Seeking action camera recommendations (under £80) Now with options.

[helloindustries]

I've been googling and googling and it's just a flood of SEO spam and vague information, so i'm coming here in the hope of getting some hands-on recommendations.
I'm not after a go-pro or anything so fancy, i just want a camera to back me up in case of accident etc. Not looking to start a youtube channel, and i can't even consider the big-brands as i'm just poor.

The present seasonal down-turn in weather and what seems to be an increase in inattentive drivers is starting to make me worry, so i figure this may at least help in the event of an incident.

Ok, so let's move on to needs
 

• 480p @30FPS minimum (720p would be nice)
• Swappable memory card
• Passable low-light recording
• Rain proof
• Record on power (from bike, so it'd be wired in and rain-proof or at least a 1.5/2hr battery life)
• Reliable mount for use on handlebars
• Overwrites old files if mem card is full (so record in X minute chunks, i guess)
• Easy enough to remove the unit from the mount when i park the bike, but secure enough to not fall off while braving our obviously well-kept roads.

Refurbs/2nd hand acceptable, would rather not have no-name import junk if i can avoid it or unless someone has one and can vouch for the quality/suitability.
One current consideration is the Hitachi HDSV01U


So far, it looks like my options are thus:

Cheap option: Generic action cam. About £40 all in.
Passable with an average battery life.

Economy option: SJ4000. About £65 all in.
Seems the best trade-off with features and cost. Added advantage of better battery life, and GoPro accessory compatibility.

Upper option: Mobius. About £85 all in.
A good option if i want to really mess around with things and there are plenty of DIY bits for it.

Getting expensive: GoPro Hero. About £115>£130 all in.
Best battery life and quality.

--
My other option is a used Drift HD, but i haven't included this in the above list as it'd be an item i'd have to bid on, isn't new, and so forth.
 

[slappy]

I have a chili tech action cam, they are about £40-£50 pounds.Takes a 32 gigabyte sd card and when fully charged lasts between 1.5 to 2 hours.I did have it running from a usb charger fitted to the bike but the wire kept vibrating out. I am thinking of sealing it in with some silicon or just wrapping some tape round it.
Easy to fit to bike or helmet and is nice and compact but a bit cheap and cheerful, but saying that I have been using it for two years and it still works ok. Low light levels are a bit hit and miss, sometimes the picture is quite good other times crap and I have no idea what causes the difference.

[dcurzon]

Why not the new GoPro at £99 ?  Known brand, warranty, plethora of mount options

[Fazerider]

I bought a very cheap camera a couple of weeks back and have been pretty pleased with it.
The image quality is passable, provided you've got it solidly mounted, even at night in street lit areas it's ok. Dark country roads defeat it, though to be fair, you're not likely to find anything affordable that copes well in the dark.
It came with a good assortment of mounts for attaching to bars, helmet or dashboard and has a simple quick release for removal.
It records AVI files of 3 minutes each and they're typically 240 MB in size though this can drop to as little as 90 MB at night when it's not seeing much detail. So you'll get about 7 hours of footage on the largest micro SD it can cope with (32GB).
It stops recording when the card is full rather than overwriting oldest files and battery life is only good for about 90 minutes recording. External power isn't really an option on the bike as the connector is under the waterproof screw-on cover at the back. My commute to work is about 50 minutes so I've taken to charging it at work as well as at home, but that's easy enough as any USB power source will do.
It's possible to operate it blind as it vibrates to acknowledge button presses.
Audio is useless, nothing much aside from wind noise once you're doing more than 5mph though it'd probably be adequate in a car. There's no provision for an external mic.


Here's a still from the AVI during daytime.








And one at night in West London. It looked blacker than this during playback, but I've tweaked the gamma a little to show there is some useable detail hidden in the gloom.





Not exactly broadcast quality, but it should be good enough for insurance claim purposes, and at £40 including the SD card it's well within budget.

[helloindustries]

Thanks all. Based on feedback, here are my current possible choices considering my (lack of) budget.

