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Forums > Windsurfing General

New waterproof camera

Reply
Created by Zed > 9 months ago, 22 Dec 2006
WindWarrior
NSW, 1019 posts
9 Jan 2007 1:36PM
Thumbs Up

Hi Boris
We have had some great images captured using the helmet cam system and its virtually indestructable. We've had boards, masts and booms break before the cam set up even looks like failing.
A number of the shots currently featured on our website have been taken straight from the helmet cam, along with the pushloop sequence.

As for that Kremlin character, there's no doubt he's as crazy as a cut cat and a full blown unit to boot, but that said he's actually the guy that did most of the design and build work on the helmet cam systems we are currently running.
It's pretty hard to understand what he says most of the time especially if he has been on the sauce (vodka)or just come in off the water after a wave sail (even worse if he's done both) but credit where credit is due, the helmet cam systems are still up and running and working perfectly which is more than can be said for his manners or his english !

cammar
3 posts
9 Jan 2007 5:06PM
Thumbs Up

Just being turned on this forum by an aussie reader of my blog (thanks Lano).
Very interesting stuff.
So far, I've been trying to shoot videos/photos in the water with the super cheap GOPRO Hero digital cam (80 american bucks).
I'm pretty happy with the results, even though the usability is a bit tricky.
The Oregon Scientific cam looks very interesting, I'll keep checking for more feedbacks.
In the meantime, you guys may get some ideas looking at the helmet mount I built for the gopro:
The main building block is a piece of PVC pipe, strapped to the helmet with those plastic strips that you can tension pretty tight (sorry, can't remember the english name in this moment). But the design was influenced (and made it easy) by the fact the the gopro comes with a wrist band.

Check my blog if you want to see examples of videos and photos taken with the gopro: mauisurfreport.blogspot.com/(from Spet 14 06 on). Or if you just want to check the action in Maui
But don't get confused with the higher quality videos/photos taken on land with my Sony digital camera.
Ciao,

Giampaolo

divaldo
SA, 2878 posts
9 Jan 2007 7:12PM
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Welcome to the forum GP(Cammar)...

check out some of the footage on this blog guys, it rocks, although I do remember you picking your nose at some stage there!

PonoBill
87 posts
31 Jan 2007 2:51PM
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I got one of the Oregon scientific ATC-2000 cameras as well, and have had nothing but problems with it. that wouldn't be so bad except the company won't answer emails to their support address and I can't get anyone on the phone. You can see the review at www.ponohouse.com/ponoblog/ .

I ran into Giampalo at Hookipa yesterday. Crazy wind day, it's blowing hard in the Kona direction here in Maui, and the swells are huge. Too much for most humans. Usually when it blows in that direction we go to the south side of the island and windsurf Kehei, but it looks like a washing machine. Whacky.

swoosh
QLD, 1927 posts
31 Jan 2007 4:18PM
Thumbs Up

quote:
Originally posted by PonoBill

I got one of the Oregon scientific ATC-2000 cameras as well, and have had nothing but problems with it. that wouldn't be so bad except the company won't answer emails to their support address and I can't get anyone on the phone. You can see the review at www.ponohouse.com/ponoblog/ .

I ran into Giampalo at Hookipa yesterday. Crazy wind day, it's blowing hard in the Kona direction here in Maui, and the swells are huge. Too much for most humans. Usually when it blows in that direction we go to the south side of the island and windsurf Kehei, but it looks like a washing machine. Whacky.



is it possible... that in your attempts to jam the SD card in the wrong way you broke the SD slot? I have an SD slot in my PDA and from what i can see, unless you 'force/break' it you're not gonna get the SD card in the wrong way. You have managed to get your SD card in the wrong way numerous times.. so i would say that you have done a pretty good job of breaking it.

i think i would be flattering you and insulting elmo, if i said you elmo'ed it.

helmetcameracentral.com/2006/11/06/oregon-scientific-atc2k-atc-2000-helmet-camera/

seems a fair few people are happier with their purchase then you.

thou i see no excuse for their lack of customer service. but then again... i don't see how it was their fault that you broke it.

