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Which Action Camera Should I Get

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Which Action Camera Should I Get

Old 07-08-16, 11:07 AM
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Which Action Camera Should I Get

GoPro, Contour, CM-1000 are my current choices after some research. Thing is I may want more than 2 hours of battery. Which ones are possible to buy extended battery for? I know GoPro has this. Contour has a slightly longer life to begin with though. Also important is ease of uploading and editing files, and inexpensive (sale, old model GoPro, ebay, used, etc.)

Who has an opinion?
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Old 07-08-16, 11:16 AM
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My GoPro ("Hero" model, not "Hero3/4" etc) lasts about 2.5 hours when fully charged; long enough for me, since I can record two crits before having to recharge it.

One note about my Hero; you can't remove it from its waterproof case (unlike other GoPro models), so it fails to capture any real sound besides the rumble of the bike.
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Old 07-08-16, 11:23 AM
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I have a GoPro Hero 4 Session. It does about 2 hours of recording. I like it because it is so small. Just a little cube.

It also is waterproof on its own, so it does not need a case.
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Old 07-08-16, 11:30 AM
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I have the older Virb Elite.. does about 2.25 of recording.. I like the software the most but that can be used by anyone with just about anything so that's good.
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Old 07-08-16, 06:06 PM
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I know it's not on your list, but FWIW, I use a Mobius ActionCam with larger battery (820mah). Get about 2-1/2 hours out of it. Very small (1-3/8″ x 2-1/2″ x 3/4″), lightweight (1.4ozs), shoots up to 1080p30fps. Very customizable (through software interface). I'm in the process of getting one to use for a dashcam. Best feature? It only costs about $75-80 (add maybe $15 more for bigger battery).

Used to use a Contour but it fell off its mount one ride and died. Contour did not stand behind their products, so I moved on.
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Old 07-08-16, 07:57 PM
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I had a contour that I mounted on my helmet, but I switched to a virb on my handlebars. I like the quality of the virb better

I still have the Contour actually..would let it go for cheap if you wanted it. Not sure how long the battery lasts (my races arent that long...) but I think ive recorded up to 2 hours before
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Old 07-08-16, 10:17 PM
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Originally Posted by aaronmcd
GoPro, Contour, CM-1000 are my current choices after some research. Thing is I may want more than 2 hours of battery. Which ones are possible to buy extended battery for? I know GoPro has this. Contour has a slightly longer life to begin with though. Also important is ease of uploading and editing files, and inexpensive (sale, old model GoPro, ebay, used, etc.)

Who has an opinion?
what is most important to you?

lowest profile is probably the cm-1000, with the hero4 session close behind.

best picture quality? hero4 black/silver (not the session).

sound? they're all pretty poor unless you have an external mic.

battery life is probably the hero4 (not session). really, though--do you want to record every minute of a 2.5h road race/ you also need to think if your recording time @ the chosen resolution will exceed the capacity of your memory card. easy enough to look up battery specs for each of these.

controls? cm-1000 has some integration with di2, which is pretty neat. it can also record speed, cadence, power, HR and gearing.

availability of mounts? gopro and cm-1000 can use the same mounts.

cheap? cm-1000 is pretty cheap right now. i have a new one sitting on my desk if you want it. IQ is not as good as the latest gopros, though.

