Camera Helmets

[BASE813 0]

cheers dude..........

I have got quite a lot to look at. I am speakin with a guy tomo to see if they can do something to a MX / Ski helmet for a camera (i have actually ordered a PC350 now) - will be curious on what he charges.............

Thanks for all the suggestions

[Faber 0]

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i have actually ordered a PC350 now

huh? i thourght it were a 330 mate..

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[BASE813 0]

Quote

Quote

i have actually ordered a PC350 now

huh? i thourght it were a 330 mate..

The shop I ordered it from could not get hold of the 330 in the end, so they refunded the money and I decided to buy a new PC350.......

[WrongWay 0]

One word.....EBAY.

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[FIREFLYR 0]

I jump with a R.E.D. (www.redprotection.com)
SKYCAP "More reliable than old faithful itself"
It's a snowboarding helmet but you wouldn't know that from the warnings etc....
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP:
Scope around the jumps first,not over them
EASY STYLE IT:
Start small and work your way up
(inverted aerials not recomended)

It's made by Burton and looks like it can take some shit.
Word!

"One flew East,and one flew West..............one flew over the cuckoo's nest"
"There's absolutely no excuse for the way I'm about to act"

[neneskydive 0]

You can try a Brazilian manufacturer.....
He sells to all world.....
Max Cohn uses too....
Very good camera case....confort and head up/down camera case option.....

Visit the site www.rawa.com.br

Cya
Andre.

[BASE813 0]

Just wanted to get some feedback on the FF2 from 2K composites for impact protection.

I have spoken to SS at 2K, but I want users opinions of them. I will be using the helmet in a strictly BASE environment, so will be getting bumps and scrapes regularly from just climbing objects, I will also want to have reasonable head protection from "impacts" - what I mean is if i should have a hard landing and bang my head on concrete / a rock or have an object strike and smack my head with a "glancing blow" on something solid - will the helmet give me ample protection?

I know that skydive helmets are not known for their protection, but I like the design of the FF2 compared to getting a mod done to a ski / mx helmet with a camera box for about the same price, but I would like to hear about the FF2 in the field - anyone have some pretty hard impact with theirs?

Thanks

Michael

[whatever 0]

hi

I have a 2KC FF2.

I do not use it for BASE, as it offers no real protection from any impact as can easily be seen from the construction.

I have the all carbon fibre model, but a friend has the cheaper fibreglass version and it looks like that is marginally stronger, but still affords little to no protection.

I use a TSG bmx helmet and a 661 Full Carbon downhill MTB helmet for BASE jumps, as both of these offer significant impact protection.

Just buy a bullet cam and stick it on a helmet that is good for protection, it's an easy solution that will also prevent a sore neck from camera weight and or riser strikes.

Buying a FF2 strictly for BASE is a waste of money IMHO and with a lump of camera strapped to your head, quite likely less safe than jumping with no helmet.

cheers
sam

soon to be gone

[base570 1]

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I use a TSG bmx helmet and a 661 Full Carbon downhill MTB helmet for BASE jumps, as both of these offer significant impact protection.

Just buy a bullet cam and stick it on a helmet that is good for protection, it's an easy solution that will also prevent a sore neck from camera weight and or riser strikes.
sam

Does the bullet cam have the same quality as the normal camera set up? What type of lens is on it? Are others available?

Thanks,
Jason
570

[Faber 0]

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Does the bullet cam have the same quality as the normal camera set up? What type of lens is on it? Are others available?

i use the bullet cam from pack 4 from RF,and i absolutely wont recomend them for high qually.

My cam should be abel to record in 0lux but even in twighlight it get problems,in the dark envioment it cant be used at all.

NOTE: i did send my cam for repair but got it back whith a note that it were in 100% good shape. but also after that i get the same poor qually.

i think they might will be good in the skyenvioment were you have loads of light but BASE jumping were the ground often looks dark compared to the sky,i dont like it.

One of the reassons is might that a Bullet cam is analoug into digi. i dunno about this.

dont buy a new one before you tested one first i sure felt that i lost loads of mony on that account as i got the best,3 lenses a remote etc etc

just my oppinion....

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[jalisco 0]

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Does the bullet cam have the same quality as the normal camera set up?

