recomend a cheap/free and easy to use editor or a file conversion programme that wont lose any picture quality?

Ta

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Looks good Alastair - I like the separate mic idea

Where abouts are you thinking of mounting it?

regarding .MOV - are you Windows or Mac?

 

[Alastair Cummins]

Im thinking about putting it right at the front on the roof so I should get a good view of the road ahead and the scenery as well, though experiment with lower down to get a better sense of speed!

The microphone is bloomin expensive for what it is at £25, but I think it might just about be worth having, especially in a car which dosnt make much noise!

My Pc runs Windows Vista

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I've heard that this is similar to Apple iMovie and should work with .MOV on the PC (Worth checking before you buy)

http://www.magix.com/gb/movie-edit-pro/

[video=youtube;khWPHfWY7ZQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWPHfWY7ZQ[/video]

Have a sick bag ready for the cheeeeeeeeesy voiceover LMAO!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Not sure if it does mov, but it's free an from experience the quality is good
http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I use the Mac version of handbrake and it does a great job of conversion - no editing though, just format conversion

 

[Alastair Cummins]

Ive downloaded Handbrake and will have to wait until next month for Movie edit pro as money is already tight with a rally and holiday coming up!

The camera came yesterday and performance wise it seems very good, being easy to use and with good quality picture. The only problem is the Tv out connection is rubbish and keeps on breaking up, so im going to have to ask for either another cable, or maybe even another camera. Not amused!