Topic: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

Hello,

Just wondering what onboard cameras everyone uses and their thoughts on how well they work. 

Currently we're running a GoPro Hero Sessions 5 mounted on the cage facing forward and a Garmin Virb (the old hotdog one) mounted on the cage facing backward.  The mounts we use are the GoPro-branded cage mounts (these seem to work well enough). 

Settings:

GoPro Hero Sessions 5 - 1080p, 30 frames/sec, 128gb card (not big enough for an entire day, upgrading to 256gb for next time), color enhancements turned off via the phone app (I'd tell you exactly which ones but the camera doesn't like to connect to the app anymore)

Garmin Virb Hotdog - 720p, 30 frames/sec, 64gb card (plenty big for a whole day)

Review:

GoPro - the color quality is lousy and the built-in enhancements don't help much.  I use free software to saturate the colors to be more true to life (I turned off the color enhancements in the camera to leave "room" to saturate later).  The image stabilization is pretty snazzy and truly the only reason the camera gets to face forward.  The camera itself is tough.  It was used for a couple of years in rallycross and withstood the dust and gyrations.  Last year the mount gave way and it and the camera were literally run over a few times.  The mount was thrashed but the camera just needed new glass. 

Garmin - I love this camera.  The on "button" is an on "switch" so there is no confusion whether it is recording or not.  The GPS stuff is mostly gimmicky and stopped working some years ago but I've never minded.  The battery is old and only lasts a few minutes (a moot issue as both cameras are plugged in the entire time).  The color saturation is amazing compared to the GoPro.  Vibrant colors everywhere.  Hilariously, even after saturating the GoPro colors via software the Garmin still looks better/more true to life. 

Been seriously considering buying the newest Garmin camera but probably won't until one of our current cameras dies. 


Anyone use the cheapo action cameras now available?  Are they any good?

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

Not recommending it, but we use the type of security cameras you find in shady liquor stores. It’s very Lemony.

Pros: cheap (cost was like $80), there are 4 angles recorded to cut between (expandable to 8), the black box runs on 12v, no batteries, records to SSD, looks ridiculous in a good way.

Cons: poorly manufactured, terrible video quality, definitely definitely definitely not manufactured for vehicular applications, difficult to export files, wiring runs all over car,

Obviously, this is a terrible idea (like Lemons), but a fun “solution”.

Tri-Lamb Motorsports ‘87 528e

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

Have you played with the GP Hero 7 Black yet? The hypersmooth mode is pretty amazing. I put one one the UTV (next to a few dashcams and a cheapie 360 cam) and by far it gave the best quality video.
-g

Myopic Motorsport's #888 Ceci n'est pas une Citron Thunderbird ("This is not a lemon" but a 1995 tbird w/ 93 V8 swap + shopping cart rear wing + engine mounted frito maker)
2017 Sears Pointless Organizer’s Choice
Frito Making Tbird from 2018 Sears Pointless Engine Heat BBQ - http://goo.gl/csaet4

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

Hero 2 720p60Hz the newer cameras try to “help” too much.

I did used to post process, but the time vs the fact that it was going to be watched like once ever made me stop bothering. I think I run it with spot exposure out the window, but can’t remember and the camera isn’t handy right now to check.

Mistake By The Lake Racing (MBTL)
88 Thunderbird "THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!", Ex Astris, Rubigo / Semper Fracti
A&D: 2014 Sebrings at Sebring (NSF), 2014 NJMP2 Jurassic Park (SpeedyCop), 2012 Summit Point J30 (PiNuts)
2018 Route Sucky-Suck Rally Miata, 2019 World Tour Of Texas 64 Newport

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

I use the new GoSlow Action Camaras.   About $16 on ebay, order a few months in advance so the slow boat from china will get them in time.   They are powered by USB, so you can use a 12v usb adapter to power them in the car, and the battery won't die (after 10 minutes).  YMMV. WTFDIK

6 (edited by Lemon_Newton-Metre 2019-06-15 02:37 AM)

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

Or this opinion:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou … rqWILfQdJM

Or this short one:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou … 0AeZ864XIH