Bullet cam is a complete camera, ccd, lens, etc., that puts out a standard video signal (NTSC or PAL). Your dv recorder is then just recording the video signal the bullet cam produces. If you're using it to feed, say, a PC330, then your investment in the 330's fancy (bigger) ccd, pretty glass, and image stabilization is for naught.

Image quality will depend almost entirely on the quality of the bullet cam. I wouldn't expect most of them to give you the sensitivity or color fidelity you get from your better mini-dv cameras (stand-alone). But, somebody please prove me wrong -- I like the idea.

[whatever 0]

I can prove you wrong. give me a few days to get back to toronto and I will post movies taken with the bulletcam

cheers
sam

soon to be gone

[whatever 0]

Jason

the bulletcam I bought has a Sony 1/3" CCD and MUCH better lowlight and IR sensitivity than my PC105.

it has 480 lines resolution on the NTSC model that I have

it is VERY sensitive to power supply quality and set-up, especially connectors.

also, the lenses are interchangeable easily, BUT you have to focus them while changing over, there is a good range of fields-of-view available with the lenses.

when set up properly the quality is as good as my PC105 during the day and siginificantly better in low light, although it is difficult to set it up nicely.

like I said, I'll post video in a week or two.

cheers
sam

soon to be gone

[jalisco 0]

Cool -- the sony 1/3"ccd is what the 330 has, right? so if they did it right, the only thing you're missing is the Sony image stab (and odds and ends like night mode, progressive scan, etc).

I'd also be interested to learn about your setup.

[TomAiello 25]

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...the quality is as good as my PC105 during the day and siginificantly better in low light...

Having seen Sam's video from the bullet cam, and video he shot at the same time with the PC105, I can definitely vouch for the truth of this.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Faber 0]

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the bulletcam I bought has a Sony 1/3" CCD and MUCH better lowlight and IR sensitivity than my PC105.

looking forward to see the video. i use a 105 as well...
will see if i can dig up video recorded by my bullet setup,that can be shown here you sure can see its not the same qually.Still in focus but as it gets dark i get blue spots on the dark areas. i use 8 AA 2100mAh batteryes,which should be ok.

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[whatever 0]

update on the videos

I'm home and I've uploaded them to skydivingmovies.com

here is the boat footage:
http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1920

(It doesn't show the clearest picture and there are blue dots, but you can see colours and also read my watch when using the backlight, which you couldn't do with the PC105, even on nightshot)

here is a sunrise jump shot on the bulletcam(hope the troll doesn't mind a cameo appearance):
http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1918

here is a daytime jump shot with the bulletcam:
http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1917

Here is a sunset jump shot with the bulletcam, mounted on my hand. Shows pretty good how going slider up at TF, geeking the camera and getting a 180 with a half twist, when exiting over the centre of the river, will likely end up with you getting wet!
http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1919

I hope this has given some idea of what I was talking about.

cheers
sam

edited to add:

some have asked about my set-up, I have posted a fair amount about it in the photography and video forum if you'd like any details that you can't find there, just ask, I'm still ironing out some details

more edit to add:
I uploaded .wmv files, which is how I captured from the tape, as I did initially capture the sunset jump in .avi format, but that created too big a file size. This means a loss of some resolution and quality, due to the format, not the bulletcam.

soon to be gone

[Faber 0]

You got some cool vid there,heres my coments to it:

At the 2 jumps you clearly can see that the ground change collur(purpel to brown)as you have a canopy out.I had the same issues,try turn your cam 180degrees and look at the outcome... youll get purple ground..

your sunset jump truly looks way better than what i get on my cam.

I must say that you have better qually than i have,from the describtion it looks like we have the same setup through..
I got mine back and were told that it were ok,and still have not as good qually in the dark envioment as yours...

how much power do you use(which batteryes)
i use 8 AA(or AAA??)2100mah which fits in the batterypack.its the strongest batteryes i could find.

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[base689 0]

> What type of lens is on it? Are others available?
I have permanently mounted a 2.9mm-130° lens; they are also available 3.6mm-92° and 4.3mm-78° lenses.

> I use the bullet cam from pack 4 from RF,and i absolutely wont recomend them for high qually.
I have got the same bullet camera as you, Faber, but you know I like very much the quality of the bullet camera we have.
Simply speaking, you must know which the specifications of our bullet are, and we CANNOT demand more from it (nor from ANY videocamera in the world).

