Camcorder suggestions?

So, the #1 thing on the "lessons learned" list after the Targa is "don't use a piece of crap camcorder". I'm using an old Canon Elura 70 that is simply falling apart. The biggest problem is that the zoom switch is funky so it zooms in constantly and loses the ability to focus. I'm a bit peeved about losing some of the best stages of the Targa to this.

So, who's got suggestions for a good in-car camcorder? I'm comfortable working with the DV tapes I have and I feel no need to instantly upload to YouTube. I want something that will shoot standard resolution in 16:9 with a nice wide angle, good image stability and rock-solid reliability. While a Chase Cam would be awesome, I don't believe that is an option at this point.

What's working for people? Or should I simply consider cameras to be consumables?

I have used my canon ZR series video cameras to shoot in and out of car footage of RallyX for two years and have good luck with them (I have two of them). I did lose the ability to focus while zoomed in with one of them, but I attributed it to the rugged life of a RallyX camera. While handicapable, it works fine in fully zoomed out mode and as a video upload machine to my computer or as a battery charger, so it is still in use.

I highly recommend DV tape for in car use over anything that writes directly to a DVD, although the hard drive cameras currently available are tempting. I don't have any in-car experience with those in the field. I have not taken my Canon Vixia HF 10 into anything I would refer to as a "harsh environment" yet.

EastCoastMojo wrote: I highly recommend DV tape for in car use over anything that writes directly to a DVD, although the hard drive cameras currently available are tempting. I don't have any in-car experience with those in the field. I have not taken my Canon Vixia HF 10 into anything I would refer to as a "harsh environment" yet.

So far, miniDV is the best I've used (not including Traqmate / ChaseCam set ups, I have no experience with them). I have a JVC GR-D750. Not really bells and whilstly, but it's MiniDV and bolted to a roll bar / camera mount does pretty well. The model's been replaced, so I imagine you can find them pretty cheap now (they were on the way out when I bought mine).

I would recommend against a hard-drive camera for an in-car environment with a lot of vibration. The last thing you need is to hit a bump wrong and knock the read/write head onto the media and scratch the surface. Hard-drives + vibrations = asking for trouble.

A pretty standard example of the video you can get out of this camera: (note that the compression really kills this stuff for ut00bz) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV9-WYiaT1Y

+1 on no hard drive cameras, many of them will just shut off the instant it feels vibration, even some VHS-C camcorders will do this.

My MotoCam records to an SD card so it's not vibration sensitive, it's a couple years old so it will accept only a 4GB card. The newer ones will go to 16GB. Rough rule of thumb is 1 GB = 1 hour, give or take, a lot depends on how high quality a recording you want. I always shoot in HQ because it looks better full screen and can also be viewed on TVs. The bullet camera's field of view is also wider than the average handheld camera.

http://www.themotocam.com/ Call them and talk to Tim Ennis, tell him what you want and get a quote. The MotoCam will be more expensive than a handheld camcorder but the waterproof/vibrationproof features will make up for it. I can even strap my MotoCam to a chest protector to use on a dirt bike.

Learn from my mistake: go with a battery powered setup which can also be run off of the car's electrical system. That way, the camera won't quit in the middle of a session and you don't have to continually fool with charging the batteries. The first ShockBox I got had a Li-ion pack good for about 4 hours of recording which would have been no good at LeMons, so I upgraded to the external powered system. It would have been cheaper to just do it that way the first time around.

I don't have any experience with mini DV systems.

Not sure how new you want but I had a Sony TRV350 camera and it recorded the best footage to date for me. I have a Canon ZR600 and it's crap compared to that one.

Plus the USB/FIrewire hook ups had no problems. I can never download videos off my Canon for some reason.

Plus with the Sony I was able to purchase a $30 wide angle lens and it made a huge difference too. You can actually see my hands, where I'm looking, and sometimes my feet in good light.

I bought a Sony DCR-HC-52 two or three weeks ago and I have to say, that for $237, it kicks but. Its MiniDV and it has out rated and out optioned everything in its class. My only complaint about the unit is, it doesn't have an external mic jack. My unit has a quiet rattle that the internal mic picks up on, which is something Im going to have to fix. Low light recording is excellent and the sound quality for a low end camcorder is surprisingly good. I use a Cruise Cam Mount to mount ithe camcorder in the car.

iolite wrote: I use a Cruise Cam Mount to mount ithe camcorder in the car.

