Video and Photo Gear - What are yiou guys using?

[KSmith]

I have noticed in some of the threads, like wipeouts, that some of you have some pretty nice clarity in your pictures and/or videos. I do not as I have a cheapy Sanyo water resistant SD camcorder.

Anyway, I'd like to know what is being used in the community as I am thinking of an upgrade.

Thanks!

Captain Kraig

[KG's Supra24]

I picked up a Kodak Playsport towards the end of summer and LOVE it. Pretty reasonable price and the video is great (1080). Even takes good pictures (5mp) and is waterproof.

For in the boat, we have a Nikon DSLR.

[you da man]

I picked up a Kodak Playsport towards the end of summer and LOVE it. Pretty reasonable price and the video is great (1080). Even takes good pictures (5mp) and is waterproof.

For in the boat, we have a Nikon DSLR.

The playsport does not have an optical zoom but how is the digital?

[jester]

I have an HD GoPro camera. It is great because I can strap it to my wakeboard or helmet and some get on person shots. I will be getting a new in boat camera before summer starts and should have some good footage before the end of summer.

[KG's Supra24]

The playsport does not have an optical zoom but how is the digital?

To be honest with you I don't know a ton about this topic. I can zoom on the unit itself, which i guess isn't an optical zoom? I'm not positive on the distance of the zoom. I do know i have had someone sitting by the driver recording someone wakeboarding and you could see them no problem. I believe they even had to pan to get them on camera when out in the flats. I'll try to find some video this evening.

I'd consider the Playsport in between a GoPro and a larger handheld device. GoPro is more for 1st person. Playsport is more for a video camera that is super convenient and waterproof. Its about the size of a blackberry. The screen isnt super impressive but it looks good once on the computer/tv.

Although i cant do video right now, here is a pic with the Playsport ...



ehh, the link doesnt do it as much justice as actually pulling it from the sd card but you get the idea

[bzubke1]

I have the playsport and it shoots really good video but once you go to zoom in the quality is not as good. For wakesurfing it looks awesome, feels like you're there! But at wakeboarding distances it's just ok. This is a video my buddy shot of me last time out with the playsport. It's zoomed in a little bit but near the end he zooms in real close and you can see the quality change. He's filming siting in the observers seat. One of the big reasons I bought the playsport was the fact that it is waterproof.

[scoot_gt]

Was that at 1080, 30fps? or 720, 60fps? I've had better results for motion anything with 720, 60fps.

[Ian Brantford]

Digital zoom is the same as cropping after the fact -- there will be a drop in quality. All it does is narrow the field of view, using fewer pixels. Most people who have decent optical zoom simply disable digital zoom.

Digital stabilisation similarly narrows the field of view in order to get some extra space to move the recorded area around as the camera shakes. There is also a significant drop in quality.

Optical zoom and stabilisation do the job with dedicated hardware -- moving lenses. There is no sacrifice in quality.

I still use a Canon S2 from 2005. It is a 5MP still camera with good optics and which also takes very good video for a still camera. It has one rare feature: panning mode stabilisation. In this mode, the optical stabiliser only works vertically, so it won't fight you when you pan the camera as the rider goes back and forth. This mode is made for certain sports and especially for shooting from a moving vehicle.

Like many Canon cameras, the S2 also shoots video using M-JPEG, which does NOT use inter-frame compression to save space like most others do. You can edit at any point and grab fairly clear stills from any frame. They are only 640x480, but they are of higher quality than the smeared images that you get from action shots in video formats in most cameras or camcorders, even the better consumer or prosumer models.

I am still waiting for a camcorder to come to the market that shoots in HD and will let me get clear stills from action shots... and costs less than $2000. This probably means something that will shoot in DVC-PRO mode like the Panasonic HVX200A. That's currently $4000 ($7000 when it first hit the market), and it's a model that other manufacturers haven't tried to replicate because it cuts into their $50000+ pro market. So, I stay with my little S2 year after year.

Question: does any company make a good motion-tracking system for watersports? I mean a computerised one, presumeably mounting on the pylon. I do not like the results that I have seen from passive ones that mount on the tower and use the tow rope for direction.

[bzubke1]

That video was 720 at 60fps.
Ian, are you saying that image stabilization ruins the video quality?

[kaneboats]

I have the Canon SX110IS. It's a tweener camera that's better than a point and shoot and not nearly as expensive as a digital SLR one so I don't feel bad taking it in the boat. With 10x zoom it gets me good rider shots. It takes OK but not great video. Happy with it as a do everything price point model. You can find it for under 200 but I think they have a new model out now.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CDMQ8wIwAg#