> My cam should be able to record in 0lux but even in twighlight it get problems, in the dark envioment it cant be used at all.
Here comes my above point. First, 21CWSHRX bullet camera (=package 4) min illumination is 0.1 lux (not 0, nothing works in 0 lux!). Our bullet camera is simply 70 times brighter than our PC105 (without night shot). Second (and we spoke about this on the phone), our bullet, in case of low (=nearly zero) light, shows blue spots among the "black".
Well, this can easily be something that upsets you, while a PC105 would show just "black". But when something is honestly "seeable" (let's say, when light is around 1 lux), our bullet shows good pictures, while PC105 gives just the contours of images (the inner part of contours just being black).

> i think they might will be good in the skyenvioment were you have loads of light but BASE jumping were the ground often looks dark compared to the sky,i dont like it.
Faber, sorry, I think you have WAY HUGE expectations from (any) bullet camera.
NO CAMERA CAN SHOOT IN DARKNESS (unlkess you go on infrared, with internal/external illuminator).
I can guarantee you that I took a video (just as soon as I set my system up) of a jump from our A, total darkness, yes, my mate is a black contour, but as soon as I lighted up the (small) speleo light I have on my helmet, I got very bright images on those "objects" that were in the light cone of my light (my arms in red jacket, the iron beam, my canopy above my head, the grass approaching for landing, my camo stash bag, whatever else felt into the light cone of my light).
Yes, outside the cone light everything is black with blue spots, but even with a "direct" PC105 with super night shot (=with infrared illuminator on), what you can get is that everything (that is within the cone illumination of infrared) in green and black and everything is outside (the cone illumination of infrared) is simply black.
I do have 2 videos of a S jump, shot at the same time, around sunset, the first through my bullet, the second of my exact jump, but shot by a PC105 from the landing. It was possibly just after sunset, the video shot from my bullet shows nice seable colours, the video shot from PC105 just gives contours with dark "inner".

> One of the reasons is might that a Bullet cam is analoug into digi. i dunno about this.
With a 2 m length cable, the story of analog input is simply a "non issue".

> how much power do you use(which batteryes)
i use 8 AA(or AAA??)2100mah which fits in the batterypack.its the strongest batteryes i could find.
Now I tell you about my experience with batteries. Firstly, the manufacturer says that you could use bullet camera either with 8 AA batteries for 12 h (or so) or with 9 V (small) battery for 1 h (or so).
The story of supplying the bullet canera with the 9 V (small) battery is simply FAKE - FALSE - VOID - BULLSH|T.
I used both a rechargeable NiMH 9 V battery and a standard alkaline 9 V battery. Results: imagea were bad and all the screen was full with blue spots.
My opinion: bullet camera is simply quite eager of current for its normal operation, which current for its normal working simply CANNOT be supplied by a 9 V battery.
So, after the unlucky test with 9 V battery, at first I used in the battery package 8 AA NiMH 2300 mAh batteries, but now I bought 8 AA NiMH 2500 mAh (2500 mAh are the most powerful AA batteries so far).
The 8AA batteries can supply enough current for the (normal) use of bullet camera (which bullet camera absorbs 1.3W of power, not exactly "nothing", it gets jolly warm after few minutes it is ON).
Edited to add: current absorbed by bullet camera is 130 mA (=0.13 A), that is NOT exactly nothing. In fact, supposing of having 8 AA batteries having a voltage of 1.25 V each, we end up with supplying 0.13 A at 10 V, which in fact gives an absorption of 1.3 W (= a small heater!!!).
Note: along the usage of my bullet camera, I always use also the external microphone (which drains a little bit current on its own).
Using 2500 mAh batteries gives me a very nice working usage and time for my bullet camera, no blue spots (unless it is jolly fu(king dark...).
In the end: I am very happy with my setup, even if it takes 30 minutes (or so) to assemble everything up.
I used my bullet to take a video of an urban jumps of mine, night time but there were street lamps everywhere, and they were enough to give a good illumination to my video, I am really happy about it.
Furthermore, I used my bullet camera (with a headband) for videoing my snowboard adventures (well, actually, I video my brother skiing!!!), with very, very good results (possibly, a 2.9mm-130° lens is a bit too wide for this sort of videos, but never mind!).
Just my 0.02€.

