Yesterdays ride. By kiwiscoot (Read 1,014 times)

[kiwiscoot]

I've been playing with technology. There is a hack on the WEB for Canon Powershot cameras. This hack enables a lot of advanced features as well as enabling it to run scripts. Well I bought an old one and installedthe s/w and a script for an intervalometer (enables the camera to take photos at intervals). This is a slideshow of my ride of yesterday afternoon with the camera set to take a photo every 20 seconds. It was a lovely warm afternoon and all the birds were out singing.

click on the picture to run the slideshow. hope you enjoy.

[ccprof]

Cool Kiwi. You have you cam mounted somewhere on the scoot body?

[kiwiscoot]

Yes like this.

In this case it was my Canon Powershot and on the right side passenger foot-rest. The camera is mounted on a travel tripod that's clamped to the foot-rest with two hose clamps. You can make your own from a piece of broom handle with a bolt at the end to screw the camera into. I wrap the wrist-strap of the camera around the foot-rest as a precaution if the camera should come undone.

[ccprof]

Interesting. You know the thing looks like some kind of death ray gun? LOL!

[Bashan]

OK Kiwi, I need advice. I just got a Panasonic H85-HDD cam. It does have image stabilization but would it be better to mount on the bike or person? Seems like the person would be jarred less. Also, with your mount as pictured, do you have to worry about bugs on the lens? THAT would break my heart. Rich

[kiwiscoot]

May 2, 2010 6:09:59 GMT -6 Bashan said:

OK Kiwi, I need advice. I just got a Panasonic H85-HDD cam. It does have image stabilization but would it be better to mount on the bike or person? Seems like the person would be jarred less. Also, with your mount as pictured, do you have to worry about bugs on the lens? THAT would break my heart. Rich

IMHO it is a toss up between what is the most stable. On the body youcan have a lot of body movement. On the helmet gives head movements, which I don't like much.
I can understand your conscern about your new cam. Never put it in the airstream as the wind pressure will blow dirt into the lens mechanism. On mine you'll notice some black tape. I have a wide-angle lens that mounts on the front of the cam. I tape this to the cameras body to stop it falling off if I were to hit a pothole or something. This protects the camera lens from dust & dirt & bugs.
You can mount the camera behind your scoot's screen if it has one. The other way would be to tape a camera filter like a UV 1A filter to the front of the camera to give you the protection. Tape some foam over the microphone to cut out the high frequency windnoise. The low frequency engine will still come through, that is if you mount it like I did on the body of the scoot.
happy scooting & shooting - we wanna see!!

[Bashan]

Thanks for the advice, I'm still experimenting and working on it while getting the spring yard work done (I guess your working on fall stuff?). Does your camera have a disc drive and if so are the moving parts a concern using it on a scooter? The geek at best buy said it would be but I bought it anyway, he seemed disingenuous and I wanted the huge storage capacity w/o cards. Rich

[kiwiscoot]

Mine use SD memory cards and only up to 2GByte. I must say that is enough as it holds about an hour of video. A lot of riding video is quite boring, so I cut out what I deem to be boring. The biggest challenge is battery-life. Mine only lasts about 45 minutes. I think the harddisk should be OK. Probably better on the scoot body or on your body than on the handle-bars.
Good luck

[Bashan]

Update!! An HDD (hard disc drive) vid/cam is NOT OK for a scooter, it shuts itself off due to "excess vibration". It actually tells you and makes you feel guilty. I'm not sure if I'm taking this back or buying an SD card for it, it'll do both. Rich

[scooterran]

Very nice kiwi, What side of the road were you ridding on? LOL's