Thinking about getting into trail cameras. Let’s have some recommendations and horror stories.

What’s good out there?

Keep an eye out on the chat section. I’ve posted for opinions on the Sony action cam. I was looking at one today and it looks nice. A good spec but half the price of a GoPro. Probably not as good as the GoPro for those more keen camera people amongst us, but maybe good enough for a bit of a a laugh.

Gopro.

Or a second hand gopro if your budget doesn’t stretch to a new one.

Went through this recently myself, ended up with an almost brand new GoPro HD Hero 2 off eBay for £135, chuffed to bits with it.

Have used it 3 or 4 times in the past couple of weeks and I’m glad I went GoPro because of all the mounts available for it and how cheap they are. Having a few different angles of the same run makes the edit much more interesting IMHO 😀

Yep. Looking at either a Gopro or the upcoming Sony AS30V (their latest action cam).

Contour went bust a few days ago so that’s them rules out.

Any reasons not to buy a Gopro?

Nilox Foolish is another option.. similar size to the GoPro, fits the same mounts and comes with screen, waterproof case etc.

GoPro are pretty good. Any of the new 3 range are worth while getting even the white edition. Most stuff ends up compressed on the net anyway, so do you need 4k.

I have loads of gopro stuff on my site – http://www.unsponsored.co.uk although much is kayak related the GP stuff is pretty generic.

Some great stuff on that site, unsponsered. The Gopro Black etc are impressive.

Love the Nilox stuff! Never heard of it but actually looks pretty good.

The Sony HDR AS15 is great with the steady shot on as can be seen here
with it on a Fatty fork so no suspension
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HKwxctOo58[/video]

Down side are the mounting system so some bodgery required

I went though the same debate at the start of summer. I ended up with the Sony HDR-AS15 which had the quality I wanted at a price way below new GoPro’s. Amazon where knocking them out for £170 due to the new model coming out.

I’ve seen lots of people talk about mounting being a problem, but there is an easy way of using all the GoPro mounts buy using a Veho tripod mount adaptor, if you do a search/look at my other posts you will find a video on how to do this.

I’ve used the Sony at the FoD and in the Alps mounted on a chesty, rear facing on the seatpost and mounted on the handle bars on a family ride.

The footage is great for reminding you of good days out on the trail, but insanely boring for anyone who wasn’t there unless you are good at editing….I’ve not had the time to make mine interesting.

Anyway, in summary…Sony slightly better than a GoPro Silver, can easily use all the GoPro mounts with the purchase of a £10 bracket, cheaper to buy, has a phone app for viewing etc.

The Sony one was used for the on bike stuff at the IOM TT this year, only found this out recently but the footage looked fantastic. If I had the cash it would be between the Sony and Nilox probably, don’t think I could justify a Gopro or Garmin when my bike is such a heap.

As it is I’ve just got a Rollei Youngstar (same as some of the cheap chinese ones on ebay but with a 2yr warranty) for £30, I think the price has gone up now though.

That Sony wheel footage is great! Never seen a POV movie from that angle before.

It’s a toss-up between the Sony AS30 and the Nilox F-60 then. The Outsider in me says go for the Nilox! Specs look great, and the bundle is generous. Battery life is another big factor for me. I still can’t believe the Gopro only gets around 40 minutes.

Nilox F-60

You’ll have to use Google translate for the link above, unless you speak Italian.

Nilox’s compatibility with GoPro mounts is another big temptation.

Nilox foolish ducati £170 on sports pursuit

http://www.sportpursuit.com/sales/nilox-foolish-ducati-action-camera

if you want to use my referral code to join use this link

http://www.sportpursuit.com/join/Jay_Houghton_5038

I believe the Nilox is the same as the Swann Freestyle and is a clone of the AEE Magicam SD21

Came very close to getting the Swann as Snow and Rock had them for about £120

Whilst the spec on those cameras looked good, the reviews suggested the footage wasn’t as good as the Sony which was frequently compared to the GoPro Black.

I heard that Nilox cameras were re-branded for Australia. Strangely Bike Radar reviewed the Foolish and the Swann, yet gave the Foolish much higher marks. Road CC liked it too. In fact I haven’t seen a bad review for the Nilox cameras. I wonder who is actually making them?

Were the poor marks for the Swann by Bike Radar to do with the lack of mounting options?

I think they are all made by AEE, but could be wrong.

The thing that separates the cheaper cameras from the more expensive ones seems to be how the cope with low light conditions, so if that’s important try and find some footage that highlights the difference. Almost all the footage you see from the manufaturers is shot in amazing light to show the camera at its best. For me low light performance was important as the light in the UK isn’t great, and especially so when your riding through a forest with tree cover.

Good luck with your hunting, it can take ages assessing all the options.

Nilox sponsor the worldsuperbikes, so I wouldn’t have thought they just sold rebadged cameras, but I don’t know what else they do. Bit of an odd company, I assume they’re Italian? I wonder if they do anything else just for the continental market?

It’s tricky. There’s a ton of options out there; not just the usual suspects.

Annoyingly, the generic AAE/Nilox camera seems to strike the best balance of image quality, adaptability, features and battery life. Road cc has an excellent demo movie taken in numerous light conditions with the Foolish, and it turned in a spectacular performance. The newer Nilox F60 version has a 16 megapixel sensor that appears to render very high quality images. The image quality actually seems to be a smidgen ahead of the Sony and very close to processed GoPro Black images.

Also looking at getting the new Sony as a first foray into POV cameras – although a bit concerned about the shape! (akwardness ontop of helmet or chestmount.. or on the bars) Any feedback from anyone who’s used one?

Here’s some Nilox Worldsuperbikes footage.

It’s hard not to be impressed! Well, viewed on an iPad anyway 😉

Nilox F60

Just watching the WSBK on the big TV in the lounge now, can’t see the cameras they’re using for the the onboard shots, probably smaller than the F60 and I don’t think the quality is as good as that demo.

Also, as an aside, just because the case is is used by two different manufacturers, it doesn’t mean the camera is, my Rollei is identical to the Polaroid X70 (I think) but the Rollei has a longer battery life and a wider FOV.

After much deliberation, I went with the GoPro Black. It was close though. The Sony and the Nilox F60 look really good, but the generic nature of the F60 (it pops up with different branding everywhere from Russia to Australia! Google ‘AEE action camera’), put me off, and the Sony, probably the second best POV camera out there, doesn’t quite have the very desirable feature set of the Black. I’ve got the sort of PC and software that can process the RAW output of the GoPro too. That sort of edged it. Finally, I had to consider the possible resale value on Ebay.

Needless to say I’ve ordered a couple of spare batteries too 🙁

One final thing I found was this forgotten actioncam gem by Panasonic. Great idea:

Panasonic HX-A100