Thinking of getting an "Action Camera"

[two]

I thought I’d look at ‘Action' cameras, to attach to my bike, but have become overwhelmed by the amount of choice. It seems that one can pay anything from £20 to 20 times that. So what practical experience does anyone have of these devices?

I think that all are waterproof, but some perhaps less so than others?

What is a minimum resolution to go for?

What about image stabilisation?

Is there anything else to look out for (like auto focus)?

I do not want to stream my data to the cloud nor share on social media. Just capture and review. So what (Mac) software could be used to edit movies and grab stills from the video?

Clearly, the more you spend, the better the kit. I would be interested to know what people would buy now, and why, having used one already.

 

[Cheshirecat57]

Personal experience I had a Go Pro some years ago ( and they have improved still further) for my Track car and the footage was brilliant, even in horrendous conditions and it was bullet proof
Sold it with the car after 4 years use

Recently (May 21)bought my son ( amongst a batch of smaller birthday presents) a Glo-Plo from Amazon, a cheap copy but at about a fifth of the price of the market leader......it is already in the bin
Whilst it did work, the footage was unwatchable (too shakey) on his downhill bike

For us, the sweet taste of cheapness didn't last long enough to outweigh the sour that followed

( Other experiences may differ)

 

[suavecarve]

Personal experience I had a Go Pro some years ago ( and they have improved still further) for my Track car and the footage was brilliant, even in horrendous conditions and it was bullet proof
Sold it with the car after 4 years use

Recently (May 21)bought my son ( amongst a batch of smaller birthday presents) a Glo-Plo from Amazon, a cheap copy but at about a fifth of the price of the market leader......it is already in the bin
Whilst it did work, the footage was unwatchable (too shakey) on his downhill bike

For us, the sweet taste of cheapness didn't last long enough to outweigh the sour that followed

( Other experiences may differ)

As per Cheshire, we bought cheap and it does the job. We use it on teh motorbike and bikes (down canals not mountain biking) and it does what it says on the tin.
Its going to come down to "can you afford to waste £20 trying a cheap one" or "Fork out for the one that is highly likely to do the business"

 

[kevenh]

There are some good cameras that are clones of the GO Pro £££ models.
Techradar reviewed some action cameras here

edit: lots of those above are also £££. Similar review but for our budget here

 

[Colino]

I use on my bike trips a Sony AS20 . Good thing is lots of spare batteries and accessories on ebay so not expensive. Also easy to use . They have newer models now. You can use them underwater as well. They have different models. Search Sony action cam.

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/action-cam/t/action-cam

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[Wissel]

I use a DJI Osmo Action and very happy with it.

Great image and stabilisation along with a reliable app.

 

[Skez]

I use a DJI Osmo Action and very happy with it.

Great image and stabilisation along with a reliable app.

Seconded. It's a Go-Pro for smart cookies who don't follow the crowd! Just as good as the Go-Pro Hero 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 for less money.

Osmo Action 2 is going to be out soon so there may be some good deals on the original.

 

[Figaro]

I bought a GoPro rip off, about 35 pounds. I'd does the job pretty well for what I wanted.
I think the image stabilization is better on the genuine article but I wasn't that fussed about it so bought the cheapie and very happy with it.

 

[Langtoftlad]

I've recently got an Akaso Brave 7 LE - reviews very well, and I'm happy with it

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[Itsmcb]

I've had a couple of cheap ones over the years with very mixed results. If I was buying another one it would definitely be a go-pro. If your budget conscious just go for an older model.

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[HarryML7]

For good preloved action cameras inc GoPro try these people. mpb.com - no connection just satisfied customer.

 

[two]

Many thanks for the feed-back.
It seems that you get what you pay for, then (although not in proportion).
I'll take a look at the Osmo and compare with GoPro.

 

[kevenh]

It seems that you get what you pay for

There are several great action cameras costing a lot less than those with the GoPro name.
Hope the Osmo is in that category.
IMO GoPro is akin to the VW brand in the campervan world. You’re spending a lot for the brand before you’re buying fixtures & fittings

 

[two]

All that advertising and branding has to be paid for.

 

[jdk62]

If its for the bedroom, don't forget you will need additional lighting....

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[Guigsy]

I've got an older GoPro Hero Session. Nice and small and easy to mount. Waterproof enough for white water rafting. It's great in bright light. But on the mountainbike on proper trails, it can't cope with the shaking and the frame rate drops right off when you drop into shadows amongst the trees... Also, the battery life isn't great, so you can't just leave it running, you have to remember to switch it on for the good bits.

Just because you have an action cam, it doesn't make your life exciting...

 

[MillieMoocher]

My first action camera was a Go Pro (cant remember which model, it was around 2015). I didn’t really get in with it, found it hard to download the films onto my MacBook and also found the images very “fish eye”. I gave it to my brother-in-law in the end.

Last year I bought a DJI Osmo and it’s for my use a much better proposition. The Osmo has a front and rear screen so if you are shooting film with yourself in it, you can get the framing right. It also has a fairly reliable set of verbal commands which is helpful if you have set the camera up out of arms reach. The picture does not suffer from fish eye distortion as my Go Pro did.

The image stabilisation is excellent too, especially when using a gimbal too.

there’s lots of YouTube reviews on it so I won’t go into its functionality, frame rates etc here (mainly cos I can’t remember and I’m on a site in Hay On Wye and the camera is at home..).

it’s not all plain sailing though. The inbuilt mic is very susceptible to wind noise so in the end I bought a Rode radio mic (so that I can record sound when Im more than a wired mic distance away from the camera.)

the downside of this is (cost aside) that you also need to buy an adaptor for the camera if you want to use any external mic. This compromises the waterproofness of the camera as a flap has to be removed to attach the adaptor.

another downside of this external mic is that when I’m also using the gimbal the weight of the receiving end of the mic attached to the camera can cause the gimbal to freak out.

in terms of editing film I just use the standard IMovie software that was free with the macbook. It took me a bit of time to get my head around it but now I have it’s not too hard to use and I don't think for my needs I would need to pay for anything else. It does seem to use a lot of space up on the computer though, so I often have to cull everything once I’ve uploaded to YouTube.


I would add that the Go Pro I had was (in action camera terms) a lifetime ago and the latest ones might have addressed the issues I found.

drop me a PM if you think I can help any further