head cam info wanted

mrs_baggins

Hi all, my son is big into mountain biking and thought I would get him a head cam for his birthday but have no idea what I am looking for. ply.com have one for £30 but the reviews are not that great. looked at some other sites and they have some for about £80 but as I dont know anything about it I dont know what I am looking for. some of them indicate that you have to plug them into camcorders but I havent a clue. just wondered if there are any people out there who have used any of them and can give me some info. Dont want to spend hundreds though!

kwikbreaks

This area is a bit of a minefield IMO. You really need to check how well the camera works before buying it.

As an example search on eBay for MD80 - these are small cheap video cameras which typically sell for around £9 delivered (I got one for £8.40 delivered from Hong Kong). I have seen what looks like the same item other than including a small microSD card in Maplin for the supposed bargain price of £39.99 - http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=338654

The eBay md80 produces excellent video when kept fairly still but is pretty useless if subjected to high vibration levels - e.g. I flew mine on a kite and there was no usable footage at all. Fixed on top of a fishing pole and rotated gave quite distorted frames even with fairly slow panning.

The md80 cameras record to a microSD card and you download that to a PC to play it, edit it, etc.

sickparrot

Have a look on Bikeradar.com and have a rummage through the forums, there's quite a bit on there.

mrs_baggins

thanks both. will try to look into it a bit more. useful info on the kite stuff as I guess downhill bikes wil cause a huge amount of vibration!