Or this one, which contains an ad [or you might consider the whole article an ad] about a product [I've tried the interesting demo, and didn't regret it at all]:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou … 7MieujmHGj

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

YI 4K+  Its like 150$ on amazon and its records amazing video at 720/60  it can live stream straight from the camera with wifi not need for additional boxes and its pretty easy to use.  very stable not shaky and cheap.  used standard go pro mounts etc



looks like the 4k+ is 200 now but they go on sale   also have new lite for 80$ ?? even better!

https://www.amazon.com/YI-Touchscreen-W … 6221803011

959 Toyota Tercel   6x Lemons loser

New England Area roll cages send me an email I'm in Central MA

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

NOPANTSDOUGIE wrote:

YI 4K+  Its like 150$ on amazon and its records amazing video at 720/60  it can live stream straight from the camera with wifi not need for additional boxes and its pretty easy to use.  very stable not shaky and cheap.  used standard go pro mounts etc



looks like the 4k+ is 200 now but they go on sale   also have new lite for 80$ ?? even better!

https://www.amazon.com/YI-Touchscreen-W … 6221803011

I have the Yi 4K (not + or lite), it does livestream or it will do 4k.  It has image stabilization.  Quality is very good.
https://www.amazon.com/YI-Action-Sports … amp;sr=8-3
It looks like it is out of stock, but it's around $100.  It does not come with a case.

The Lite does not have image stabilization. I have one of those too. For the $20 price difference I would get the 4K.

Team whatever_racecar #745 Volvo wagon

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

We use a GoPro Hero 4 (silver). If I knock the resolution down to 720, 30fps, I can get 11 hours on a 128GB card (which is the max it will recognize). So, I have a separate card for each day with plenty of margin. Didn't really shop around, I got one for Christmas so the decision was made for me. My original Hero 4 failed after a couple of years, I just replaced it with one from eBay, around $80.

The GoPro "combo" cable allows me to power the camera from the car as well as have en external microphone, which I place in a non-windy spot in the car. The mic is ziptied to a second 2-way radio that is in the car, which allows us to capture all the radio chatter to the gopro video - works great.

The problem with recording 14.5 hours of video (plus more if we do test day) is that I then have 14.5 hours of video to review and edit. I've started using ffmpeg, which is a freeware, command-line video editing software. Very powerful, but takes some time to learn the commands. I came up with an Excel sheet and some VBA code to semi-automate extracting segments and then concatenating them back together, works great.

I use the spot metering function so the camera is setting exposure based on the outside of the car. If its overcast, then both the outside and inside of the car are exposed correctly. If its very sunny, then the outside is exposed correctly, and the inside tends to be underexposed, but, that better than the opposite (when the outside is completely washed out/overexposed).

We Audi Be Faster
'85 Audi Coupe G(in &) T(onic)

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

We run 2 of these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M592J9C/ref=emc_b_5_t
Aukey DR01.  Cheap, they can eat 128GB cards, record a whole race (maybe two?) on one card, and they always come on when the car is on.  Reduces the fiddle factor, dead batteries, etc that the go pros had to ZERO. just use a 12V-5V DC/DC converter. 

Quality isn't the highest, but not having to think about turning on cameras and not dealing w/ GoPro's quality issues (Hero, Hero2, and one other camera) makes them worth it. Still makes for fun clips, and if you need to review an incident it's right there...

I admittedly haven't worked with some of the newer gopros or Yi's, but these have worked well...

F

11

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

I have a Virb "hot dog"as you call it, very simple camera with limited GPS. Helmut mount if for my Dual sport motorcycle rides  love the single slide switch that starts   the camera   like you said  no guessing   use that as a 2nd camera   also have  Virb XE  as the forward facing and the choice of track maps and other data make it a great choice that wont break the bank

Re: Preferred Onboard Cameras?

We dumped our GoPros and now only use Garmin Virb. Last longer and much better picture clarity.

#9 Audi CQ Scooby Doo Car known as the Mystery Machine, #44 Audi 4KQ painted as a tribute car to the 1989 IMSA  car driven by Haywood, Stuck, and Rohrl, and the #95 Audi TT Lightning McQueen.