Video cameras?

[Waternut]

What are people using? Do you like it? Do you have complaints?

 

I'm looking for a nice camera to use to video my skiing. I've used an older Sanyo Xacti and it was terrible because the base was so narrow that it almost completely being held by the mounting screw...which eventually pulled out of the camera. I currently have a Toshiba Camileo H30. The battery life is awesome and easily gets 10+ entire sets of video without stopping it between passes. However, the stabilization is supposedly there but non-existent and a handle pop will completely scramble the focus. Turning the camera off and back on fixes this problem but the boat crew has to remember/know of this problem or you get half of your set blurry. This camera is good but I would really like a little less vibration.

 

I'm not looking for a GoPro or Contour or some other POV camera but looking for a few particular things in a camera. Any suggestions?

1: A solid base so the camera can't vibrate independent of the mount

2: A good battery. Needs to be able to take at least an hour of video

3: Stabilization just to help eliminate small vibrations (I don't need it to handle slack hits or anything like that)

4: If it can stay in shape after a handle pop that would be awesome but necessarily required

[giddyup]

i have been using my contour on a home made version of the ski-doc pylon mount. it has worked great, i have a new contour and the older HD model, both work great, the new 2+ is way better on battery, i use to have it in the waterproof case but there is no need for that, works great.

[oldjeep]

@giddyup - problem is that contour went out of business last month, so they are only available NOS or used.

[oldjeep]

@waternut - what are you using for a mount? We've been using a Trakker (P3?) pylon mount for years and never had problems with whatever cheap vid camera was mounted on it. Used on an LXI and before that a Sunsetter

[Waternut]

I have one of the pylon mounted trakker mounts but I don't know the version. It's black with probably half inch pad on top. Doesn't look like the new P4 mounts at all.

 

This is my Camileo camera. The frist couple passes are fairly smooth because the water is smooth but I've noticed as we get a little more chop on the lake from even light winds, the video gets more and more shakey. Maybe I'm being too picky but I feel like any decent camera with stabilization should be able to absorb light vibrations transmitted through the boat from wind chop. PS - the black rim around the video is a function of crappy editing and not the camera itself.

 

[oldjeep]

FWIW - after looking at a picture of a P3, we've been using a P4.

 

As for the camera, my limited experience has told me that I get better results from dumber/cheaper cameras. Much like the newer GoPro3 sucks compared the the GoPro2, I think the addition of the stabilization at the camera level seems to cause more problems than it solves.

 

The one we use most often is an old Sony handicam that actually writes to a tiny dvd

 

Also the reviews on that camera you are using are horrible

http://www.amazon.com/Toshibas-CAMILEO-X416-Full-Camcorder/dp/B005LS27HK

 

[Waternut]

@oldjeep Camileo is a whole line of cameras and mine is actually the H30 instead of that X416 which is quite terrible. The reviews are quite a bit better but when I read a bunch of reviews, I never saw anything about the stabilization problems. It's really hard and time consuming to read 100+ reviews on 20+ cameras which is how I missed the stabilization issue because I was focusing on the most helpful reviews.

 

So to see if anyone had stumbled on a good camera, I thought I'd ask. Maybe I should invest in a good video editor rather than another camera....

[jdk99]

check out this previous BOS thread: http://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/5043/trakker-video-camera-vibration

 

based on this, i picked up the P4 with the JVC everio and have been thrilled with it. Incredibly stable images with the exception of a slight jump with heavy slack hits at short line lengths (that i cant ski anyway!).

[oldjeep]

@Waternut - if you were looking for a new camera, I'd try. Go pro like functionality without the fisheye.

http://store.sony.com/c/Action-Cam-Full-HD-Camcorder/en/c/S_Sony_Action_Cam

 

As for the software - have you tried YouTubes image stabilization?

[Waternut]

Youtube's image stabilization drives me nuts because it just shakes the entire video and it takes forever. Downloaded a trial version of Cyberlink Powerdirector last night and so far I really like that program. Slight learning curve over windows moviemaker but it saves files much faster, the files look better, and it does stabilization in seconds. I'll do a few more videos and let you guys know but it's looking like $50 worth of software will fix my biggest video camera complaint.