Link??

I run a wide angle lens on my Canon, and that's part of the problem - when the camera decides to go for full zoom, it loses the ability to focus. Still, I want the widest lens I can get. Camcorder manufacturers brag about their zoom level, but never the wide angle.

An external mic jack would be good for recording in the Seven and Miatas with the top down. It's one reason I went with my (destroyed) Elura 70, although I've never used it.

Thanks for the advice on the hard drive cameras, that's good stuff.

For the rattle it's usually because of the mount, and the headrests. I cut little pieces of rubber tubing for my 00 Civic Si and 91 Civic Si headrests. Slid those over the headrest posts, slid my box aluminum camera mount onto the headrest posts, and then slid 2 more pieces of the rubber tubing to cut out the vibration.

To cut out the up and down movement I used a luggage strap around the headrest and the whole seat back.

A photographer insisted that a good affordable setup would be a decent-quality webcam hooked up to a laptop. Right now I just use an Olympus digicam that does 320x240 @30fps with a cardboard camera mount. It works well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/swedeis

That was made with a cheap Aiptek mini-camcorder that I bought on a lark at Target. It records to Compact flash memory cards. I added a wide angle lens to it and it helped quite a bit. A proper microphone is next on the list of "mods"

Since it is so light it isn't as likely to break off the mount and kill me. It also doesn't move as much. The mounting system needed is so much lighter and easier to manage. I used an old bicycle cargo bar clamped to the headrest with a cheap tripod head mounted to the end of it. They are cheap enough and small enough to use multiple on one vehicle to record you, the footwell, the engine bay, behind you and even pointed at the wheels.

The trick with these is tricking the display interlock switch (cuts power when the flipout LCD view finder is closed) and providing a central button to start/stop the recording. Pretty simple. One DPST switch for power and one SPMT switch for start stop recording. Use a quick-release connector to make installation and removal easy. Since these mini-camcorders are marketed as a webcam as well, they could simply be connected to a USB hub and a laptop or built-in Mini-ITX computer could potentially record from them all at once (though I've not tried it so I don't know whether a laptop would have enough performance to do that successfully).

The newer models aren't much larger than my DV3100+ but some can record in native HD format, most use faster memory modules with more storage capacity but can still be used as webcams, etc. Aiptek isn't the only one marketing products like this. Check out Amazon.com for other companies offering memory-based camcorder devices.

The issue with using regular hard drives in a vehicle (ask your local police man about laptop drive failures) is that they don't live long when under constantly changing g-loads. The internal moving parts don't take kindly to sudden changes (think of an old record player with the needle replaced with a high-tech maglev version. Now replicate that 4-8 times within a tiny container the size of a stack of cards, now start shaking it around.) Not to say it won't work, just be prepared to back up the data often and carry a pre-configured spare drive just in case you have a failure while under way. CD/DVD based drives can have similar problems, though the discs rarely are damaged, just the data doesn't burn as well or not at all (try to write your name with a laser pointer while someone keeps bumping into you)

Either way, make sure you plan to use a better mic to get decent sound (whether you record separately or using the camcorder, is up to you) the built-in mics are not directional and will pick up the loudest noise nearby (usually you bouncing around in the seat, the strap you forgot to take off, etc) You'll also want a wide angle lens of some sort. Sun seems to be a common brand for more or less universal lens solutions, Sony and others have direct fit versions for some of their models.

Enjoy! Stefan

I recently got a Fuji Finepix S2000HD digital camera that shoots 1280x720p video to an SD card. I have not had a chance to try it out in the car yet but what I have shot looks great and is easy to work with once I got a piece of software that could handle editing HD files.

I think Vista and Mac both can handle HD files.

CruiseCame mount from here:

http://www.filmtools.com/cruisecam.html

This is CruiseCam's homepage: http://www.cruisecam.com/cc.html

My firewire cable should be here soon, I'll post footage as soon as it arrives.

