Got my new SOLOSHOT on Friday and gave it a run today, I've used 2 cameras in the following clip, a HD camcorder which has the ability to zoom and a Hero3. The first part of the vid is filmed with the camcorder and while having the ability to get a bit closer it really suffers with quality. The camera is a few years old but still film in 1080 but doesn't stand up when put up against the GoPro, I'll use my DSLR for the zoom shots next time. The GoPro footage in the second half is leaps and bounds better but suffers from not being able to zoom in, You can zoom in a little in editing but eventually the quality begins to drop. This is where the 2.7K mode of the black is going to come in handy to crop in a little closer and maintain image quality.
As for the SOLOSHOT itself it's quite good at what it does, The system is relatively easy to setup and the tracking is rather smooth. It does have some limitations but it does not hurt the function of the unit. It comes with everything you need including the tri-pod and detailed instructions. I got the unit from a dealer on the Gold Coast(overnight delivery) as it actually worked out about the same price by the time you added freight to get it from the US($150), As for the price tag of $599 it's not cheap but it's money worth spending for me and my hobby. The draw back is the pairing system, It takes 15mins to warm up before you can pair the arm band to the base station and if you happen to stuff something up and have to turn it off it takes another 15mins before it's ready to pair again. That said once you stuff it up a few times you learn to do it right, The next problem is that if you move the camera to a new location you must go through the whole process again. To be honest I thought it was a pain in the a$$ at first but seeing the results and how well it tracks it's worth the little pain that it causes. Overall I'm happy with what it can do and I'm sure with some practice I'll be able to tweak it some to get the best out of it, Can't wait to try it wave sailing as It should work a treat.
Check them out @ soloshot.com/
seems to work pretty well...
... just a bummer that in most place you can't leave a camera on the beach without having a pitbull chained to it.
That said, I guess you could use this setup for wide shots than operate a second camera doing close-ups. Or perhaps they could use this for the PWA wave events. Have four cameras setup with one trained on each rider. All displayed in a multi view window on their web site.
Looks like a useful device when you're short of camera hands. Can you use several armbands and have the camera target the closest?
^^^Each armband only pairs with the one base at a time, That said you can run multiple units in the same area and they will only track their paired armband. I did find that it lost it's way on a few occasions and you needed to re-pair to fix it, Not sure if it was from sailing out of sight or if it just can just loose it's alignment. But for the most part it stayed on track and was quite easy to use, I think it will be good for wave sailing events as you can set the camera up and just share the armband around. As for security, It has a place to attach a lock on the unit in order to secure it to something...But if someone wants it, They'll get it.
Cheers
Thanks for the review. I've been thinking about getting one of these as a decent tripod costs a similar amount in itself.
Do you have any idea how far away you can go before the connection is lost between the two?
