What camera?

[combatxe2]

I know this has probably been asked before, just want to make some decent quality aerial videos.
Bear in mind I only have a gaui 330xs and not a heavy lifter, I know the gopro is probably the one to go for but just wondered if there were any other cameras on the market that are worth a look.
My budget is £200-300 ish.
Cheers
Mark

 

[Bowley]

I use a Gaui 330 and I just use a gopro, its easy to mount with the stick on gopro mounts that the PC case attaches to it. I have mine mounted on the bottom so I got the little payload mount (£8.99 quadcopters.co.uk) fitted to the top for mounting the battery on the top. with the go pro even in the lesser 127 deg FOV you can still see the landing poles in the frame which always annoyed me. now I just hand launch it with no landing gear, that solves the problem. and because of the case I can just land on it gently and cut the throttle or hand recover it. I have seen a lot of Gaui's with gopros mounted on top, good for FPV but no use for AV as you can see the props etc.
I think if I were going to fit a camera mount to it I would use a point and shoot with a sensible FOV but then I would have to use a shutter release device and it all adds to weight so I just opted to stick to fixed mount gopro, its light and I get good flight times with a 2200 3S lipo.

I'm just trying to get as best video as I am able to with the most rudimentary of equipment. If you go for the fixed mount gopro, I would recommend flying in Normal or cruise mode. took me a while to figure out hover or Atti mode was a lot more wobbly than cruise.

heres a bit of video I did with gaui/gopro in atti mode, you can see theres a lot of wobbles and twitching and you can see the landing legs.

Heres a little in cruise mode I think its a little smoother, although it was just a hack about rather than a video shoot.

I realize the gopros limitations but I do still love it, although if I had waited a month or two I could have got the Gopro 2 which is worth checking out even if just for the colour improvement.

Steve

 

[combatxe2]

Thanks Steve, just the sort of info i was after, is the payload mount you have the Gaui one or aftermarket?
Nice videos btw, think I'll go and have a look at the go pros and see what sort of deals are out there.
Cheers
Mark

 

[david.scarbrow]

I have not seen/noticed it on any threads on this forum but has anyone any experience of the Contour range of camera on board MR crafts ? The words from their marketing people seem to suggest that their range of cameras have all the necessary bells and wwhistles and appears to tick all the boxes for MRC photo activities...or because I know so little about it I am completely missing on something here.

 

[plingboot]

i had a contour hd 1080 camera - originally i bought it to strap to my push bike and capture some of the fast descents in the surrey hills, but to be honest with you, although it looked the part, being small and compact, the mount design was flawed IMHO as it was almost impossible to stop it rattling on the mount - there was no way to crank it tight without stupid botches - and the end result was always a disappointment.

the gopro on paper looks more clunky, but having flogged my contour and bought a gopro i'm magnitudes happier.
The range and flexibility of the available mounts is just great, and i also think the footage is better quality too.

 

[david.scarbrow]

It looks like you have addressed the doubts that I have...the GoPro is cheaper too. It would be interesting to see if people had the same experiences as you. Many thanks.

 

[combatxe2]

I was swaying towards the GoPro but stumbled across the Stealth HD 170, anyone had one of these? on paper it looks ideal.