The noise seems to be coming from the immediate area where the camcorder is mounted. I think I will try installing the mount without the camcorder and see if the rattle still persists. Hopefully, Mike, you're right and its just the mount and not the camcorder.

Here are a few pics of the cruisecam mount:

I use a DVR camera (it records to those fancy shmancy DVD things). I used it for auto-x for a while and it always worked just fine; even on bumpy lots (Ripken Stadium).

I'll bring it to Summit Point in a few weeks. We'll see how it handles there in the Miata.

For the mount, I have a camera mount from a robot. It was used to pick up makeup containers until it broke. I attach it with its vice-like grip to my Miata's cross bar behind the seats and it holds on pretty well.

Would love a DVR system .

Ok, finally got a chance to upload some demo video shot with the Sony DRC-HC52. Unfortunately, the quality dropped by about half after uploading, sorry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt0FeUbhNUA

I responded to a similar question on the Classic Motorsport forum.

~THIS COMBO of IN-CAR Racing VIDEOs~ was done with three different units.

I've had four camcorders in the last six years in my race cars and my favourite is the Flip solid state camcorder. The three best are listed below (I also had a VHS unit, but converting that to digital video resulted in huge loss of quality):

1: The family JVC mini-DV camcorder (which requires an extra-cost Firewire card and cable). Kind of heavy and delicate for this purpose. Video is best quality, though. Typical max recording time in 120 minutes

2: GoPro Hero camera. Very small and easy to attach (USB), but even the very best AAA batteries hardly last 30 minutes. Also the sound quality is poor, there's no monitor and the "Record" button isn't easy to use. Poorest quality video. I just built an external adapter to run it off two "C" cells (but this makes it more of a hassle to use)....running it on AAA batteries is almost hopeless. Uses SD flash cards for a mx recording time of about 120 minutes

3: Flip solid state camcorder with built in USB "leg" that flips out. This is my favourite by far (cheapest too, at about $149). Very easy to use, decent monitor and AA batteries that last much longer that AAA in GoPro. Has "fixed" non-expandable memory chip(not removeable) that will hold 1 hour of video (we download between sessions to a laptop so this is fine). My "camera-mount" for the Flip is a plastic dry-gas bottle with the top cut off. The bottle is held to the roll bar with a U-bolt and bracket. I drop the camera into the bottle and secure it with a small bungy cord.

I use the standard Windows Movie Maker for editing. I've been using this program for a while, but I just took a two-hour class in Movie Maker where I work (a community college) and realized how really powerful this program is.

Flip camera. [edit; just saw this for $129 in WalMart]

This would be really important to me. I'm looking for an HD camcorder for this job. I just tried the Canon Vixia HF100, FAIL! $600 of useless camcorder for the car footage. Sold that already.

I ran a REALLY and I mean REALLY cheap HD camcorder that does 1280X720, outputs to MP4 format, and costs right at $100. SVP T400 camera, HOWEVER, don't even think you are going to get any usable audio from it. The mic on it blares way too easy, even blares on a loud speaking person. But at the price it makes a great HD suspension or foot cam! (Which is what mine will be once I find a decent main camcorder.)

My main problem is that my car is very loud, and very harsh. I have a nice IO Port racing camera mount. But it seems that only cameras with absolutely no image stabilization work best on cars with lots of vibration and harsh suspension.

The quality of my video was quite impressive when I uploaded to my laptop via 4pin to 4 pin firewire cable, but Youtube.com massively dropped the resolution of the video. Does anyone know of a free video host that allows for higher resolutions than what Youtube does?

Turns out the frame that holds the tapes is lose and jiggles around from the vibrations that come up through the seat, very annoying.

what about the hero?

http://www.goprocamera.com/index5.htm

most of the guys here in our local auto/rallycross division that have used one LOVE IT. (and for $179, it seems to be the budget minded one that can still take a beating).

Autolex wrote: what about the hero? http://www.goprocamera.com/index5.htm .......

See my comments (above )

Not a bad little unit, I would have to say. With the ability to mount virtually anywhere, via a suction cup base, would allow for filming in numerous positions and angles without the need for serveral different types of mounts. Hmmm......I'm sold!

they make 16 and 32gb sd cards now (very inexpensive). I am sure that you can get more than 2 hours on a 32gb flash card. :)