The Ultimate Helmet Cam Checklists
Ok, these checklists have saved my arse many times. If you cover everything on these lists before filming, you should not miss a minute of action on video - unless of course your helmet camera fogs up!
Read on for the checklists!
First, a PRE-Pre-Filming Checklist.
1. Get a helmet camera that has a guarantee against fogging. Many will tell you they are selling vacuum sealed units - but through experience I have found this to not be the case. You would be surprised how quickly some humid weather and a bit of sunshine can fog up the INTERNAL side of the lense.
2. Build a system that minimizes batteries and wires! Most systems on the market today involve a camcorder w/battery, a helmet camera w/another battery, a external microphone which uses power from the helmet camera battery, and a wire based LANC remote to start/stop recording. So, that's 2 batteries to charge, to batteries to watch power levels on, that's a wire from the camera to the camcorder, a wire from the camera to battery, a wire from the camcorder to the remote, a wire from the microphone to the camcorder, and a wire from the microphone to the battery. Wow! That's a lot of wires - do your best to communicate your needs to your helmet cam vendor of choice.
3. Get a good LANC remote control. The helmet cam remote control should allow you to power on/off and start/stop record your camcorder at will - AND provide some type of visual feedback as to what state your camcorder is in. Some older camcorders with LANC support will not support the power on/off functions.
4. Find a power system for the actual helmet cam that works for your needs. A simple AA battery pack may work for you. Others may need a long lasting lithium ion based battery pack. Motorcycles and cars have the option of drawing power from the vehicles power systems.
To recap: A good camera, a good cable harness, a good remote, and a single battery setup = a fantastic helmet camera system.
Helmet Camera Central's Pre-Filming Checklists
Equipment Checklist:
- Camcorder
- Camcorder batteries
- Camcorder storage pack or case
- Helmet Camera
- Helmet Camera batteries
- Helmet Camera mounting system
- Cable Harness to connect Camcorder to Helmet Camera
- External microphone
- LANC Remote Control
- Video Storage Media: MiniDV tapes, blank dvd's, etc.
- Soft pouch to store helmet camera in. (Fleece mitten liners work great.)
- Chemical based Hand warmers to heat batteries in cold weather
- Duck tape and electrical tape for securing cables to camcorder, etc. (Life saver.)
- Camcorder A/V cable for TV hookup to show off your footage at the bar or a friends house afterwards.
Day Prior to Filming Checklist:
- Charge at least 2 camcorder batteries.
- Charge at least 2 helmet camera batteries.
- Label all batteries with some duck tape & permanent pen. This allows you to keep track of which batteries have been used during filming sessions.
- Attach small pieces of colored electrical tape to wire connectors where they have disconnects. This allows you to quickly pair up nessecary connections when digging through your pack.
- Attach some extra strips of electrical tape and/or duck tape to your batteries and camcorder. You never know when these may come in handy.
- Prepare a MiniDV cassette. Rewind it. Label it with the future date and location.
- Test the complete helmet camera setup. This means putting the camcorder and batteries in the backpack, put a jacket on, helmet, helmet camera, mounted microphones, and remote control.
- Test alignment of helmet camera mounting system. Did you properly simulate the position your head will be in when riding your bike or skiing? Experiment filming subjects from a variety of distances and review the video footage. Generally, subjects in helmet cameras get pretty small after about 15-20 feet!
Just Prior to Filming Checklist:
- Check the helmet camera lense for spots, dirt, and scratches.
- Put rewound cassette in Camcorder.
- Connect the various cables to Camcorder and Batteries.
- Secure all wire connections with tape where needed.
- Place (or tape) a hand warmer near the camcorder and/or helmet camera batteries (Cold weather).
- Place (or tape) a hand warmer near your spare batteries. Cold, charged spare batteries are not much better than a cold, drained battery (Cold weather).
- Double-check cable connections.
- Power everything up and confirm that a video and audio signal is being received from the helmet camera via the camcorder LCD.
- Power everything down until you are ready to start filming.
During Filming Checklist:
- Check your battery levels on a regular basis.
- Check your helmet camera lense on a regular basis.
- Check your footage on occasion via the camcorder LCD to make sure everything is working.
- Check the helmet camera angle once you are out filming. Adjust if nessecary.
That's it for now. Any other suggestions?
-Chad
January 10th, 2007 at 2:01 am
Extreme Recalls wiring harness looks like it does nothing to minimize the size or wiring mess of the system. Two microphones? Are you kidding? That is still a four peice system with too many wires. Furthermore they do not even declare what resolution specs they are using on their cameras (vertical or horiz), they don’t define if they are ccd or cmos, they dont give any sort of LUX rating, and more! I could go on for hours with the flaws and missing important information in their product listings. 6-12v power band? I would have to see it in action to believe it. Their lack of neccesary information and amateur website would keep me away from these guys.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Patrick-
1. They also have a mono-microphone setup. I’ve been editing mono helmet cam footage for a long time, stereo audio is simply a better audio experience, especially with mics that are optimized for wind noise.
2. All their cameras are named based on the “TV lines of resolution”: 580,520,480, etc. Also, all the specs are right there on the site. ??? 1/3″ Sony ExView CCD, UV filtering, Preplex lens, and LUX rating of .5 Lux.
