Headcams

Anyone here ever use a headcam for hiking? I'm contemplating getting one for this years Munro bagging in Scotland. It seems that most of them use helmets, bike mounts, or surfboard mounts and not a headband mount as I want to use.

I'm looking at the "Drift Innovation X170 Action Camera" mainly because it uses non-proprietary batteries, a wireless wrist remote control, and a video review screen built in. It does come with a headband mount.

http://driftinnovation.com/x170-action-camera/

HI! When skiing/riding, people's bodies/heads stay mostly still. A hiking cam might be pretty rough on the viewer!!!!

Hmmm

Becca M said:

HI! When skiing/riding, people's bodies/heads stay mostly still. A hiking cam might be pretty rough on the viewer!!!!

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Good point, unless I stopped when I wanted to shoot. I did use a hand held video camera to record some hikes over there a few years ago, and taped as I walked in a few instances. Those segments turned out pretty good and not very jerky at all.

The battery life and memory capacity would limit my total tape-while-walk to minimums anyway and I will be stopping to tape most of the time. That's why I am attracted to the wireless wrist mounted control.

The time I mentioned before, involved a lot of stopping, unpacking the camera, and then repacking after each shot. A pretty annoying slow process as I recall. The tape was limited to 30 minutes, and the battery pack to about 45.

This was in 1997 and the camera was rather big and clunky compared to todays equipment.

While not the brand I use for skiing (I use a Contour) I'd recommend you look into the GoPro as it has a chest mount, which would probably be the most usable setup for filming while hiking.

Becca M said:

HI! When skiing/riding, people's bodies/heads stay mostly still. A hiking cam might be pretty rough on the viewer!!!!

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Craig posted some video taken with a helmet cam on his climb of Mt Whitney via the Mountaineer's Route: http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=29356 I didn't find it to be rough to watch.

Doug

I noticed the website doesn't display prices for these drift cams, but it looks like a decent cam. Do note that the one you have linked to is not HD, not sure if that makes a difference for you. They have HD Models, and from looking at the website of their NY dealer, the price for the HD170 is approximately $169, which is much lower than both the contour and the go pro.

Contour HD1080

Big thumbs down from me for the Contour HD1080. I'm on my second.

Since there waterproof housing leaked, they introduced a fix kit which consisted of a second o-ring to put in the housing. Then the magnet in the housing wouldn't turn on the camera, so they sent me a fix kit with a more powerful magnet. The first one got wet due to a combination of the above problems. Finally the rotating lens has a detente but it really doesn't work--the lens can rotate from shock and vibration even while in detente.

headband mount = shakey footage

I have a contour 1080p and I have used it to film hikes. You can view them herehttp://www.youtube.com/user/jimmcmurchy?feature=mhee. I would recomend a monopod for making hiking movies. these smaller cameras are hard to keep still unless firmly mounted to something. If you look at the older videos on my channel you can see how shakey they are.

freighttrain48 said:

I have a contour 1080p and I have used it to film hikes. You can view them herehttp://www.youtube.com/user/jimmcmurchy?feature=mhee. I would recomend a monopod for making hiking movies. these smaller cameras are hard to keep still unless firmly mounted to something. If you look at the older videos on my channel you can see how shakey they are.

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Keep in mind that Helmet Cams are POV cameras...meaning "Point Of View". Therefore they are going to film every head movement or basically follow where your eyes are looking for the most part. Good video usually uses POV Cameras as a "B" roll camera in conjunction with an "A" roll Camera. "A" roll is usually considered the primary camera and is either used by a skilled videographer whom can hold the camera very steady or using some sort of stabilizing mount to do so. "B " roll is the secoundary camera and it's footagae is usually spliced in a way that it accentuates the "A" roll. IMO if you want something for hiking which you could use both ways to a degree a combination of Michael J's and freightrains suggestions would work. MichaelJ's suggestion on the GoPro chest mount is a good one because it will give you a more stable shot mounted on your chest. Your axis point is lower and does not pivot in relation to the horizontal plane as much. This camera can also be used as frieghtrain suggested mounted to a mono or small tripod for real steady shots which would be very helpful with landscape views. Therefore you can get some both "A" and "B" roll with the same camera using different mounts.

There's also the gear that someone like Les Stroud ("Survivorman" on Discovery Channel) uses. He has all sorts of lightweight equipment and a tripod to be able to film his activities or himself, in a fixed location or while walking.

In fact, whether you like the show, the guy, and the premise, or not, it's worth a watch to see the technical aspects of how he films himself and his activities along the way. I'm often impressed when I realize how much he's had to backtrack or go out of his way to set up or retrieve a camera.