Rex
WA, 949 posts
9 Apr 2007 1:28PM
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What is the latest with the Oregon scientific ATC-2000, is it worth getting ? the vid clips I have seen look reasonable considering.

anyone?

Jakub
WA, 29 posts
9 Apr 2007 4:03PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Rex

What is the latest with the Oregon scientific ATC-2000, is it worth getting ? the vid clips I have seen look reasonable considering.

anyone?


I bought ATC-2000 few weeks/months ago. Tried it while skiing (like a headcam) and MTB cycling (attached to handlebars). Haven't used any of the footage. Does that answer your question?

The overall result looks like it's been shot with a low quality web cam.

The bit rate is really low (somebody pointed out that might be the problem earlier in the thread) and the quality suffers. The image is really shaky, lacks color depth and is quite grainy. Even if I hold it still in the hand (no vibrations, no fast movement with the camera) the image is pretty bad. I read somewhere that the quality might be due to low quality SD card - I have Sandisk Ultra II, which is one of the more expensive ones.


puffin
235 posts
11 Apr 2007 10:12PM
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I've been playing with the ATC camera for a week now. I have some examples of boom mounted windsurfing here:
peconicpuffin.typepad.com/the_peconic_puffin/2007/04/adventures_with_1.html

I must say it's put up with some crashes quite well. The picture is adequate, the sound sucks, but for the price I think it's great.

WA66
WA, 138 posts
11 Apr 2007 11:11PM
Thumbs Up

My advice is buy the best water proof colour bullet cam you can with the maximum number of horizontal lines resolution (500+) and feed that into a waterproofed video camera (digital preferably) on your back in a pack or transmit it wirelessly to a receiver located in your vehicle on the beach. Of course the receiver will be connected to a recording device of some sort. Plenty of equipment readily available to do all of this. All it takes is a bit of putting it all together. The main concern is having sufficient battery supply on board to transmit/record for an afternoon of sailing. Weigth issues to deal with too. Any further help please don't hesitate to ask. I started recording footage 15 years ago while sailing and am currently looking at putting together a wireless type of system.

Haircut
QLD, 6482 posts
12 Apr 2007 10:49AM
Thumbs Up

I've just ordered the "six day" 580 tvl one of these with a fisheye type lense http://www.helmetcameras.com.au/ but without without the box and mounting stuff (was too big and bulky)

to plug into my one of these

the camcorder has audio video input as well as output, and records for 7.5 hours on maximum resolution/quality. I've plugged my vcr/digicam/hd tv output into it's input and it records perfect quality video from an external video source so i'm hoping once the helcam arrives it will deliver good quality video. Although it's hard disk based, i've thrown the camcorder around while recording and it appears that it will tolerate the bumps and crashes ok, plus allows you to turn off the HDD shock detection if you need to. It also has SD memory card video recording too. The Helcam 580tvl is about $450 aud and the everio 135 is $750 with a bit of haggling, maybe cheaper

cheers h

Greenroom
WA, 7608 posts
14 Apr 2007 9:33PM
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Looks like there are some good products out there!?
Im in the market for a new digital camera and have been doing some research on the new Olympus 770SW.
Its the ad on tv where the dog has the camera in its mouth then the bloke takes it off the dog and washes it under the tap then chucks it in a bucket of water.
Does anyone have one of these?
From what I have read and seen Im pretty keen on getting one.
Any feedback would be sweet

Greenroom
WA, 7608 posts
14 Apr 2007 10:32PM
Thumbs Up

I did find a review
www.cnet.com/
Just a question for the camera heads out there... is 3x optical zoom good?
what is optical zoom and digital zoom?
what is the most common zoom on digital cameras?

decrepit
WA, 12425 posts
14 Apr 2007 11:17PM
Thumbs Up

quote:
Originally posted by Greenroom


Just a question for the camera heads out there... is 3x optical zoom good?