[NorthWestern]

Check out the Mobius, I have one and its excellent...


http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2013/7/8/the-mobius-camera-the-do-it-all-mount-anywhere-1080p-micro-c.html


It also has a bit of a scene community and you can get lens ribbon extenders etc so you can maximise how you mount it with the body tucked away and the lens on a remote lead to poke through fairings etc


It also has cheap replacement parts and a capacitor to replace the battery if your using it a lot with power running to it

[helloindustries]

Check out the Mobius, I have one and its excellent...


http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2013/7/8/the-mobius-camera-the-do-it-all-mount-anywhere-1080p-micro-c.html


It also has a bit of a scene community and you can get lens ribbon extenders etc so you can maximise how you mount it with the body tucked away and the lens on a remote lead to poke through fairings etc


It also has cheap replacement parts and a capacitor to replace the battery if your using it a lot with power running to it

Thanks! That's now my first choice.

[helloindustries]

Again on the Mobius: Is it rain-proof enough or will i need the waterproof case? If yes: Does the case accept the charging cable?

[fazersharp]

I thought that aldi did one that was supposed to be good and cheep

[NorthWestern]

They are not waterproof as standard but you can get a case from joojuu.  I was going to waterproof the case myself using something... probably some sort of bathroom sealant but in the end I just bought the case.  It doesn't have an opening for a power lead as standard but again a drill and some sealant or a grommet will sort that out.  I think when I got mine there was talk of a new case that allowed the use of a power lead but I don't know if its out now or not.  Some people on the forums made cases out of tic tac boxes or similar.


One thing I will mention is that the case needed a bit of tweaking to get the seals seated correctly, I tried it empty in a sink of water a couple of times to get the seals in place.  I have not had it leak when in use so seems good (and used it underwater not just on the bike in the rain).



I get a days commute out of my battery (and probably more - I have not done a duration test) which is about 90-110 mins.

[ukdiceman]

Again on the Mobius: Is it rain-proof enough or will i need the waterproof case? If yes: Does the case accept the charging cable?

 
It doesn't appear to be waterproof as Techmoan says, but a case is available:
 
http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2014/3/31/the-mobius-camera-finally-gets-a-waterproof-case.html
 
I've been looking at the Sj4000, a Go Pro copy by all accounts!
 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SC01-SJCAM-Helmet-SJ4000-1080p-Full-HD-Action-Sports-Camcorder-Camera-Video-Cam-/191223702403?pt=UK_AudioTVElectronics_Video_Camcorders&hash=item2c85d22383#ht_4395wt_1128

[Punkstig]

You're not after a gopro but the new budget model is £99,  comparing that price to the likes of the Chinese ones or action cams from the likes of aldi, for a bit more money you are getting a guaranteed quality product that has a proven track record.
It's a no brainer, they have been very clever with their pricing structure, and let's face it- the video quality it produces is better than their cameras that were £300 3 years ago, but that's advances in technology for you!

[helloindustries]

You're not after a gopro but the new budget model is £99,  comparing that price to the likes of the Chinese ones or action cams from the likes of aldi, for a bit more money you are getting a guaranteed quality product that has a proven track record.
It's a no brainer, they have been very clever with their pricing structure, and let's face it- the video quality it produces is better than their cameras that were £300 3 years ago, but that's advances in technology for you!

After digging through an arse-load of marketing crap, i finally found some specs for it. It seems pretty damn good for the money. Battery life is excellent in comparison to other similar devices which pretty much removes the need for me to run it off the bike battery, comes with a proper helmet mount, too.

Only problem is that i don't have £100, plus £15 for a memory card. Hence the £80 or less budget. But it's a possibility.

[Punkstig]

I wasn't thinking about the extra cost of memory card!
No matter what cam you get the mem card is extremely important, I got a 32gb 50mbps one from currys for £15 or £20, the 50mbps speed is the important thing, anything less and you'll have errors recording at 1080 or a lower res with higher frames per second!

[apage16]

I have a Drift HD, which is just out of the budget, BUT i picked up two refurb Drift HD170 Stealth cameras from Actioncameras.co.uk. They were £50 each and when one of them packed up, they quickly sent a replacement.


It has: 1080p at 120 degree field of view (30fps)
            720p at 170 degree FOV (30fps)
and       720p    --   "  --            (60 fps)


The lens is rotatable, the batteries and mounts are interchangeable with my Drift HD (Which gives you a viable upgrade path without buying all new accessories). You can get a Mic adapter from ebay for about a fiver that will allow you to connect any 3.5mm jacked Microphone.


