I picked up a Tony Hawk's Helmet Cam about a year ago with the idea
that it was cheap enough to risk breaking it in a cave or dropping it
in a pool of water. It has survived a handful of caving trips,
including a thorough beating against the sides of Robber Baron cave.
Here's one for $25:
http://www.compuplus.com/i-Digital-Blue-Tony-Hawk-Helmetcam-1011956~.html?sid=6d9v35b715u3v12
For dropping a wide pit lit by daylight like Devil's Sinkhole, it does
a reasonable job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_8H2ewVOd4
In a cave at a range of 2-3 feet with the 2nd brightest setting
selected on a Princeton Apex, it does a reasonable job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G83DLfvW8Y
The video quality is about what you'd expect for a camera in its price
range: 320x240, 15fps, heavy compression artifacting, and poor
low-light response. For your average stumbling through a cave, the
results are mixed from poor to unwatchable, usually because they are
too dark, but sometimes because of a weakness inherent in any helmet
cam: it's attached to you helmet, which is in turn attached to your
head. Our sneaky little brains play a very neat trick on us where in
shifting our focus from one point to another, we perceive a smooth and
seamless transition. Watching *videos* of the same transition, from
almost the same perspective, our brains don't know how to perform this
smoothing, and the result is violent and almost nauseating. A
helmet-cam operator needs a great deal of focus and discipline to
overcome the natural instinct to turn his head at a normal speed for a
human, and this is a talent I do not have! Overall, it's a fun toy
that can shoot some crappy video that's great for your local grotto's
recruitment purposes, if nothing else.
~Alan Blevins
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Matt Turner kat...@yahoo.com wrote:
Yeah we've had a few people bring these on our beginner trips and normally
all you really get is a low quality video of hands and dirt. They only
capture well where your head lamp is pointed and only then if it's decently
bright. Truthfully though as with most things it probably just takes some
tweaking to get the results you want out of it.
Matt Turner
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it. - Aristotle
Empty pockets never held anyone back.Only empty heads and empty hearts can
do that.- Norman Vincent Peale
- Original Message
From: Minton, Mark mmin...@nmhu.edu
To: nmca...@caver.net; txcaver texascavers@texascavers.com
Cc: jcbr...@alum.rit.edu jcbr...@alum.rit.edu; yd
ydr...@rosettastone.com
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:06:59 AM
Subject: [Texascavers] Helmet Cam
Now you can get a good deal on a waterproof helmet camera to record
all of your caving and other exploits. Mountain Gear has one on sale for
only $100.
http://www.mountaingear.com/pages/product/Search_Results_Endeca_New.asp?N=0Nu=p_rollupNtk=s_searchNtx=mode%2BmatchallpartialNs=p_name%7C0Nty=1Ntt=Oregon+Scientific
It doesn't say how well they do in low-light though.
Mark Minton
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