Camera testing.

[visualpoet]

Finally got all the micro video cameras I ordered, so I took them out to test under various conditions. Ignore the date stamp, I haven't turned it off yet.

MD80, two unknown brand cameras and my phone camera were used for this video. a fourth camera is here, I didn't incorporate it into this test though.

Also get to show off the car a little bit. lol

[choppacity]

That is awesome, ive been thinking about doing something similar to this! What do you have controlling/recording the cameras?

[visualpoet]

They're all self contained and use micro SD cards for memory. I've also got a couple of the AA USB chargers like the one in the pic, so I can recharge on the road if I need to. For now, I made a quick little mount box from cardboard, covered in it some CF vinyl and use a couple of my kids' silicone silly bracelets to hold the cameras in place. I just trap it under the passenger headrest and I'm set, although I'm trying to decide if I want to change to a dash mount, which will probably mean either velcro or fabbing something else up as a mount.
I have to say I prefer the MD80 (forward camera, the black tall one) both for quality and functionality (I can attach it to my sunglasses and the sound quality is far better than the other two, as well as better than the MD80 I used last year), but it's 2 mp, and the others are 5mp, which makes for pretty big file sizes after a little bit of driving and is wasted when I edit them, since the 2mp decides the quality of the entire video. I had tried another 5mp camera as the forward, but I was very unhappy with the camera and it didn't want to work as advertised, so it went back. If I'd known I was going to stay at 2 mp, I would have just bought a fistful of MD80s and been done with it.






I've got a fourth microcam as well, but it's low light and is being turned into a sound/motion sensitive activated moving camera to add to the car for extra security/evidence/amusing video when people see it come on and start moving back and forth.