I’ve had one since April 2013 and have since been modding and bodging it. I have modded the original case to take GoPro mounts and have bought a cheap far-eastern chest harness to mount it to. It works ok but now… I have bought the new SPK-AS2 case as supplied with the latest AS30 and it’s transformed the camera! It’s smaller, lighter and the tripod screw is further back, thus making chest-mounting easier. I have just purchased a tripod screw-to-GoPro mount adapter so will be testing it soon.
I was going to sell my AS15 and upgrade but not now! The new case has external buttons so operation is much easier. The new front glass seems to give better colour reproduction as well (skies seem to be darker blue). Buy the new SPK-AS2 case now !(from Bristol Cameras). You won’t regret it!
I took this shot to sell my kit but here it is to show the chest mount etc.

If any fellow owners want to discuss my mods, feel free to ask.

(for the inevitable stw troll response: “why not just buy a GoPro”: Sony has image stabilisation. Sony is more reliable. Sony is cheaper. Sony has better physical controls for menu selection. GoPro has better mounts – now sorted, Sony adapted. GoPro has better chest-mounting options due to it’s form-factor (GoPro wins that one))

I brought the new case for my as10 in december its great so much better than the original one:)

Do you seem to get less of the turquoise skies with it?

Modified original case to accept a screw in filter, and made a couple of waterproof buttons from old TV remote rubber buttons and a bit of lathe work to make 2 piece alloy outers bonded together 8)

Hi fivespot, that filter mod is very similar to mine, do you get any vignetting at 120 degrees? I had a bit so managed to move the camera quite far forwards in the case with a bit of hacking at the back of the front door and fitted a very slim filter (I’ll post pics tonight). Doesn’t vignette even at extreme anti-shake moments.

Devron…..only at 170 degrees. 120 is fine. It maybe because I machined down the inner filter ring on my lathe to bring the Sony filter as close as possible to the camera. Also, the Sony filter steps up in dia. from its mounting thread, which should help. I hope that lot made sense 😕

Devron, funny you should post this as I saw your for sale post yesterday and considered asking you about your mods, and why you were selling given your previous very positive comments.

Would be interested to know about your Gopro mount modification. I’ve been using a Veho Muvi Tripod mount which does the job nicely.

I spent ages deciding on whether to buy a Gopro, or a cheap imitation, and am over the moon with the Sony which has been the perfect choice offering better quality than most of the Gopro range for a very reasonable price. The video I captured riding in the Alps last year always makes me smile and makes me very glad I purchased the Sony before going.

If I only I could find the time and skills to edit the footage into something worth sharing!

Ok chaps here’s my case mods:

This is for the old case. I used a standard GoPro tripod mount, cut a length of 1/4″ tripod thread from an old camera case retainer and inserted it into the GoPro mount adapter to turn it from a female into a male. I then screwed it tightly into the removed baseplate of the Sony case and centred it. I then screwed the baseplate and GoPro mount unit back onto the Sony case. All held together by a generous amount of Gorilla Glue between GoPro mount adapter and baseplate and a load around the edge of the GoPro mount where it was close to the plastic case body.

Above you can see the holes in the GoPro mount adapter where I screwed through to reattach the baseplate.

It’s a little untidy but it points in the right direction and hasn’t come off despite several crashes and drops. I cut the third ‘leg’ off the GoPro mount adapter to change the gender so it now sits in the 3 legged half of the GoPro mounts.

I Gorilla glued a 30-37mm step-up ring into the front of the case after pushing the old glass domed lens out. Even with a low profile filter I was getting a bit of vignetting at extreme moments when the anti-shake cuts in. So I used a hot screwdriver to remove as much material from the rear of the front door of the case to bring the camera forwards. A bit of camping mat pads out the rear. Vignetting only at 170 now. If you’ve done the filter mod, press record and shake the camera violently. You may see dark corners appear on playback. This is caused by the software ‘moving’ the sensor area around to compensate for the shaking. This is why I hacked away at the door to move the camera forwards.

You will see tape covering holes on the case. I had planned to install some buttons from a cheapo 7dayshop camera case. But I drilled the holes first, then moved the camera forwards to combat the vignetting – doh! They didn’t line up anymore!

One tip for anyone doing the filter mod: Black out the sides of the hole behind the filter, you may get reflections in the back of the filter in bright sunlight.

mrbotticelli: I was selling because I was skint! I have been rescued so now don’t have to sell off all my gadgets!

Don’t suppose you know of anywhere doing these cheap now as yours is not for sale?

The new case seems to be a lot better designed. It will mount to my chest harness better because it has the tripod screw at the rear of the case, allowing a lot more upward tilt. I have ordered a male tripod screw-to-GoPro adapter this time (I couldn’t find one when I modded originally back in May 2013) so I’ll see how secure it is when it arrives. I may have to bodge to prevent the camera unscrewing itself.
The new external buttons are very useful – I now don’t have loads of 1 sec movies where I had to press the record button to start up the camera when it was case-bound!

Rusty Mac: It’s going for as little as £160.00 on ebay for a brand new one with the older case.
Try here:

link

I think that’s where I got mine from but I can’t quite remember. It was very cheap though and was a grey import.

EDIT: just checked my emails, it was ebay: photodirect where I bought mine and they don’t seem to do them any more.

Deveron, glad to hear you’re sorted and can keep the gadgets! 🙂

I’m tempted by the new case despite being perfectly happy with the old one. Would be interesting to see the differences in the video it captures.

I’ve been mounting my Sony using the mounts in this thread

Currently look like they £150 at Argos

Had seen the argos add earlier but it seems odd. 2mp for the camera… And it doesn’t say if it comes with a case. Do they always ship with the waterproof case?

mrbotticelli: That Veho mount looks good, I may get one. I bought this: ebay item
I’ll see if it’s any good. I need to use the GoPro swan neck mount (as in my pic above) to get my Sony facing forwards.

You can always inspect the Argos item before leaving the store. Get it brought from the ‘temple of dreams’ to view at the customer services till, make em open it and show you. I have a hunch it’s the stock clearance of the older-cased version. I’ve never seen it ship caseless. How would you mount or even hold it?

I got mine from Argos in June last year and it’s came with a case etc. the specs are almost certainly wrong on the Argos site. As Deveron says you can always ask to see one in store before buying. It will almost certainly be the old case and old stock making way for the newer, smaller version.

If you go down the Veho mount route then shop around, I got my first for just under £5, I snapped this one…my stupidity not a product failing. When I went looking for a replacement they were all £10 and I managed to find a handlebar mount set for the same money which includes the bit you need…so I effectively got a handlebar mount for free. And Veho kindly replaced the broken one free of charge 🙂

And on the subject of chest mounting (and rear facing off the seatpost) I mount mine upside down to get a better angle and then flip the video on the computer afterwards. Not ideal and it might be better if you could flip it on the camera as you can with a Gopro, but it hasn’t been a problem yet.

Looks like DX do a Sony Chest Mount

My next mod will be to the chest harness. I want to attach a larger plate behind the central mounting base to give a more stable platform and replace some of the straps with non-stretchy ones to reduce the amount of bounce.