 Poster: A snowHead
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I am a final year design student planning on designing and making a ski camera system to be mounted on the exterior of a skier or snowboards body/ clothing to make leisure ski photography quicker and easier.
I am currently looking for other snow sports enthusiast’s ideas and opinions on the subject in order to further my design and make it a user orientated as possible.
So do you have any ideas or suggestions regarding ski photography? Or simply any problems you encounter while taking pictures on the mountain.
Please let me know, either on the forum or alternatively by email at:
N.Board-02@student.lboro.ac.uk
Thank you very much for your time.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Helmet mounted cams are the most popular in that line. If you do a search on the net, you'll find several options out there.
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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?
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| Wear The Fox Hat wrote: |
| Helmet mounted cams are the most popular in that line. If you do a search on the net, you'll find several options out there. |
The ones I've looked at are very user-unfriendly. You need to be wearing a helmet; camcorder controls are inside your jacket/backpack, no real idea what you're focusing on, relatively poor quality lens/microphones on the lipstick cams, etc. A design which overcame these problems would be good.
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Thu 20-10-05 21:39; edited 1 time in total
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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As the chief camera monkey in our group I could do with a helmet cam of some sort that is easy to run with so good luck in your quest.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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We've found a small camcorder just held in the palm of the hand works well (obviously not on seriously steep slopes!). Means your head does not have to be facing where you wish to film, much more flexibility.
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You need to have the batteries and tape (or disk/memory card ) recording material inside the jacket and close to the body to keep them warm and working, I'd look at a 3 part unit, lens, recording/battery unit and display/control, you could have a camera that allowed you to connect all three parts together like a regular camcorder or with a pair of leads you could separate the three units keeping the recorder within the jacket and mounting the lens on the head of the wearer (for stability) whilst the display and controls could be mounted on an arm.
Thinks to bear in mind, incorporate a lens cap that cannot be dropped to protect against ice crystals, try to design the focus and zoom systems so that the front of the lens is sealed and the rear is the part that moves, make all units completely watertight if possible using O rings to seal everything, the display must be protected from damage and visable in the brightest sunlight, the controls need to be useable with gloved hands
Hope that helps
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It would be nice to have a multi-use camera for other sports.... I've gone through many teething prolems with a setup i use for skiing, kitesurfing and motocross. The best compromise I've found is the pretty standard setup of remote lense, usually head mounted, with the camera itself in a backpack. Apart from the evident problems you've highlighted i'd add the following:
1. True water proof setup. Moisture always seems to find its was in unless you're using a Pelican type case or dedicated housing which are bulks.
2. Some sort of damping on the lense mounting system, particularly for motocross application. Vibration can make the video almost unviewable.
Orfs suggestion of separate controls/display would be wonderfull, especialy if they could be operated by a gloved hand, but i suspect its a tall order.
redline
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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.
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Now come on guys: Nickbreeeeak has chosen a possibly difficult project, but he has also spotted a facet of skiing that does cause all of us a lot of problems.
1. Storage: a camera kept inside the jacket gets damp with all that sweat and stops working; if kept outside the jacket the battery gets cold and the camera stops working. Further, the standard inside jacket pockets are right over the ribs, and a fall can result in nasty rib fractures.
2. Availability: it takes time to find the dreaded camera, deal with trying to handle it with gloves on, chuck the blooming gloves away because you can't work the controls with them on, then the moment has gone (your mate has got up from his spectuacular wipe-out), and now you have no photo and frozen hands. This is all even worse if you are trying to ski as well as shoot.
3. Judder: trying to take decent pictures when skiing is often ruined by movement artefact. A sytem that compensated for this would be most useful.
4. Lighting: many recreational cameras do not cope with white snow well, resulting in incorrect exposure and dull faces.
5. Glove pictures: I am expert in taking pictures of my fingers - an indication of what I am photographing would be useful
So lets stop telling Nick (it is Nick, isn't it?) how his ideas wont work, and start telling him what we need and want.
(By the way, I am surprised Cathy Coins and Manda spend their time taking pictures of stuff they are not looking at - my observation of professional photographers suggests that they look at what they are photographing. Not looking at what you are photographing seems an interesting new development).
So what do I want?
I want an indestructible cameral that is always instantly available. It takes pictures of what I am looking at. It will compensate for movement, judder and backlight. The controls need to be in my glove, or some easy access part of my outfit (like the Burton Ipod jacket). The camera lens needs to be attached to my head. What the lens sees should be projected onto an area of my glasses/goggles. The system needs to accept sound input so I can explain the context of each picture or run a commentary on a moving sequence.
OK?
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FAQ
As I understand matters, placing the same post in multiple threads is generally considered "bad form" by internet cognoscenti. Hence I have (re)moved your other identical posts. You will find that folk here are pretty quick on the uptake and will not need unnecessarily intrusive prompting. Good luck with your quest 
