So my parents, lamenting the great distance between them and my infant daughter, gifted Chez Wrongrobot with a Canon Vixia HF200 HD camcorder. This is for the purpose of taking copious videos of wee Z eating feet and giggling and so on. But on the SIDE, we now have one more means to capture ridery, along with the pre-existing Casio Exilim EX-Z1000 pocket cam. As Halloween Critical Mass is quickly approaching, some experimentation is in order. Glad I got to this, because Experiment 001 yielded what, in military parlance, might be FOXTROT ALPHA INDIA LIMA!

;;;

Besides the cameras themselves, the other new component to to the mix since our previous such documentation of rides past is the addition of the Universal Helmet Mount, sold through Photojojo.com. I picked up one for Lung and one for self. Please note the fine folks at Photojojo know the value of detail in customer service. Same people who had that little robot greet me when I was filling out my registration on their site. Now? A small gift included in the package received. Nice work!

;;;

So, I assembled the helmet mount in the trial position, and immediately decided that it needed more support. This is a system designed for phones and pocket cams, not full-on handicams, albeit ones as small as the Canon. So I needed to account for the weight a bit more than the two straps included, and did so with some zip-ties. I knew that the major uncertainties would be:
a) camera-shake from loose mount (it includes an adhesive component, but I’m not using it yet)
2) camera angle wonk
d) mount breakage and camera death

The primary purpose for this morning’s experiment was to attempt to gather preliminary data on the first two, and sort of test the waters on the third. The resulting 11 minute video has been clipped down to a short sub-30s clip as seen in the link below, exclusively for the purposes of understanding how the images look, and what I’m in for on Experiment 002.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrongrobot/4053834602/

Post-Mortem:

What we’ve learned in Experiment 001:

a) camera-shake: I understand the helmet mount to be the second best method towards mitigating camera-shake (excluding the features of full-service action camera systems with different lensing and anti-shake technology aimed at moving footage) next to holding it while you ride. I think part of the issue here is the mounting: I didn’t use the adhesive component, and the strapping is sub-par for the weight of the camera, I think. This can be addressed, even without the adhesive strip, through better mounting efforts, ie. a few more full-on straps binding the camera firmly to the helmet. Commercial, and DIY, handicam mounts for helmets (unlike this lighter weight system) usually involve metal angles and permanent fasteners. I’m trying to accomplish more than what was intended with this system. But I think, with a little bit more firmly secured camera, less jitter may occur.

2) camera angle wonk: This was as expected. I knew the wonk would occur because I wasn’t taking into account the specific angle of the helmet while riding. The curved form of the road helmet doesn’t make it easy, either, as you need to secure to vents that are long channels. Different points along the curve are harder to secure without tertiary supports. Anyway, next experiment will include some test fits to find the proper position. To make matters worse, I rode sort of head-down, thinking the camera was aiming at the sky, as has happened in the past with bar-mounted cameras using the GorillaPod.

d) mount breakage and camera death: So far so good. I used ziptied secured to the strap of the camera in this experiment in the hopes that if the mount failed, the camera would dangle long enough for me to dodge SUVs and pull over. Next, I’ll go a little further with the tethering to be safe.

Onward! For science! We have two days!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. CNN ‘Report’ About Helmet Cams
2. tuneBug shake – turn your helmet into a flat-panel speaker
3. Photojojo’s Helmet Cam Mount

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