Which action cam?

[PTK]

Contemplating to get an action cam to use with the Mooney and need some advice and opinions on which one to buy. Pros and cons, best image quality, useful features for our use, best battery life, best bang for the buck, etc etc. 

[KSMooniac]

I have a VIRB XE and like it, but no other experience for comparison. Battery life is relatively short, but I think all in the gopro form factor are. It connects to the Garmin Pilot app, so if you're already a user that is convenient for controlling it.

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[N6758N]

Garmin or nothing, right Peter? 

I own a GoPro but I seriously would consider a VIRB if I was buying these days. The fact that it can be controlled with the watch is awesome!

[peevee]

The Chinese knockoff yi cams are pretty good for the money. I have several.

[midlifeflyer]

36 minutes ago, peevee said:

The Chinese knockoff yi cams are pretty good for the money. I have several.

They are. I Have an SJCam (1st Gen; some issues), a Dazzne and an Apeman (which is actually a knockoff of the SJCam - go figure). The video I posted of the Alaska flight was the Apeman. An advantage of it is (or maybe it's just mine) they include their 4K camera battery with the 1090 camera. The result is a very long battery life. On my most recent flight, the flight time was 2.4 hours and I still had juice left. That's a big advantage when mounting the camera outside where you can't connect an external battery.

[Yetti]

I like the Sony action cam with the controller watch. Because the only good parts are Takeoff and landing.  The rest is boring and should be edited out.  The Sony has the GPS built in and better function/form factor/price than the GoPro.  The Tractor destroyed the GoPro

[midlifeflyer]

30 minutes ago, Yetti said:

I like the Sony action cam with the controller watch. Because the only good parts are Takeoff and landing.  The rest is boring and should be edited out.  The Sony has the GPS built in and better function/form factor/price than the GoPro.  The Tractor destroyed the GoPro

You need to fly better places

Actually, it's not so much that the enroute portions are boring; it's that they need to be edited so that it remains interesting. As I'm finding while editing a my video of a mountain flight north of Vancouver, that's a lot of hard, time- and brain-intensive work.

[Yetti]

I've edited a fair amount of videos in my life.   to keep them interesting 3 seconds per shot for youth.  5 seconds per shot for adults is a good rule.   An hour per minute of finished film is about par for the course.

[Oscar Avalle]

I have used contours, GoPro and Garmin's. I really like the contours. They are small, have good video quality and you can mount them on the tail. However, their battery life is relatively short (1.5 to 2 hours). I did not like the Go Pros. The ones I used had the old menu structure. I really thought they were cumbersome to say the least. Also their battery life was very short.

Garmin, I used the first VIRBs (black and the the white one) and the latest generation (the one that looks like a GoPro but in red).

I really like the White VIRBs the best. They video quality is great, battery life is adequate (2 to 2.5 hours).

Editing is key! I use Final Cut Pro. I agree with the 3 and 5 seconds rule...

Oscar

Oscar




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[gsxrpilot]

I've been using the GoPro Hero4 Session. It has the smallest profile of any of the name-brand action cam's. As a cube, it can be mounted in any orientation and the picture is always right side up. The low-profile mount allows it to be mounted on the vertical stab, horizontal stab, wing, or just about anywhere. It sits very close to the mount, which eliminates vibration. The sticky mount makes it easy to mount anywhere you like and yet is temporary and therefore doesn't run afoul of the authorities. 

As with other cams, it can be controlled from your iPhone/iPad/Android, etc. But I find the best battery life is achieved when it's just turned on and allowed to run. I get two hours of recording time easily and often more. 

 

[Bryan]

I have been considering the GoPro Session 5 and the Garmin Virb 360.  I think it would be cool to pan around the video when mounted outside the aircraft in video in the Virb 360.  I am just not sure if it is worth the extra $520 compared to the GoPro Session 5.

@gsxrpilot, PM me any public video you have of your regular session.  I was all but sold on the Session 5 (and greater) that has in-built image stabilization.

Edited August 5, 2017 by Bryan

[PTK]

Thank you all for your helpful input. I have narrowed my choices to a few including Gopro and Virb. I'm leaning towards the Virb. I like the g-metrix data it collects and the very user friendly and versatile editing software it comes with. I also like the video quality. It lacks image stabilization in 4k but I don't know how important that is. 

 

[gsxrpilot]

On 8/5/2017 at 10:20 AM, Bryan said:

I have been considering the GoPro Session 5 and the Garmin Virb 360.  I think it would be cool to pan around the video when mounted outside the aircraft in video in the Virb 360.  I am just not sure if it is worth the extra $520 compared to the GoPro Session 5.

@gsxrpilot, PM me any public video you have of your regular session.  I was all but sold on the Session 5 (and greater) that has in-built image stabilization.

Did you see the video?

[gsxrpilot]

Here's a quick video I through together using GoPro's new Quick editor. It took me all of 10 minutes to go from raw footage to this. The video is shot on a pair of GoPro Hero 4 Session camera's mounted using the GoPro sticky mounts

 

[Bryan]

@gsxrpilot, yes, thank you.  I actually just won an eBay bid for a new Garmin Virb 360 for a little more than half a new one. It uses all the GoPro mounts and it's got a ton of sensors built in. I'll post a PIREP after I try it.

if it doesn't work well, I will go back to the Session 5.