Talking "still" cameras here, no good for taking shots from the beach, you need about 10X for that.
quote:

what is optical zoom and digital zoom?


optical is as it implies produced by the lense system, you still get the full pixel resolution possible.
Digital is produced by the camera firmware, and is mainly achieved by "croping" the outside pixels. This means loss of resolution, a camera with more mega pixels can aford to throw more pixels away, but optical zoom is still prefrable.
quote:

what is the most common zoom on digital cameras?



most have both digital and optical but the amount varies all over the place, higher numbers of optical are becoming more common, guess the average is around 3 or 4 and the highest I've seen is 12.

Note sure about taking from the water, never done it, But I think it'd be hard using a lot of telephoto in the water, gets hard to hold camera steady enough. Think that's why you see the guys in the water getting so close to the action.
My feeling is 3X or 4X is about all you could use anyway,
For 10X a tripod is really necessary, although I hear modern cameras have "image stabilisers" that reduce this need.

bmanners
WA, 38 posts
15 Apr 2007 8:32AM
Thumbs Up


see here for review of olympus and pentax equivalent. http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/3552/underwater-camera-shootout.html

I've used the olympus in the surf and found it a little slow - see cool shot, press button, wave with surfer goes past, then camera fires. The other bad thing about the olympus is that it takes xD cards which are not as common and harder to get in big sizes. It is tough though which makes up for alot of things. As I have a bunch of SD cards I plan on getting the pentax when it is released in Australia.

Cheers
Brett

nebbian
WA, 6277 posts
15 Apr 2007 5:17PM
Thumbs Up

Hey decrepit,

I agree with you regarding the 3-4x being the max you'd want to zoom in without a tripod. I've got a pentax Optio, awesome camera, but if I go over 3-4x optical then you don't get any more information in the final picture, it gets so much camera shake that you're throwing away information.

I've taken shots at 10x that look great in the viewfinder, take them home and suddenly it's nothing but blur. Digital zoom is completely useless, all you're doing is making the pixels look bigger on the screen, and you can do this in any image editing program. So I disable digital zoom.

As a long time B&W SLR afficionado, these tiny waterproof cameras take a bit of getting used to, but once you've got the hang of them you don't go back. The convenience is astounding

decrepit
WA, 12425 posts
15 Apr 2007 7:35PM
Thumbs Up

So Nebbian does your camera have "image stabiliser" technology?????
It's supposed to make a lot of difference.

My camera is ancient, 1.2 Mp, so I'm thinking of updating, it'd be good to know how effective image stabilisation is.

Greenroom
WA, 7608 posts
15 Apr 2007 8:28PM
Thumbs Up

Hey Bmanners, do you still have the Olympus 770? Would you recommend buying one? I have looked into this camera and found the shutter speed to be very slow. One of the let downs that is stopping me from buying one. I have found a 1G xd card for $60 that goes with the camera.
Hey Decrepit, this camera has image stabiliser.

decrepit
WA, 12425 posts
15 Apr 2007 8:38PM
Thumbs Up

quote:
Originally posted by Greenroom


Hey Decrepit, this camera has image stabiliser.



Just need to know how well it works then.

gazza
WA, 647 posts
15 Apr 2007 9:48PM
Thumbs Up

Ive got a canon S2IS 10xoptical zoom 5.0MP with
image stabiliser
its an awesome camera in auto mode and manual

i agree a photo taken on a tripod will always be of better quality
here's some pics taken with zoom with out a tripod

a good image stabiliser is a must with this kind of zoom as is a fast continuous shutter mode to help get the right picture
dont worry about digital zoom waste of time for photos

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=464
www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=460
www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=754

greenroom give me a call if you want to check it out

decrepit
WA, 12425 posts
15 Apr 2007 10:34PM
Thumbs Up

They're totally awesome gazza, I'm convinced.
Were you bracing the camera in any way???