Also the extended life batteries are easy to come by and cheap (£15) because Drift use rebranded Fuji batteries so every man and his dog makes a copy.


I used the Stealths on my latest trip to Europe. ALL of the rear views and supplementary views are the Stealth cameras.


http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQyyGnBe8Lfc7ETWETUhfa-zWIRbzWM54


They have better colour saturation than the first camera I got which was basically a Polaroid XS100 in a different coloured shirt! Here's a video with that one:





As a starter though, it's not bad. But I really wanted the ability to have an external mic to capture my inane wafflings.

[helloindustries]

I wasn't thinking about the extra cost of memory card!
No matter what cam you get the mem card is extremely important, I got a 32gb 50mbps one from currys for £15 or £20, the 50mbps speed is the important thing, anything less and you'll have errors recording at 1080 or a lower res with higher frames per second!

True. I wasn't going to skimp needlessly on the card. I do try to buy the fastest they can handle to avoid write-errors.
Currently looking at something along the lines of maybe a Samsung class 10 32GB card.

[helloindustries]

I have a Drift HD, which is just out of the budget, BUT i picked up two refurb Drift HD170 Stealth cameras from Actioncameras.co.uk. They were £50 each and when one of them packed up, they quickly sent a replacement.


It has: 1080p at 120 degree field of view (30fps)
            720p at 170 degree FOV (30fps)
and       720p    --   "  --            (60 fps)


The lens is rotatable, the batteries and mounts are interchangeable with my Drift HD (Which gives you a viable upgrade path without buying all new accessories). You can get a Mic adapter from ebay for about a fiver that will allow you to connect any 3.5mm jacked Microphone.


Also the extended life batteries are easy to come by and cheap (£15) because Drift use rebranded Fuji batteries so every man and his dog makes a copy.


I used the Stealths on my latest trip to Europe. ALL of the rear views and supplementary views are the Stealth cameras.


http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQyyGnBe8Lfc7ETWETUhfa-zWIRbzWM54


They have better colour saturation than the first camera I got which was basically a Polaroid XS100 in a different coloured shirt! Here's a video with that one:





As a starter though, it's not bad. But I really wanted the ability to have an external mic to capture my inane wafflings.

I'll certainly keep an eye out for one on buy it now, but never been a fan of bidding. Still don't fully trust ebay.
I think i'll be fine without a camera. All you'd hear is me swearing, and i'm not sure that me calling someone a "cock-faced shit-bastard" will really help my case should i actually end up in an accident.

[helloindustries]

That SJ4000 does seem to be in the lead at the moment, maybe the £99 GoPro Hero if i can manage to afford it (not very likely).

[fireblake]

Punkstig has an awesome video somewhere on here where his camera enabled him to prove who was at fault in his accident. Plus we get to hear what he thought of the other driver.


Mickey

[Punkstig]

Yeah,  I wouldn't worry about your language -
http://www.lampkins.co.uk/news/injured-biker-defeats-dubious-defence-with-gopro-video-camera/

[Punkstig]

Not all 'class 10's' are the same
Just don't get one off ebay as it's more than likely a fake with no where near the advertised capacity or write speed

[helloindustries]

Not all 'class 10's' are the same
Just don't get one off ebay as it's more than likely a fake with no where near the advertised capacity or write speed

Just another reason i don't like ebay all that much.
Would prefer to use Amazon or even a real shop, if i must... Eww.

[helloindustries]

Yeah,  I wouldn't worry about your language -
http://www.lampkins.co.uk/news/injured-biker-defeats-dubious-defence-with-gopro-video-camera/

Ahh that one, yes. I've seen that.

[Buzz]

You can easily fit an external mic to the SJ4000 as well, looks like a bargain....might even get one for my 20 miles a day commute.


http://www.instructables.com/id/SJ4000-External-Microphone-HACK/step10/null/

[helloindustries]

You can easily fit an external mic to the SJ4000 as well, looks like a bargain....might even get one for my 20 miles a day commute.


http://www.instructables.com/id/SJ4000-External-Microphone-HACK/step10/null/

Indeed. And by the same token; I could get a hole cut in the case to allow a USB connector in there for power.