3. Overall, for extreme sports, LUX ratings are for shizzle. I feel they really only apply to indoor/nighttime/covert filming. Xtremerecall is one of the few teams out there actually having their cameras engineered to their specs. Do you need your helmet cam to work in low light conditions? Are you taking your setup into businesses for under cover stuff? Dance clubs? Any camera out there will have a more than sufficient LUX level to do filming outdoors during daylight… In fact, low lux cameras tend to be over sensitive to strong light conditions. Regardless, .5 lux is good.
4. Don’t let their website turn you off. Give them a call.
5. Almost all of the helmet cams on the market today are CCD. Samsung’s SCX is CMOS, the ATC-2K is CMOS. I’ll admit that Twenty20 Camera’s new CMOS technology is almost there – perhaps a review of their newest offerings is due. CMOS has arrived to the helmet cam market, and it will only get better.
6. No matter how you look at it, if you remove the helmetcam battery from the picture – you are reducing wire clutter.
7. The cameras are either NTSC or PAL resolutoin. Don’t get me started on the total B.S. marketing hype around 580 tv lines vs 520. It basically comes down to a 580 camera should look better than a 520, vs a 480. Color and white balance are way more important in overall viewability, than the difference between 520 and 580 tv lines. You could have a 1000 tv line cam, in the end the signal is getting mangled during the conversion from a digital output (CCD) to Analog and downsampled to maximum NTSC horizontal resolution of 720 pixels. Horizontal “TV lines” are not same as horizontal “Pixels”.
8. I’ve been helmet cam’n for a while – 1 battery, 1 button, so far this is the best solution on the market today.
-chad @ hcc.com
January 10th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I admit I have never used stereo audio sop i probably shouldnt talk, but it just seems like a little much.
I dont like that the only way you see the lux is when you place a cursor over the camera and specs show on the right. It isnt on the clicked and solid spec page. If you do any sort of night filming or underwater filming lux is the most important factor. Lots of motorists and other people use them for night filming.
Only one of the three camera states its a ccd chip, the rest do not. Im not going to assume a camera is CCD especially when many cams out there that run off of low voltage are CMOS. Twenty20 cams for example. CMOS sucks, but it should be clearly stated that they are CCD. The low voltage band is confusing.
TV lines can be interpreted to mean alot of things, i want the horizontal lines of resolution of the bullet cam, they are the only line resolution stats that truly matter. Skull Cams trys to play off vertical resolution as the “real resolution”. In reality vertical resolution is fixed. In the same sense, I dont like it that they do not state where 580 comes from.
Maybe i am being overcautious but i have been burned in the past. I think they have a really good setup i just want the straightforward facts and specs before spending a couple hundred dollars on a kit.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:16 am
I’m right with you on being overly cautious. We should have an in hand Xtreme Recall unit to test very soon. I’ll give it the once over for sure.
January 11th, 2007 at 1:25 am
i look forward to it
January 18th, 2007 at 1:30 am
I just my a helmet cam from http://www.sportzshot.com, the PVS-6XPRO-1. I’m heading up to the mountain tommorrow to test it out. I was messing with it in my appt. tonight and am very pleased with it so far.. so far I’ve noticed that the low light capabilities are awesome, better than the sony DCR-HC65 that I’m going to use to capture with! It came with a 3.6mm Lens but I bought 2.9mm Lens for a little bit bigger FOV for in the trees.
http://www.sportzshot.com ran out of thier google mount so they sent me every other mount (at no charge) they have until they get it back in stock they have been very helpfull.
We’ve been having a great winter up here in Vancouver, BC the locals have 300+ CM and Whistler has close to that too! I hope to get some good footage to post here.
This site, and more specifically, the firt video in the skiing/boarding video section posted by Chadical greatly inspired me to make the purchase. I have been riding for 14 years and am stoked to go ride with this new set up.
Keep the reviews coming!
Phil
January 18th, 2007 at 11:31 am
That’s great Phil. Thanks for the props, glad you enjoyed Cliff Lake. Remember, It’s all about filming other people with your camera. It’s much more interesting to watch someone else ski/board. Also, keep your subject close to you – if they are 20-30 feet out they will be pretty small in the picture. Also, since you switched lens on your camera you will most likely get internal lens fogging between the lens and the camera when you go indoors and/or when bright sun hits the lens. Every once and awhile check your lens for fog. Some people recommend sticking the actual helmet cam in a ziplock back with all the air squeezed out before going inside. Lastly, filming other people with your cam is a learned skill – practice it!
-chadical
January 20th, 2007 at 12:57 am
Here’s a few vids from Jan 18, 2007 at Cypress mountain close to vancouver BC Canada.
It was very cloudy so visibility was bad. Low light. And yes those are my gogles in the shot, no way to avoid it with the temporary head strap that I have. Too bad google decreases image quality too!
Oh well here they are.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3733636191302909307&q=hcam2&hl=en-CA
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6218642037274619152&hl=en-CA
RAAP
July 30th, 2007 at 5:21 am
A lot of informations about helmetcamera – systems und a great offer you will find:
http://www.helmkamera-systeme.de (only in German)
But if you got questions, contact the company HeKaSys the can help you and talk in great english.
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 pm
gogles…
I think you are most probably right….