contour used to be great and had better IQ than gopro when they came out, 10+ years ago, but then they went bankrupt and had that whole debacle. i'd research that a bit before proceeding, though it may no longer be relevant.
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Old 07-08-16, 11:01 PM
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Thanks for the responses so far! Honestly having never used one I'm not sure what is most important or how likely I'd be to edit the race. I would like to record road races but then again they might not be as interesting to watch, and crits are far more common. So recording 2 crits would be the baseline I'd say. The cm 1000 looked cool due to looks and recording data. Does it have GPS? Contour has GPS which might be cool. And GoPro I know that if I decide I REALLY want to record a road race I can get an extra battery pack. Not too concerned with image quality cuz I don't intend on making professional quality productions, and I'm sure they all have decent quality picture right?
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Old 07-08-16, 11:56 PM
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Originally Posted by aaronmcd
Thanks for the responses so far! Honestly having never used one I'm not sure what is most important or how likely I'd be to edit the race. I would like to record road races but then again they might not be as interesting to watch, and crits are far more common. So recording 2 crits would be the baseline I'd say. The cm 1000 looked cool due to looks and recording data. Does it have GPS? Contour has GPS which might be cool. And GoPro I know that if I decide I REALLY want to record a road race I can get an extra battery pack. Not too concerned with image quality cuz I don't intend on making professional quality productions, and I'm sure they all have decent quality picture right?
in my earlier post i hoped to raise a few points to help you consider what is important; you're obviously taking a best guess at this point.

no GPS in the cm-1000, but if you are using a head unit with GPS, it's easy enough to pair it to the footage. i'm pretty sure the garmin VIRB editing software can be used with any .MOV footage and .FIT file.

all the cm-1000 does is record a separate .CSV file with the various metrics. you have to manually pair your stuff with the unit, which is a little annoying. i *think* it won't pick up cadence unless you have a separate cadence sensor (i.e. won't take it from the power meter); also annoying if you care about such things. it CAN pick up gearing if you have di2 and the d-fly unit.

my take is that you SHOULD care about image quality. these videos are generally lame (sorry....most are)--people post them without editing. sound is awful. IQ sucks. they're too long. it takes a BUNCH of work to get them to be watchable. a good image helps a bunch, but the key is ruthless editing.

also, multiple angles (like a camera pointed backwards, someone else's camera in the race, one pointed at your face....and better yet, an off-bike camera such as one on a tripod in a corner in a crit) go a LONG long way to making a video great. it's also a bunch to buy/organize/edit.

just some stuff to think about. if all you care is uploading a $hitty, low-rez, unedited video to youtube, then just go cheap. if you want something that people might be stoked to watch, then go a step up with good IQ and ruthless editing.

no need to go for all the angles and stuff unless you *really* wanted to make something great, that people would share.
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Old 07-09-16, 07:52 AM
  #10  
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I use an older Contour (when it was the ContourHD). No GPS, not waterproof, but it does have a replaceable battery. I can go pretty far in one recording, I think 4 hours.

I bought a Contour+, GPS, some other features, but it seems the battery doesn't last nearly as long. Plus it has a 170 degree lens, versus 130-ish degree for the ContourHD, and I like the 130-ish degree angle one better. So I really haven't used the Contour+.

I bought a Yi cam (gopro form factor type copy) for karting, although I haven't used it yet. I want to use it as a rear view camera on the bike as well, although I haven't done that yet either.

I keep forgetting about the Mobius. Looks appealing to me.
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Old 07-11-16, 12:19 PM
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I have a Virb XE. I'm disappointed by it when it works. It has about a 2 hour battery life. Much less if you turn on Bluetooth or anything else.


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Old 07-11-16, 01:09 PM
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Following up on Teton's comments, and I saw the Shimano camera is now $189, so $10 cheaper than Go Pro Session.

For what it's worth, I never watch any of the videos I recorded and gave the camera to my wife. I encourage her to ride with it running as much as possible, mostly to capture drivers doing dangerous stuff toward her. It's truly amazing how much more harassment she endures than I do.
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Old 07-12-16, 08:26 AM
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fyi the hero session is on sale as part of "amazon prime day"
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Old 07-12-16, 08:37 AM
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Shimano CM-1000 Sports Camera - HD 1080P | ProBikeKit.com
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Old 07-12-16, 12:07 PM
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Damn! I think I should just stop thinking and snap that up. I could buy 3 or 4 for the price of a go pro and have a ton of battery life!
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Old 07-12-16, 12:38 PM
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just get a ricoh theta and take ****** selfies at key moments

https://theta360.com/en/
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Old 07-12-16, 11:24 PM
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anyone know how does the video quality of the shimano cm1000 compare to the gopros?

stability on bumpy road?
night time recording?
sound quality?
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Old 07-13-16, 03:55 AM
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I'm trying an Ion Speed Pro. Price was appealing now at $70 through Amazon.

