Vince5

I also recomand the mini DV camera (I have a sony something 1year old or so). I have used it a few times with wide angle the speed impression is good and the download to your computer is so simple even I did it without issues.
I have no vibration problems despite the Swedish tracks being rather bumpy. The trick is to have a support with rubber joints (mine is Manfrotto I think) to fasten is to the roll cage for ex and then a rubber support as well when you fasten the camera itself.
Then I put the camera right at the back end of the car i.e. just above the engine with quite a lot of zoom to compensate (I still see part of the steering wheel but not the seats) that way I capture a lot of the engine music (my 964 3,3 turbo is rather quiet inside even driven hard)
Hope that helps

dmoffitt

actually, at least as far as shooting is concerned, trying to suspend / dampen the camera will just allow it room to flex / make the image more jumpy. having the camera solidly / firmly attached to the car/cage has been the best in my experience, YMMV.

Bob Rouleau

Here are a couple of basic suggestions:

1) Use Mini DV you will want to edit the tape before you convert to DVD anyway.

2) Choose a camera that allows you to plug in both a lipstick camera AND an accesory microphone. Mount the mic where you get engine noise and not wind noise.

3) If you use a regular camera on a mount, use a wide angle lens - most have an extra wide attachment that screws on the front of the regual lens. With this set up, favor a camera that permits a remote mic, else you will get way too much wind noise.

TD in DC

I checked out the bullet cameras at these sites, but I do not know enough to tell which one is the better option. Has anyone had experience with them, and if so, why is one superior to the other? Thanks.

TMH

Look for lines of resolution - The higher the better (regarding image quality). Check out your owners manual for your video camera, and see what its specs are for (horizontal) lines of resolution. When hooking up an external camera/lens combination, the farther its "lines" are from what your camera produces in its native configuration, the farther the picture quality will be from when you use the camera normally. Also don't bother getting a bullet camera which has more lines than your camera, because the extra quality it can output will not be seen.

Tom

ltc

Not a lipstick camera, but I've seen a few at the track:

http://www.racecam.com

Brian P

My only advice is to make sure you use the cheapest camera that has the features you want. I'd put these as a minimum set of features.

1) Mini-DV
2) Either threaded lens (for wide-angle) or a connection for a lipstick camera

You don't really need much more for a track cam. The reason I advise for extremely cheap is that my mini-DV camera has taken a HUGE beating from being out on the track. The zoom barely works and the camera loses the picture on all left turns. I'd be surprised if it's still functional at the end of next season. I'd estimate that I have about 60 track days of use on it.

dmoffitt

I was curious so I played with a number of DV cameras this weekend - you can get quite as nice little miniDV camcorder in the $350-500 range these days, I was impressed. Couple, say, a $500 sony with a roll-bar mount, and you're all set (unless you want an external camera, in which case I still recommend the HelmetCamera.com stuff, esp. as they include a halfway decent external mic and all of the necessary wiring, adaptors, etc.

911

Where do you guys get the wide angle lens for a MiniDV? I have a Sony MDV. Thanks.

Larry Herman

I got mine from Sony. It is a .6 wide angle lens (VCL-0625S) and it works great. Costs only about $50 too.

911

Thanks, Larry!

Stewz-993

One thing I don't think anyone mentioned is shutter speed. It is important for focus and light compensation. One of the big problems with bullet cameras is the ability to adjust to dramatic light changes. say turning into the sun. I use and recommend Panasonic Mini-DV as they have the fastest shutters.

I will also echo another post about using external mic with wind reduction or mounted low and add you will want Firewire or USB 2.0 (1.1 too slow) to transfer to your editing computer.

Hard mount it with padding at the base of the pod screw to securly tighten without damagining the camera.

Dave Parker

I'll echo the comments on using a mini-dv camera. I use a Sony Handycam (don't remember the actual model number) with a wide angle lens. It is easy to capture from the tape to your computer and then create your own DVD or post clips (see my site ... http://members.rennlist.com/pdparker ) Most of these use the wide angle lens but a couple of the ones at the bottom do not.

Also, I got a 12 volt adapter and plug it into my car .... that way I never have to worry about the camera battery. The only other suggestion .... get one with a remote so you don't have to try and reach the camera once you are all strapped in.

Larry Herman

Here's another question. The video that I took at the Glen was awesome, and so was the file size. When I streamed it to my computer, 10 minutes of video created a 4 gig avi file...that's right 4 gigs! WTF? How do I cut this down? I have to assume that it is not efficiently storing or compressing the file, or is my resolution too high? Should I stream it to my computer with less quality, hence less resolution?

APKhaos

Larry,
Most video capture apps preserve the ful DV format recorded by the camera. DV format faithfully reproduces what the camera records, with no compression at all. As you've discovered, this results in massive file sizes. DV format is what you want to use if you are burning the movie to a DVD. In fact, its a good idea to edit the 'dead' footage from the beginning and end of the video then burn it to DVD to retain a full quality master record.

You can use any of the video processing apps - Windows Moview Maker, Sony Vegas, and more - to compress the file to a more manageable size. What consitutes a manageable size is a matter of choice. Windows Movie Maker gives you quite a few format choices. At the high end, the 720x480 1.5mbps format retains the full frame size of the DV, and delivers very good resolution at a file size around 10Mb per minute. I use this size for all the TrackVision stuff I post. There are a raft of smaller formats that progressively lose resolution but produce smaller file sizes. Its a trade off between resolution and file size.