Mucho Info

Thanks for all the replies everybody. Lots of things for me to consider. Thumbs up on bringing a monopod and chest mounts. And of course hints on techniques.

I am reluctant to buy a camera that uses proprietary batteries due to the difficulties I had with recharging my last camera's battery. I do still have the power adapters so I am probably overthinking this.

This summer I am staying at a lodge with hotel like facilities and not tenting or living out of my backpack as I have done for the past several years. Thus I will have access to electricity and regular meals.

The area I will be roaming has an incredible number of great climbs, all planned but one will be a day hike from the lodge. For that one I am bringing my Tarptent, bag and pad.

To see a description of the hikes around the area of the Lodge click on:

http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/torridon/torridon.shtml (or)
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/torridon/

I got a GoPro because it has a good reliability history and lots of mounting options. The case is also very rugged and watertight. The battery only gives about 2 hours of video though. It's been mounted to my bike helmet and my dog. In a few weeks I'll try it on my ice climbing helmet.

Cameras on dogs make for fun videos! I'm curious, though, how'd you "mount" it?

Check this one out - dog's point of view from an agility trial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkAU4wI_qxA

Decided

I've decided on buying the GoPro HD Hero2 Outdoors along with the chest mount harness and extra batteries. Thanks for all the comments and advice everyone.

This guys uses something similar to what Les Stroud uses-
http://livewellnetwork.com/Motion/7624634

I've seen him on tv walking with it, no idea what camera he uses. Must be a small one.

Blown away

My GoPro HD HERO2 arrived yesterday morning and after a quick reading of the instructions took it out using the head harness with my dog and my BC skis. Made a 20 minute video that absolutely blows me away. This little jewel is about the size of a package of Tic Tacs and is amazing. I can hardly wait to get to Scotland with this camera in May. The chest harness, extra batteries, 16 GB SDCs and charger are still enroute. My next acquisition is going to be a 500 GB storage unit to dump the SDCs into every evening after I go hiking. That way I won't have to bring my laptop overseas.

Are you talking about some kind of 'solid state' storage unit? Because the regular 'storage units' are just hard drives in a plastic box. I killed two of those on separate occasion after they 1 foot fall from bed to a soft carpet. I'd be very careful when subjecting these to the elements.

Storage device

Brambor said:

Are you talking about some kind of 'solid state' storage unit? Because the regular 'storage units' are just hard drives in a plastic box. I killed two of those on separate occasion after they 1 foot fall from bed to a soft carpet. I'd be very careful when subjecting these to the elements.

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What I'm looking at is the PST-251 Photo Safe II (500GB) It's specifically designed to read memory cards and store the files for future access when a computer is unavailable. I'm sure that it is pretty much as vulnerable to damage as you have mentioned. It's either take this overseas, or my laptop, or purchase a multitude of 16 GB or 32 GD SDC cards to hold all the video that I intend to take. My intent is to take each sessions SDC Card or cards and dump it/them to the storage device back at my lodging in the evening. This way I can deal with only having three SDC cards with me which should give me somewhat under eight hours of video capture a day. (around 50 GB a day)

I have been taking video (with bulky equipment) for my hiking and backpacking trips since about 1999. At home I make them into 30 minute clips with music for play during my daily tread mill or Nordic Trac sessions. My former video work was pretty much awful and low res due to the old equipment limitations, and lately having to convert them from VHS and VHS-C to DVD for today's playback devices.

Yesterday's 20 minute video was pretty cool since the camera was incredibly steady, and along with the sounds of my breathing, skis on snow, and scenery flowing by, I could see my skis moving back and forth in what looked like peripheral vision. Should be fun on the Trac this summer.

Check out these guys Hillwalker. Along with portable SD readers they have a wide array of goodies for the go pro.

http://www.eyeofmine.com/

I think you'd look pretty kool with a pair of those Eye View sunglasses too!

Thanks for sharing that storage product, I'll have to look into that or something similar, even just for use on weekends when I do more than one hike. I have used my GoPro2 I recently purchased now a few times, and the video is awesome, and the options are awesome, I still have to try more of the mounting options. What I've noticed is that the skeleton case is great for picking up the wind and noise and speech, but the enclosed case greatly diminishes the sound. I'm going to go with the skeleton case from now, so long as its not raining or extremely wet out.

When I use a software to edit and create a video that's approximately 25 minutes with separate clips and audio, it takes over an hour to create the file when done, and then at least one full hour or more to upload to YouTube. That's a slight downside (expected that, but...), but the raw video you get is pretty much worth it thus far. The files are huge, and if I recall, 16GB provided me with less than 2 hours of video. A full battery is said to last about 2 hours. I need to get a couple of larger cards too.

Edit:
Skiguy - thank you for that link too, definitely some items I like on that page.