Feels rugged -- solid feeling aluminum tube. Supposedly weatherproof as-is. Decent accessories and versatile mounting kit, although it lacks a helmet mount. The cylindrical shape could easily be farm rigged to fit most road helmet vent cutouts.

Only two rides so far, one late daytime, one night.

Good basic bike camera for daytime. 1080/30fps and 720/60 fps both look good, capture license plate detail.

Good auto exposure, leans toward slight over exposure so road and trail are well exposed but sky is blown. Adapts quickly to changes in light and shadow on shady trails, underpasses, etc.

Decent flare resistance considering 180 degree FOV. Reasonably low veiling flare, some ghosting flare with piston artifacts.

Almost useless at night. Blacked out shadows, whited out license plates, heavy mesh screen noise artifacts. Very old school sensor performance. If I was in an accident it would only help identify the basic vehicle type.

My Ricoh P&S digicams record better night video with good dynamic range, but only at low rez. My Nikon V1 would make a good nighttime bike camera but I don't want to shake the lens to pieces. I wish Ricoh and Nikon would enter the action/cycling camera game.

Battery runs right at two hours. There an odd break every 40 minutes, but fairly seamless transition to the next file. Supposedly Ion Speed Pro can run extended off an outboard USB battery. Haven't tried that yet.

Lessee, other stuff...
"stability on bumpy road?"
Seems okay, typical for the genre. Good on smooth roads, okay on chipseal and gravel.

"night time recording?"
Meh. Get a Go Pro if this is a priority. Or a dash cam and rig up a weatherproof housing.

"sound quality?"
Okay when I'm not moving. Totally wiped out by wind noise in motion. But there's an external mic jack and another reviewer says the sound is good with the right mic. Can't figure out where the built in mic port is, or I'd try a wind screen.

My Nikon V1 records very good audio in motion, and I've farm rigged wind screens over the built in stereo mics.

I'm disappointed in the Ion's nighttime performance, and at the original MSRP of $300 I'd have returned it pronto. But at $70 I'll probably keep it.

I'll upload samples to YouTube this week. Trying to edit down to a reasonable length.

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Old 07-13-16, 09:25 AM
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the mount has a lot to do with the quality of the video on bumpy road. usually good to have a sturdy aluminum mount without any hinges other than the one that attaches the camera/case.
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Old 07-13-16, 11:43 AM
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I went with the Shimano at that excellent price. It uses GoPro mounts as well.
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Old 07-14-16, 12:16 AM
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Originally Posted by spectastic
anyone know how does the video quality of the shimano cm1000 compare to the gopros?

stability on bumpy road?
night time recording?
sound quality?
not as good as the hero4 silver. comparable to the session.

low-light and changing light is not a strong-suit of any of these cameras.

mount quality is important.
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Old 07-14-16, 12:17 AM
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Originally Posted by aaronmcd
I went with the Shimano at that excellent price. It uses GoPro mounts as well.
that price is great.

real advantage of the shimano camera is if you have di2--ability to control recording from the shifters, as well as recording the ANT+ and ANT(private) data along with the video file.

otherwise, i think the session is a better bet. just my opinion from owning both.
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Old 07-14-16, 10:46 PM
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i don't like how the cm-1000 doesn't allow 720p 60 fps, only 120 fps. i don't want to work with 3-4 different files in editing
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Old 07-15-16, 06:27 AM
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We have a Garmin Virb XE it's a total piece of crap.


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Old 07-15-16, 09:26 AM
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mine is waterproof without an additional housing & I like that. feature might be useful to others as well
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