Stay safe out there
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
BASE #689 - base_689AT_NO_123_SPAMyahoo.com

[Faber 0]

Hi Andrea
Im werry aware of our conversations(which i really enjoyed and apritiate),you helped me alot,and thank you for that.

I see you use 2500mha batteryes(recharcheble i guess) could you please post the name of thouse,i havnt been abel to get any higher than 2100mha yet,perhaps the last 400mha could do the job.
As you i like to use the mic aswell.

I see that i didnt got my fact straigth(about the lux,your correct that its 0.1lux).

Quote

I used my bullet to take a video of an urban jumps of mine, night time but there were street lamps everywhere, and they were enough to give a good illumination to my video, I am really happy about it.

i had one similar jump were i go nothing but black whith blue spots on...

hope your doing good

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[whatever 0]

Andrea (and Faber)

sounds like we have the same experience of our bulletcams

I have the same CCD, bought it from www.spycameras4less.com as I'm in Canada and it was cheaper

I used to use 8 x 2100 mAh batteries, but now I use 10 x 2300 mAh batteries (energizer rechargeables), a thing to note, the high capacity rechargeable NiMH batteries like this do not produce 1.5 Volt, they only give 1.2 Volt and the bulletcam seems to want at least a good 12 Volt, so I went to 10 AA sized rechargeables.

cheers
sam

soon to be gone

[base689 0]

for Faber:
> ...could you please post the name of thouse,i havnt been abel to get any higher than 2100mha yet...
Faber, just go on eBay and search inserting the following string: "2500 mAh NiMH" and you will get plenty of choices. Ansmann are really good quality batteries (I have got Ansmann batteries), but there also other good brand for 2500 mAh batteries.

for Sam:
> ...they only give 1.2 Volt
The fact that a rechargeable battery gives out only 1.2 V is damned true.

> and the bulletcam seems to want at least a good 12 Volt, so I went to 10 AA sized rechargeables so I went to 10 AA sized rechargeables
Damn!!!!!!! So you bought a 10 batteries holder? Are they available? I must get one!!!

Stay safe out there
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
BASE #689 - base_689AT_NO_123_SPAMyahoo.com

[harri 0]

I would like to add some comments to your battery discussion. If you want to get more power to your bullet camera, rising the mAh's of the battery is not the right way to go. From the mAh's one can tell for how long the batteries will last if the current drawn is known. Here, if you have 130 mA current and the capacity of the battery is 2300 mAh (milliamperehours) you'll theoretically get about 17 h 40 min working time. And with 2500 mAh you'll get 1 h 30 min more. So, 130 mA is not a big current drawn, but if you have long and thin cables supplying the power to the camera you could lose a lot of mA's there. And that's why you won't get working times like that.

When getting bigger voltages (adding cells) one'll get more power with same current. It is straight: P = U*I, P=power, U = voltage, I = current. Look at the specs of your camera and get the highest voltage. I wouldn't advice going over it. Also here the cables may play a big role, the another formula is U = R*I, R = resistance (of the cable). It tells you how much of the voltage you'll lose in the cable.

These were my thoughts from my very limited experience flying electric RC-planes. There, I use Li-Po (Lithium - Polymere) cells, which are a lot lighter than NiMH's. But I wouldn't use them in this case, because when short circuited (e.g. bad landing) they will explode easily.

-Harri-

[nicrussell 0]

The Protec Full face ace is a very nice helmet. Protection, sturidiness and adaptability and price (59 bucks!!) Cant find a better deal. The only negative I have about this helmet, Is that my head (do not read ego, actual dimension) is too large for their largest. But most normal people will be able to fit into them very nicely. In fact I'll sell you mine if you want, Unused, still in plastic and box.

PM me if interested. I have two.

nic

[jalisco 0]

Looks like the 21CSHRX is designed as a very low-light (.1lux at f2!) camera. It must push the Sony EXVIEW Super HAD 1/3" CCD to the limit -- the "blue spot" artifacting is something that another manufacturer might tune out, but I like the fact that it'll give you whatever low-light image it can get.

Was hoping someone would chime in on the battery thing.
The specs for the 21CSHRX state:

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Power source: DC 12V (tolerance:8V~15V)
Operating current: 130mA w/ regulated power input

From what you guys are saying, it sounds like the tolerance they claim is a little iffy when you get on the low side.