Veloce Raptor

Not interested in a whole discussion about which camera is better. Has anyone here used the Flip or Flip HD in their car on rtack? If so, have you been happy with the results?

Thanks!





Professional Racing and Driving Coach

Gary R.

No, but the Aiptek HD is better... sorry Dave, had to.

Bryan Watts

We've run an Aiptek for two races now, but my mom just bought a flip HD to take video of her little grandson. As with most cameras my mom buys, it will likely end up in our car at some point. Perhaps I should "borrow" it for Oktoberfest so we can get a front/rear shot.

In using her camera, I can say that it has the same limitation as the Aipteks...it needs a wide angle lens. Since it doesn't have the ability to add a screw on lens, you'll need to use the magnetic kind. In the case of the Aiptek, you also need to further secure the lens with electrical tape since the magnet won't hold up in the car. Considering the shape of the front of a Flip HD, you won't be able to use tape, so you'll be "stuck" (pun intended) with having to glue/epoxy the wide angle lens to the camera. That's the only downside I can see from just looking at it. Then again, IIRC, the surround around the lens isn't flat, so it may be really hard to mount a wide angle lens no matter how you attach it.

APKhaos

Brian makes a good point about the wide angle challenge. The other issue is that the Flip does not have a removable storage card. Its internal storage with USB required to download the stored video files.
Three problems with that:
- You can't pull the card and play the video directly on your PC
- The download time is considerable with multi Gb video files
- If the internal store is full, and you don't have time to download the files, you are royally rogered!

Veloce Raptor

LMAO! Score!

Thanks, guys.





Professional Racing and Driving Coach

AtlJimK

I did some research and ended up with the Kodak ZI6

Video was of good quality. Shaking is due to the mount and wind. Trade off would be to move the camera forward to reduce the buffeting of the camera but I would lose the viewing angle. Camera is mounted upside down from the mount attched to my glass roof.

Some footage from my last DE

Camera mount>

APKhaos

That clip is a good example of the dreaded CMOS rolling shutter problem. The waviness is caused by fast relative motion. The only thing you can do to reduce it is to mount the camera rock solid so that it can't move relaitve to the inside of the car.

Bryan Watts

I was surprised not to really get much/any on our car. We use the standard IOPort mount which has a somewhat "soft" mounting system in a car that is anything but "soft" with solid mounts for every suspension, engine, and transmission mount.

Part 2 of the NASA GTS4 race at VIR last weekend:
http://www.vimeo.com/5815391

APKhaos

Bryan,
The Aiptek recording 720p @ 60fps is much less susceptible to the problem, although you can see a bit of waviness in your video. I've made a really simple adaptor bracket for the Aiptek & IO Port mount combo that really works well. Will take a pic or two and start a thread here soon.......

amaist

I have tried this for this year: http://www.vimeo.com/4380119

Canon 5D Mark II with 17-40 4.0L at 17 mm.

It might be too wide

It tried a 12-24mm lens at 12mm. That was definitely absurd.

I used a Manfrotto light clamp with a Manfrotto ball mount. Seemed solid to me.

The deal breaker for me with that setup is that it only records up to 12.5 minutes at a time. Due to file size limitations on CF cards (4GB). A simple solution Canon could implement is to start a new file when reaching 4GB. Or switching to a modern file system instead of the dreaded FAT.

Gary R.

Sounds good Tony, on another front - any good news from AIM on data integration?

Bryan Watts

Very cool...I just don't think I want my expensive and HEAVY SLR bouncing around the cabin in the event of an impact.

I have been thinking of placing my SLR in the car for a session or two to get some nice interior still shots.

Bryan Watts

I would appreciate it. I'm thinking of performing some "mods" to our Aiptek before October. Would like to add an external mike (I *think * its possible on our model), an external LED and start/stop, and I would be VERY interested in AIM data integration. That said, the audio on ours actually seems pretty good...not much air noise with take over the mike, and plenty of engine noise due to all of the solid mounts.

Sorry for taking your thread so far away from the original intent Dave.

Veloce Raptor

Bryan, which Aiptek model is this?





Professional Racing and Driving Coach

Bryan Watts

A-HD+ with a .45x wide angle lens. Shot in 720P 60fps, with -2 exposure and being very careful to make sure the track is in the "middle" of the screen so that it meters the light correctly. If it meters on the inside of the car, the track will wash out into a white blur.

If I were buying today, I would get the slightly more expensive A-HD GVS due to it's image stabilization and the ability to hook up an external mic without an external lens without any modifications.