Ok, off to andorra in a few weeks, and am looking for a resonably cheap video camera to take so i can film all my new-to-skiing friends falling over!!!
looking at the 'flip ultra' but not really sure what to use? i have used my sony old style cam before, but thought id get something new, and easy to carry about?
any idea's ppl??
thanks
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I have a tiny Panasonic. It was about 80 quid in Currys 2 years ago. It isn't HD, but hey.... 80 quid. It is small and light enough to attach securely with velcro. It weighs about 60g. Can't find it now, so don't know the model number, but no doubt they will have something lighter and cheaper available now. I have also spanked a small fortune on helmet cams, either with on board or remote storage. Some of them give a sharper picture, but the sound is generally not as good. The field of view is generally a bit narrower on helmet cams, so if you get a good one, you will have loads of HD footage of the area beside the action
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Not sure how small you are looking for but I've just bought a Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera. £74.99 on Amazon and it's a HD one.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Quote:
Not sure how small you are looking for but I've just bought a Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera. £74.99 on Amazon and it's a HD one.
I have the 'sport' version of this camera. Slightly bigger buttons for gloved hands and water proof.. and shockish proof.
The gadget show loved the little thing. Plus it is dead easy to upload to youtube, facebook etc etc.. oh and has an hdmi out so you can get back to any hd ready tele and play back instantly.
After all it is free
After all it is free
I got the kodak zi6 last year, got one on ebay for about £40. Does the job well, small camera, easy to use. The ZI8 records in 1080p whilst the ZI6 in 720p so the latter is slightly better. You can easily pick a bargain up on ebay. The video quality is pretty good, theres loads of videos on youtube you can have a look at.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
All those cameras mentioned, with the exception of the 500 euro one are basically the same as what you have on your phone, so either use your phone, or buy the cheapest real camera on the market the Panasonic SD60.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
mickstephenson, rather controversial and innaccurate...
Which phone is 1080p or 720p with 50 fps?
With an HDMI out and a USB out and waterproof?
Fair enough the lens is comparible to a mobile lens but they are certainly better than any mobile phone's filming I have seen.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
alexsam97 wrote:
hiya all,
Ok, off to andorra in a few weeks, and am looking for a resonably cheap video camera to take so i can film all my new-to-skiing friends falling over!!!
looking at the 'flip ultra' but not really sure what to use? i have used my sony old style cam before, but thought id get something new, and easy to carry about?
any idea's ppl??
thanks
I took a Flip Ultra with me to the 3 Valleys at the beginning of the year and it performed admirably. The HD quality was also a big bonus. On my return I hooked it up to my 37" Panasonic and the quality was superb. If it's just for the purpose of filiming your mates stacking it, it might be a tad expensive! But if you plan to use your flip for filimg other things as well, it is a sound investment... and easy to carry in your top pocket too!
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
alexsam97, what will you want to do with the video footage? Just upload a couple of clips to YouTube, or something more fancy involving editing and stuff? For me any camera without a reasonable zoom lens is useless unless you plan to do most of the filming when skiing alongside your mates.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
mickstephenson : - Absolutely not the case, camera phones - even those that can supposedly support HD will not support full 1080p hd at 60fps (btw this is what you need if you are going to slow the footage down). Also while the primary lenses in some of the cheaper video cameras aren't a huge leap in quality, you are getting a better quality ccd with a faster processor to back it up, plus these generally come with a higher quality secondary and some times wide angle, lens.
If you want cheap video then I agree go for a cheap but proper video camera, camera phones in general have their uses but if you want decent hd video then you are going to need something a bit better..
Alexsam97, as rob@rar says what do you want to do with it as this is the key input into what to buy!!
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Ohhh - Mate came home today from the States with loads of footage from a GoPro Hero HD. I think I need one. Makes my panny footage look like something from a 70's cine camera
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
The Go-pro's really are the best for video quality even if they're usability isn't the best in the world. Hence why you see them used on the GT races for Channel 4, Top gear and other BBC shows and more recently on Im a celebrity. Also they have a huge selection of mounting options so you can have on on the helmet, on you wrist/hand, on your chest, on your boots or even on you ski's. While some of the others are certainly cheaper and easier to use the gopro would get my vote every time, but then I've got several of them so I'd be silly to suggest anything else. Biased - yep, justifiably so in my book.
ducking the impending flaming
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
The Flips are really good, I just bought a Kodal Ki8 off of High Def Video Cameras, which i'm not too pleased with, feels way too flimsy but the picture is good which I guess is what matters..
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
ansta1, I have Gopro Hero HD, great camera, very easy to mount and use, However editing the footage is a pain in the ass because of the mp4 file format, I still havent found anything suitable, I have Premier Pro CS3 they dont suport import of MP4, then I tried quicktime pro, problems with no realtime editing and slow to output.
Now using TMPgen authoring works 4 and that is a right pain and very slow to edit with but good for burning HD/Blue-ray, now as you have stated that you have 'several' of these, I guess your the man to let me know what is best/you use for editing the HD footage.
Sorry for the slight hijack folks, but it is worth bearing in mind how easy it is to edit your treasured film footage when buying a camera as other wise your going to be a little dissapointed if you cant do anything with it!
Cheers
Mark
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I've done a great deal of filming, some of the stuff is here
HD is a given, at least 720p. In reality the flips won't give you more resolution despite claiming 1080. But 720p is really nice for the mountains. You want something as small as possible and the Flip format is perfect. They can take good photos too.
An optical zoom is nice, but only the Samsung HMX U20 and Sanyo Xacti PD1 give this in the flip format. 5x would be ideal, more and you suffer too much camera shake but at present 3x is the max. Maybe a Panasonic Lumix 5 would be an idea? Great video quality.
The "flip" type format compresses the video a lot, you will find pans to be jerky (again the Lumix does great job here). Your best bet is to fit some kind of tripod nut to your ski pole for filming, avoid pans and zooms while filming. This will eliminate a lot of handshake which compressing algorithms don't like.
If you look at the start of this video you will see the effect of "jerky" pans due to the compression engine having trouble
The AVCHD/MP4 video format is hard for video editors to work with. You will need a powerful machine to edit HD, even 720P. Look at a fast dual core. I use kdenlive on Ubuntu, which works better than much of what I've found on Windows.
mark handford, The problem you may be having is that only recently have the gopro cameras been enabled for PAL recording. Before that it was NTSC which caused a problem with a large number of the software and drivers available for UK based machines. Yes 1080p video is resource hungry when editing. But this is going to be the case when you are dealing with 2gb, 4gb or larger files. http://youtube.com/v/S2_D9jCrHBc is an example of a very fast edit of 2 feeds. These were edited down to a single output (picture in picture) of about 10 minutes. This took 10 minutes to import, 5 minutes to sync, edit and cut. Then 35 minutes to render to full 1080p video. It did take a further 30 minutes to upload to youtube as they needed to cut and convert the video feed.
I use Corel video studio Pro x3 for data capture, editing and rendering. However for larger projects I do outsource this to other people but this is not because of technology and is purely down to artistic and editing skills. What that means to say is I'm not an artistic person so when it comes to full commercial edits I let the people who are good at this do this.
The GoPro HD are the camera of choice at this time as shown by the fact that all of the major TV channels use them for the 'Point of View, in car, on bike on person' etc footage.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
If you're not after super-high quality, you could always go ultra-cheap & go for an 808-keyfob camera -for under a tenner (delivered) from China.
Used a lot in model flying, with pretty reasonable results. Look out for deals on eBay.
This site tells you everything you need to know about them (and more) http://www.chucklohr.com/808/
Here's a bit of random footage to show the quality
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
