I'm looking at cameras and curious if Santa brought anyone a GoPro3 for Xmas? The reviews for battery life are less than good. I've seen video and read reviews and now am looking for pilots input from actual usage.

Have a new GoPro Hero3 Black. Mounting it to the strut. The battery life is terrible. Haven't taken any flight video yet, but I have been using for sports stuff. The unit gets very warm and I have a feeling that the wireless feature eats even more battery life. I will probably need to purchase a high capacity battery if this is going to prove useful for making flight videos.

Here is a short video I shot a few days ago with my Drift HD. Battery life seems to be OK for me. I like the fact that I have a remote to start/stop. I know the new GoPro has this now also.

[url] http://youtu.be/naEqt9HVIRw[url]

What do you edit with, aviatorpa11?

Very nice video. Beautiful and relaxing!

The Drift still seems to have all the best features to me....good battery life, a remote that works, a preview screen on board so you can visualize the view, easy to mount, available filter mounts that eliminate prop artifacts, etc.

I'm amazed at how many are still buying Go Pros.

Whatever works for you. Advertising hype obviously does for Go Pro.

MTV

I have not used the GoPro yet so take my experience with a grain of salt... but did a bunch of work with Countours (not my favorite) and now have had really good results with the Drift HD.

As with any camera, the more light you have the better. The first example has great light and subsequently a real crisp nice picture. The second has lower light and thus the cam is using a higher ISO. Both are examles shot at 1080p. The third (my favorite) is shot at 720p. In post, I also punched in for a more dynamic cut. The digital zoom has a bit of loss, but it was cool and is the web... So who cares!

I bought a beefier battery, so it lasts pretty long. When I get the Skywagon back up and running, I will be grabbing another Drift so I can have two cameras to cut back and forth between the two. Its all about the production value!

I've been using the Contour 2+ and the Plus. I get very good results with both. I was using them on the bomb rack of the Birddog. I like the new 2+ as you can completely control it, on off and change setting remotely with the iPhone or an Android one. The ability to use your phone as a remote viewfinder helps set up. I did put an mini HDMI cable inside the wing of the 185, so I can do real time monitoring of the wing tip mount I'm making for it. So shall see how that works out.

The newest Contour, the +2 has better color than the + and better features. I do like the iPhone linking to set things up and change to different modes. I like the form factor and the tripod mount much better than the GoPro. I also really like the GPS function, it give nice speed readout and location on a map, real time. The 2+ can do it as overlay and the + does it on a separate window. It and the Drift have small frontal area and if you make cabling to go to them, it comes neatly out the back. I did make a longer life battery pack for mine, so it will last longer than the aircraft has gas. The other fun thing about the Contours in general, if your handy, you can swap out the lenses.

If you want to make a working power the camera from an external pack cable:
http://kjh.ca/contour_mods/doku.php?id=hacking_usb_cable:start

I have been using my Go Pro 3 Black for more than a month and I have no complaints. Battery last at least two hours out on the strut and remote works well at a that distance. For a float plane the Go Pro offers the most.

The app works fine with my iphone 5 for viewing and control.

The difficult thing with these things seems to be the editing side not the filming side. None of them can agree on format so thats a pain in the ass, and when you start converting quality drops. Apple has been the best but imovie is basic and final cut wont run on my imac with OSX.

The good thing about lower light conditions is that the prop flicker will dampen (on all POV/CMOS cameras).

I really love the idea of the GoPro3 (I have not used one yet), but for the price, the Drift 170/HD cameras sure are a bargain.

bigrenna
What are you using to mount the Drift? How is it mounted? Do you have a link to the product?

I use a RAM mount. Mounting are not camera specific as all of these cameras come with some kind of modality to mount to a 1/4" standard screw.

RAM makes it easy to use hundreds of solutions.

First I screw the camera to RAM-B-202U:



Then I use an arm. (length depends on location but the shorter "B" works great for most) RAM-B-201U-A



Then finally I use a hose clamp to affix this to the strut, step, stinger, whatever... (I use white electrical tape to dress the tail of the clamp down. RAM-B-108BU

I mounted my Drift HD to the left jury strut, using the goggle mount that came with the camera. I cut up and wrapped an old inner tube, to protect paint and kinda help with vibration, around the vertical jury strut. Then using some good quality zip ties, I simply "zipped" it on. I also make sure that when I do have the camera mounted, that I always use a length of safety wire from the camera to the strut itself, just in case the zipties decide to break at some point. That way, I still got my camera! I mounted it on the left strut, because that way I can see the light on the camera, when I am recording or not. It changes from green to amber when recording.

As far as editing software, I just use the Windows Moviemaker, that came pre installed on my laptop. It is simple enough for me, and I am getting better at using it. I did buy a software program called Magix Movie Edit Pro, but I havent spent to much time with it. Windows Moviemaker is simple enough for me to understand, and does the things I want it to do, so far.

