Okay so I got broken into and had my camera stoeln. Time to replace it and I’m thinking I never took that many still photos and could use my phone for the odd snap so perhaps I’d enjoy a vieo camera more. A mate has a contour gps and I like its dinky bullet camera size, don’t like that you can’t see what you have captured until you download it to a pc. Hmm, GoPro is the obvious other candidate, but I’ve never poekd one in person so….what’s it like to use and does the go pro take stills as well?

will be used biking and maybe rock climbing.

go pro hd hero 2[b]… Just got my one from the states and it rocks… noticeably better than my bro’s hd hero (1) get the LCD backpac too it makes a world of difference, and turns it into a “proper point and shoot digi camera 🙂

I got a gopro for xmas, and i love it, it takes stills, it will take stills on a timer so you can get yourself in the shot and it takes time lapse stills its really easy to use and they do loads and loads of mounts, i mig be a bit biased because ive never used a contour buy as far as I’m concerned gopro is the original and always the one the others are trying to beat/replicate.
Bit of a sh***er about the burglary though! 🙁

I really like my gopro but you’d struggle to use it as a camera without the lcd

just look at how often you spot a go-pro on the TV … that ays it all for me.

I.E it must be good, to be used on the TV.

I just bought one of these: –

1080p @ 30fps, 720p @ 60fps plus 5mp camera.

with a 32gb mem card and remote control for £100 on Amazon, really good reviews but the mounts are limited. It is waterproof though 🙂

Don’t know if you or your mate is aware of this but there is an app you can download for both android and apple phones to use your phone as a view finder for the contour camera.

http://contour.com/software/mobile

it works through bluetooth.

The internals of the two cameras are the same i believe (chipsets etc)where they differ is the hardware and useability.

My local Asda has the previous version of the Kodak Playsport (Zx3) on sale for £35 at the moment, which I reckon is a pretty good deal.

tonyplym that is a deal indeed! The zx3 is limited 720p @30ps, but even so that is good enough for most.

go pro hd hero 2… Just got my one from the states and it rocks… noticeably better than my bro’s hd hero (1) get the LCD backpac too it makes a world of difference, and turns it into a “proper point and shoot digi camera

+1 I borrowed my mates contour HD last for a trip to andorra was ok but not that great, ok on helmet, on bike. So i went for a go pro hd hero 2 with chesty mount. Its so much better in every way. i wll get the LCD backpac this year too. It works at night too is crazy good Here my night test:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bL36IFRiJ2E[/video][

Not used them both but from what I’ve seen the GoPro footage is better. I wasn’t able to get nearly the kind of image quality as you see on the GoPro website though, how do they do it? I only borrowed one for a day but on whatever it was on (720p, 3fps mode I think) it was very blocky, blurry, jerky and overexposed loads of areas. It was a really sunny day though. Guess a higher frame rate may have improved the jerkiness a bit.

I have a Contour HD, I think it’s a great piece of kit butr then again I did get it for a steal off amazon. I can’t remember exactly how much but it was around £100. It is a bit annoying that you have to wait to see your days footage on a pc but I can live with that. The Contour unit itself is a neat little unit, i’m pleased with mine.

Not used them both but from what I’ve seen the GoPro footage is better. I wasn’t able to get nearly the kind of image quality as you see on the GoPro website though, how do they do it? I only borrowed one for a day but on whatever it was on (720p, 3fps mode I think) it was very blocky, blurry, jerky and overexposed loads of areas. It was a really sunny day though. Guess a higher frame rate may have improved the jerkiness a bit.

Because the short answer is, they have a lot of people who will spend hours, even days to make it look extra pretty.

The reality of the situation is, unless you have a monster PC & a lot of spare time, your videos won’t look great. Also there is very little point in in looking at YouTube comparisons, as most video’s are compressed to such a level to make them even a remotely sensible to upload they are nothing like the raw data.

For most, even recording in 720 is more than enough to view on a decent PC, and between the Contour, and the GoPro neglegable, having used both.

What it comes down to really, is personal preference. The GoPro has the edge with the chest mount, but I dislike wearing it, so it’s discounted for me. The trouble with wearing it in on top of your helmet is, due to it’s very wide angle lense it has a habit of flattening the image a lot as well.

The Contour is a bit more limiting in it’s mounts, but if you use the standard ‘tripod’ mount, there are a lot of options to explore for custom made options. I have made a mount that goes through the visor bolt on my full face lid. Very secure, no wobble & a great POV.

I know everyone wants the ‘latest & greatest’ – even more so with technology, but 99% of people out there don’t have the hardware, software, time or inclination to process it at even 50% of it’s potential.

I do quite a bit of video work with “proper” cameras and used the same software with the GoPro, just couldn’t get it to look half as good as they seem to on the official videos. Suppose harsh sunlight through trees on a properly bright day on rough trails isn’t really the best way to get good results though.

The files that came straight off the camera look like they’ve been heavily compressed as it is, as I mentioned they’re quite blocky and just generally look a bit crap. No amount of post production makes them look great. I think helmet/chest cam can be a bit rubbish anyway, I mostly recorded it for the memories of a great holiday rather than actually trying to make interesting videos.