Let's face it, cycling isn't a cheap hobby. Sure you can pick up a bike for next to nothing, and there's not really any need for special kit, but as you get into it more the costs keep going up and up. So we're setting out to see just how costs can be saved on some of the more expensive items. They might be utterly essential, or they might be 'luxuries', but what they all have in common is they're expensive, but can be got cheaper. This month... The 'helmet' cam.
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For the princely sum of £15 on eBay (and there are plenty available at that price) I've replaced my dead Veho Muvi. I was looking for something that could be worn easily and comfortably on a head not wearing a helmet - and a pair of sunglasses seems a good plan.
They're comfy to wear, and feel pretty solidly built. Easy to use, which is probably just as well given the fabulous pigeon English of the instructions booklet. "Use USB Line connect compter, clik can to movd compter on the tabletop playing (when wil to use PC Camera, must standby statns".
Allegedly records at 30fps, but looks a little bit closer to 25fps (that said, when putting the videos into iMovie it did tell me they were 30fps). It copes with changes in brightness quite well, and records indoors with no issues (so should be reasonably good in the duller, darker days). One thing I've found is that my set-up has my head tilted down (obviously my eyes are looking more straight-ahead, I'm not riding staring just in front of my front wheel), so to make sure something is in shot that you want to record then you have to very deliberately stare at it.
This also ties in with the angle of the lens not being the widest (I think the new Veho Muvi Atom has something like an 82 degree range), but since it's a camera only to be worn on the head and not handlebar mounted then the width of the lens isn't as important as it will always point where you want it to. And of course, being head-mounted, it means you get none of the shake encountered by handlebar-mounted systems.
One slight issue, there's a date stamp on the replay (February 2007... With the time constantly counting) which is a bit annoying. There is a PC mini-CD that I think can be used to turn off this feature. I'll be trying to find out on my other half's laptop... There was one solution offered by online sources involving creating a 'time.txt' file, but it's not solved the matter for me thus far.
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