I have used the Contour HD, Drift HD and GoPro Hero 2 (not the black) with the wifi backpack extensively. I will tell you that in my experience, the video quality of the Hero2 camera is hands down the best. Actually I think by a good margin. better low light, crisper, etc. The other advantage with the remote on the gopro is that either on the dedicated remote or the app, you can actually SEE that the camera is recording - even if you don't use the viewfinder function - the remote LCD has all the same info as the camera. You can also change settings remotely.

All that said, the battery life is NOT good if you use the wifi remote. Especially with the 3 I would think as they both run off the camera battery. If you can get a Hero 2, they have a separate backpak battery.

With that in mind, If you want to get into video - the Drift is hard to beat. The large battery life if really good, it has a remote that sort of works (you have to really test what works on the ground first so you don't get home after flying and learn that you didn't start or stop the recording and missed some epic flying - done that). Its cheap. It has some good mounting functions. Can wire audio. And the video quality is decent. You can also turn the lens to show vertical in any position.

I have found that the Drift has a "haziness" in the image though. I have seen it on others. I clean the lens, but doesn't seem to help. I should try to replace the outer lens to see if that helps. Others have this experience?

Go to "emflys" on Vimeo. Look at some of the recent Idaho backcountry clips, then look at some of my edited videos (all shot with the Drift on the wing, and the Contour in the cockpit - the ones outside are with my DSLR and not in the same class). You will see the difference in video quality of the Hero. But, the Drift is still pretty good, and hard to beat for value and features.

I have no experience with the Hero 3 but I'll share my experience with the Hero2 and the wifi remote. I researched POV cameras for quite a while before I bought my Hero2. I really liked the Drift but the majority of the time I will be using the camera on my kayak so I wanted a tough proven waterproof camera/case. I found very little info about the waterproof case for the drift and I would have had to buy the case extra which made it more expensive than buying a GoPro. The one thing that the Drift had was the remote; I really wanted a remote for use with the plane. In the end I decided that I would rather have the proven robustness of the waterproof case that came with the Gopro.

For Christmas this year my wife bought me the wifi remote and Backpak for the Gopro and it is awesome. I haven't used it on the plane yet but I've used it while snowmobiling. The remote is waterproof which I really like and I can control the camera with my phone. The way I have been using it is leaving the camera off but the wifi backpak on. This allows the remote to remain connected with the camera so I can turn the camera on/off, change settings or modes. Battery has lasted a full day of riding ~7hours in the cold. When the wifi battery goes dead it pulls from the camera battery, when the camera battery gets down to one bar the wifi shuts off leaving you with enough battery to use the camera like you would if you didn't have a remote.

emflys wrote:I have used the Contour HD, Drift HD and GoPro Hero 2 (not the black) with the wifi backpack extensively. I will tell you that in my experience, the video quality if the drifty camera is hands down the best. Actually I think by a good margin. better low light, crisper, etc.

Interesting. In all the reading I've done you are the first I've seen that says the GoPro isn't the best video quality with Drift HD close behind. I do think low light pictures with the gopro really suck.

This clip is shot with the Go Pro 3 Black edition. The cam is set for 1440/48 and I think I have the best quality settings for output from imovie8.

Any other tips on uploading and output would be appreciated. I have used moviemaker and imovie. The extra step of converting before using windows moviemaker is a pain so I plan too stick with working with imovie and maybe update to final cut.


As said before knowing the cam is recording from the remote or phone is handy and you can power off and on at will to save battery life.




WTF I guess I cant share unless I pay vimeo, crap , sh**

Here is the link



https://vimeo.com/56822544

pilotjpw1 wrote: WTF I guess I cant share unless I pay vimeo, crap , sh**

If this video belongs to you, it's just a preference in the video Settings > Privacy tab. Some people like to restrict embedding of their videos to their own domain. You may have inadvertently selected the wrong value.

whee wrote:

emflys wrote:I have used the Contour HD, Drift HD and GoPro Hero 2 (not the black) with the wifi backpack extensively. I will tell you that in my experience, the video quality if the drifty camera is hands down the best. Actually I think by a good margin. better low light, crisper, etc.

Interesting. In all the reading I've done you are the first I've seen that says the GoPro isn't the best video quality with Drift HD close behind. I do think low light pictures with the gopro really suck.

Hey Whee - not sure how I typed that, I meant the GoPro is hands down the best. Not the drift.

I don't have one of these gadgets yet, but one thing I like about the GoPro on paper is the availability of the high resolution still imagery. Haven't played with one to know how those images look in real life though.

Zzz wrote:

pilotjpw1 wrote: WTF I guess I cant share unless I pay vimeo, crap , sh**

If this video belongs to you, it's just a preference in the video Settings > Privacy tab. Some people like to restrict embedding of their videos to their own domain. You may have inadvertently selected the wrong value.

I tried changing the setting and it still says this is a vimeo plus feature?

Can you embed a HD video with the free vimeo?