Re: [Faber] Camera Helmets
> What type of lens is on it? Are others available?
I have permanently mounted a 2.9mm-130° lens; they are also available 3.6mm-92° and 4.3mm-78° lenses.
> I use the bullet cam from pack 4 from RF,and i absolutely wont recomend them for high qually.
I have got the same bullet camera as you, Faber, but you know I like very much the quality of the bullet camera we have.
Simply speaking, you must know which the specifications of our bullet are, and we CANNOT demand more from it (nor from ANY videocamera in the world).
> My cam should be able to record in 0lux but even in twighlight it get problems, in the dark envioment it cant be used at all.
Here comes my above point. First, 21CWSHRX bullet camera (=package 4) min illumination is 0.1 lux (not 0, nothing works in 0 lux!). Our bullet camera is simply 70 times brighter than our PC105 (without night shot). Second (and we spoke about this on the phone), our bullet, in case of low (=nearly zero) light, shows blue spots among the "black".
Well, this can easily be something that upsets you, while a PC105 would show just "black". But when something is honestly "seeable" (let's say, when light is around 1 lux), our bullet shows good pictures, while PC105 gives just the contours of images (the inner part of contours just being black).
> i think they might will be good in the skyenvioment were you have loads of light but BASE jumping were the ground often looks dark compared to the sky,i dont like it.
Faber, sorry, I think you have WAY HUGE expectations from (any) bullet camera.
NO CAMERA CAN SHOOT IN DARKNESS (unlkess you go on infrared, with internal/external illuminator).
I can guarantee you that I took a video (just as soon as I set my system up) of a jump from our A, total darkness, yes, my mate is a black contour, but as soon as I lighted up the (small) speleo light I have on my helmet, I got very bright images on those "objects" that were in the light cone of my light (my arms in red jacket, the iron beam, my canopy above my head, the grass approaching for landing, my camo stash bag, whatever else felt into the light cone of my light).
Yes, outside the cone light everything is black with blue spots, but even with a "direct" PC105 with super night shot (=with infrared illuminator on), what you can get is that everything (that is within the cone illumination of infrared) in green and black and everything is outside (the cone illumination of infrared) is simply black.
I do have 2 videos of a S jump, shot at the same time, around sunset, the first through my bullet, the second of my exact jump, but shot by a PC105 from the landing. It was possibly just after sunset, the video shot from my bullet shows nice seable colours, the video shot from PC105 just gives contours with dark "inner".
> One of the reasons is might that a Bullet cam is analoug into digi. i dunno about this.
With a 2 m length cable, the story of analog input is simply a "non issue".
> how much power do you use(which batteryes)
i use 8 AA(or AAA??)2100mah which fits in the batterypack.its the strongest batteryes i could find.
Now I tell you about my experience with batteries. Firstly, the manufacturer says that you could use bullet camera either with 8 AA batteries for 12 h (or so) or with 9 V (small) battery for 1 h (or so).
The story of supplying the bullet canera with the 9 V (small) battery is simply FAKE - FALSE - VOID - BULLSH|T.
I used both a rechargeable NiMH 9 V battery and a standard alkaline 9 V battery. Results: imagea were bad and all the screen was full with blue spots.
My opinion: bullet camera is simply quite eager of current for its normal operation, which current for its normal working simply CANNOT be supplied by a 9 V battery.
So, after the unlucky test with 9 V battery, at first I used in the battery package 8 AA NiMH 2300 mAh batteries, but now I bought 8 AA NiMH 2500 mAh (2500 mAh are the most powerful AA batteries so far).
The 8AA batteries can supply enough current for the (normal) use of bullet camera (which bullet camera absorbs 1.3W of power, not exactly "nothing", it gets jolly warm after few minutes it is ON).
Edited to add: current absorbed by bullet camera is 130 mA (=0.13 A), that is NOT exactly nothing. In fact, supposing of having 8 AA batteries having a voltage of 1.25 V each, we end up with supplying 0.13 A at 10 V, which in fact gives an absorption of 1.3 W (= a small heater!!!).
Note: along the usage of my bullet camera, I always use also the external microphone (which drains a little bit current on its own).
Using 2500 mAh batteries gives me a very nice working usage and time for my bullet camera, no blue spots (unless it is jolly fu(king dark...).
In the end: I am very happy with my setup, even if it takes 30 minutes (or so) to assemble everything up.
I used my bullet to take a video of an urban jumps of mine, night time but there were street lamps everywhere, and they were enough to give a good illumination to my video, I am really happy about it.
Furthermore, I used my bullet camera (with a headband) for videoing my snowboard adventures (well, actually, I video my brother skiing!!!), with very, very good results (possibly, a 2.9mm-130° lens is a bit too wide for this sort of videos, but never mind!).
Just my 0.02€.