How do you think it would go in the water, (providing you had a water proof casing) on a board or something?

gazza
WA, 647 posts
15 Apr 2007 10:44PM
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i think i was resting on a post for the first 2 but i find using the view finder helps keep it steady and also easier to stay on the subject its to hard using the lcd

not to sure if you can get a waterproof housing for it tried to find one sometime ago but couldnt find one

decrepit
WA, 12425 posts
15 Apr 2007 10:48PM
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Just had a look at it online, looks great, but no longer available.
The replacment is 6Mp ans 12X

gazza
WA, 647 posts
15 Apr 2007 11:02PM
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they up date things pretty quick nowadays

the camera was $750 +memory card
the processor in the canons are the same ones as in their high end cameras

just checked the zoom on mine it is x12 and not x10

firiebob
WA, 3158 posts
16 Apr 2007 11:57AM
Thumbs Up

Hi Guys,
This is a bit off Zeds original post but....
Here's a couple of photos taken with my Panasonic FZ30, at full 12x zoom hand held. It has image stabilization & 12x optical zoom, I love it.
The Canon IS range is also very good, with the advantage that the S1 & S2 have an underwater case available, but the latest S3 doesn't as far as I know.

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=2654
www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=2136
www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=2066

Cheers,
Bob.

Haircut
QLD, 6482 posts
17 Apr 2007 11:30PM
Thumbs Up

The stuff I ordered arrived and heretiz.

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=4146

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=4147

The image quality seems good with great colours and it works with really low lighting as well. The camcorder and batts fit in a small camel pack with the bladder removed and i plan to wear the camelpack on the front to save it from any dodgy loops. The elastic strap at the front hooks under the waist harness hook to stop the back moving up and down. It's supposed to run off 12v dc but it's running happily off about 9v with 8 metalhydride rechargables and I've had the cam running for 9 hours straight just off the one set of 8 batteries which is great! I've gone for a run and a jump with it all in the pack, and given it all a dunk in the bucket of water and all appears to be waterproof. now we just need some wind.

fingers crossed it all works on the water

Sailhack
VIC, 5000 posts
17 Apr 2007 11:41PM
Thumbs Up

Sorry to cut in guys, but how did Zed go? (y'know the guy who started this thread). Did he get the camera working, and where's the footage??? I hope there's a happy ending to this story...I need closure!

Haircut
QLD, 6482 posts
17 Apr 2007 11:48PM
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where are you Zed

bmanners
WA, 38 posts
18 Apr 2007 8:54AM
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Haircut,

I had a similar setup to what your are making. I suggest putting some of that packing foam that you get with Pelican cases around the camera to absorb the bumps and knocks. And put the camcorder in a Zip lock bag just for added protection. I used a pelican case and occasionaly small amounts of water would get in if I didn't make sure it was dry before openning it.

It looks like you have glued the cable to seal it where it enters the housing. I'd be worried about the cable pulling out. I used a cable gland from altronics (www.altronics.com.au) for this.

see here

for some sample video of my current setup.

When you head out also think about what you are filming. The first time I went out I looked where I normally look and the got lots of footage of water going past (not very interesting). Next time I concentrated at looking at the back of the board, other windsurfers, through the sail, etc - much more interesting.


Good luck
Brett

Haircut
QLD, 6482 posts
18 Apr 2007 1:55PM
Thumbs Up

thanks alot Brett. The camcorder will record 7.5 hours at highest quality and I bought a 4.5 hour camcorder batter pack, plus the bullet cam will run for at least 8 hours non stop so I'm hoping I should get something decent on video if i sail about for at least 4 hours. The cams wrapped in some foam and the camel pack is a little padded too. The couple of bullet cam distributors I chatted with talked me out of using so-called waterproof glands as they reckon they still leaked and to use epoxy then silicon instead. The hole I drilled through the box is the same diameter as the cable, as i cut the plug off and resoldered a new one on once i poked it through.

Out of curiosity, what is a pelican pack?

cheers

Rex
WA, 949 posts
18 Apr 2007 7:47PM
Thumbs Up

bmanners, thats a neat video clip where was your recording device located? can you give us a run down on what you are useing?


Haircut That 6 day 580 bullet cam sounds cheap, they list it at $699 on thier web site, where did you get yours? ( if you don't mind saying)



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"New waterproof camera" started by Zed