What Do you Video With?

[Jim Rosenow]

I'm seeing lots of nice amateur (my assumption) video coming out of the airshow this year. Thanks to all who post here or YouTube it. My question is...what are you using to get such good results? Some of them you could almost count the rivets on the airplane from. What video-camera and why did you pick that particular one? Looking forward to learning more. Thanks!

Jim

[VanDervort]

(pure speculation on my part) but I would assume most are using either a GoPro or a contour, both will do 1080p and are very small, I have friends that mount them to their motorcycles and airplanes, the quality is very good!!

The new GoPro has a wide angle lense thou,

[Jim Clark]

I have used both on many different aircraft and the Nflightcam by Contour is greatly superior. New firmware due out on the 17th of August will give you a remote record on/off from your iPad.

[Jim Rosenow]

I suspect there were mass quantities of the 'lite' cams in use.....GoPro being a sponsor and all. I love my old 'brand D'. I should have been more specific in my question. I'm wondering about the cams with the serious zoom capability. You know....did the pilot @ 2000 feet get a good shave today? :D

[PlaneBrain]

Nearly all new DSLR cameras have the ability to shoot HD video nowadays. The big advantage is that if you already have an inventory of lenses compiled for photography you can buy a video ready body and and instantly begin doing video as well. The downside is that the CMOS sensor design results in the dreaded Jello-cam effect, most noticeable in turning props being distorted. Also many early models had limited auto focus in video mode.

[skeeter_ca]

I've been using a Canon SX20is. It's basicily a point and shoot still camera with some trick options. 20x zoom and shoots good 720p video. Unless viewing it on a 60" screen it looks great. The newest version is the SX40is that shoots 1080p.

skeeter

[dickoreilly]

To shoot planes flying from the ground, I get good results from my Panasonic AG-HMC40 HD 3-chip camcorder with 16:1 zoom. In-flight video lately has been shot with a DriftHD mounted in the cockpit. It captures ambient sound and has a jack for communication input, too. It can be toggled on-off with a small remote. Since my Thunder Gull is a pusher I don't have to worry about digital prop artifacts. I have a ContourHD mounted atop the vertical stablizer, which sees the prop, but I've fixed it so the prop is blurred. Check out my video "Blur the Prop" on my YouTube channel, "ManyPerspectives", to see how. Screw-in ND filters will do the same for larger camcorders and video-capable DLSR cameras.

Dick