Bryan Watts

At this price point, I doubt it matters much. I've had good luck with my Sunpak .45x

Mahler9th

Thanks for confirming. I tried to dig through all of the appropriate threads but there is quite a lot of material.

I saw mention of the Sunpak, but I thought that someone had problems with it and/or it was NLA. I see now that there are places you can still buy them... supposedly. I have seen your videos and it looks like the Sunpak/A-HD+/electrical tape combo works fine.

I am driving my A-HD+ with a lipstick camera with a wide angle lens which I have had for quite a while.

Bryan Watts

I found mine on Amazon.

spieln

Funny Guy! I only mount it to the chair during bench racing. Not much action but a lot of big talk.

Lucky for us Cayman owners, they have a handy bar that we can easily clamp the camera mount too.

Racin44

Tony, which wide angle are you using on your A-HD+ ?

APKhaos

Mine's the Rokinon. I supect the Sunpak is equivalent. Noth are cheapie single element wide adaptors with magnetic attach rings.

pojefferson

I used, or tried to use, this exact camera (Aiptek Action-HD GVS 1080P) last year. The first event (2-day event), it work great. I didn't change any of the default settings other than to filming at 720-30f.

The next event, was at a different track and I began to experience problems. The problem was that the camera would suddenly lose focus, and the picture would become blurry - and stay blurry from that point onward for the rest of the recording session. After several sessions, I realized the sudden loss of focus occurred at one of 2 points on this track where the car is sharply jarred due to the track surface. (There were no such jarring points on the 1st track). I tried many different combinations of settings; autofocus lock on/off, stabilizer on/off. I also suspected that the Zoom button (which moves up/down) was moving on it's own when the car was jarred, thereby manually changing the focus; so I tried to tape it in position. I use an I/O Port roll-bar camera mount and the tie-down strap. Nothing has worked.

Has anyone else had this problem?

mglobe

Does the GVS have a macro switch on it? If so, that might be causing the blurry picture. I use the A-HD+, and the macro switch has a habit of getting moved to the macro setting. The solution is to super-glue the switch in the distant focus setting.

pojefferson

yes - it does have a macro-mode setting. On the GVS, that setting is on the 5-way joystick that also controls many other functions; plus navigation through the menus. I did consider that the jarring of the car could cause that switch to toggle between regular and macro mode. I tried to immobilize the joystick with tape (which did not work either); but I agree that method would not guarantee that the switch would not move the way super-glue would. If I immobilize it with glue, that would permanently disable essential functions.

tommelton

I got this camera as a Christmas present - I have the same issue and have tried the same setting you tried. I have not tried yet to stabilize the mount. Figured if the mount was more stable - more shock would reach the camera and would cause the problem more often.

-Tom

Rob S

I finally caught up with this thread and thought I'd share my experiences. I have a GVS camera with the Raynox 505 wide angle adapter, an external computer boom mic strung outside the car to near the exhaust outlet (with a home-made foam wind sock over the tip), an I/O Port mount with a home-made L-shaped metal stiffener with a velcro strap (like others above), and a cut-down business card jammed in the battery compartment to keep electrical contact constant. You, know, just the basics!

Oh, and I also use a very small inverter in the cigarette lighter, coupled with the A/C adapter, to keep the battery power up. I haven't made or used the "Frankencharger" that others have put together. By the way, MGlobe was very helpful in counseling me when I bought the camera (thanks, Mike), and I've benefitted from the tips posted by others as well.

It's true that oddly, with the Raynox 505 on the GVS, it has to be set in the macro mode, and it's also true that some of the settings are lost when you shut off the camera (or it "goes to sleep"). So, before every session, I pull the camera off the mount, take it in my hand, turn it on, and set it up. That involves making sure that it's in the 720p/60 fps mode, though I think that setting remains active even after a shutdown/startup cycle. Most importantly, though, with it in the default autofocus mode, I point the camera at a distant object, then I lock the AF off, and then select the macro mode. Then I put it in the car and use the remote to control the camera (making sure the camera doesn't stand idle so long as to go to sleep again, which may cause it to lose its settings). Obviously, it's a pain to have to do this. But if I attempt to set up the camera while mounted in the car, I've noticed that the AF might focus on the windshield or dashboard, rather than the road ahead. It makes for very clear shots of gauge needles and bugs splattered on the glass, but the cars and track may be slightly blurry. The depth of field for this camera is pretty impressive, though and I can generally get pretty good focus of both the dash gauges and the road ahead, though I'd rather not favor the dash if I have to make a choice, and I've found it worthwhile to go through this drill.

Here's an example of a video I made last summer. This was just before I used the L-shaped stiffener, so there's a bit more camera movement than optimal, especially near the end:

http://www.vimeo.com/8973489

Rob

fc-racer

Here is the "rennlist" setup in action. This is GVS 720p 60fps, external mic, stablity off, macro mode, QC505. The TMP video is with the external mic plugged straight through and the camera pressed up against the headliner to reduce vibration, the Mosport video is with the external mic run through a headphone volume controller to reduce the distortion and the camera free floating on the filmtools Cleat mount:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js39VQaQsdQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twddZKDYWEU

Vimeo originals:
http://vimeo.com/10778000
http://vimeo.com/10958425

RickBetterley

Somewhere in the hundreds of posts about Aipteks, there is a hint about a special super wide angle using the macro setting.
Damned if I can find it though; can anybody point me toward this super secret setting?
Thanks in advance

fc-racer

On the old firmware cameras, you could zoom all the way out, hit the macro button, zoom out more and then go back to non-mcaro mode; don't touch the zoom. The view will widen. The videos I attached above do not use this because my firmware version does not allow this "trick".

More details: https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-a...sion-lens.html

RickBetterley

Thanks for that; Zoom in, set on Macro (by pushing joystick up) then zoom in again.
Thanks for the reminder