Buying A Helmet Cam For a Dirt Bike

I gave my trusty Swann helmet-cam away last year, just after selling Siouxsie.  The Swann was a good journeyman helmet-cam that never let me down.  The quality was good enough for uploading to YouTube and stills were clear, if a little too wide angle.  However, with some new bikes, and lots of adventures planned, I'm in the market for another.  So I began researching the plethora of models out there...  

Jesus.

My first stop was to the excellent Web Bike World which I already have a link to on the blog. The author(s) go out of their way to review all sorts of motorcycle products in a non biased and informative way.  They are thorough but not overwhelming.  As well as a written review, there are usually several videos and pictures to accompany them.  Web Bike Word reviews many popular and some not so well known models of motorcycle worthy camcorders: Midland, Blackvue, Garmin, Sena, Liquid Image, Go-Pro, Sony, JVC, Delkin, Drift and Replay to mention a few.  Among these, there are some stellar models, and Go-Pro doesn't have it all their own way either.  

But then I found a better site, which the folks at Web Bike World put me on to in their own discussions: Techmoan.

Techmoan is a site hosted by a concrete sequential Mancunian motorcyclist with an eye for detail, a sense of humour, and a diligent devotion to evaluating products without regard for sponsors (he has none) or personal gain.  I cannot believe the time this man puts into his informative, entertaining and, above all, thorough reviews. For nothing. 

After my previous experience with a helmet cam, I had a definite list of requirements for a good helmet cam: many of which were adequately met by my first camera.

• Included Waterproof housing
• Easy to affix to helmet
• Remote Control - no fiddling with a case on the side of my helmet, or worse, as is the case with some of helmet cams, having to remove it from the waterproof case to record and stop...
• An LCD screen so that aiming of the camera would not be hit and miss (no iPhone or Android apps for this please - juggling electronics is not what dirt riding is about).
• 1080P and at least 30 frames per second and 720P at 60fps for slow motion
• 120-170 degree Field of View
• Still-shot capable with the ability to take delayed stills every minute or so (I found this really useful on my first camera - it's amazing what shots you get when you just let the camera do its thing).
• Good battery duration
• Live view that can record and charge at the same time

Oh, and it had to be less than the cheapest Go Pro ($279 for the GoPro 3 at Future Shop).

Many cameras out there nearly fit the bill, but only one does.  There are some honourable mentions though: the ridiculously cheap ($68.99 @ Ebay.com / $98.76 @Amazon.ca)  Mobius with new hard case from JooVuu is an excellent little camera but has no viewfinder; the ($89 Ebay) SJ400 Chinese GoPro 3 knockoff is fabulous and CHEAP, as it its little brother the SJ1000  which itself is a Liquid Ego ($180 Amazon.ca / $149 Ebay.com)  knockoff...I'm beginning to see how the Japanese killed off the British Bike industry in the late 60s and early 70s...only now it's the Chinese undermining the Japanese, US and Korean imaging industry. Really these are great cameras, and Go Pro is heading for a fall unless they innovate soon...

But my final choice, is the $179 Coleman Conquest - known everywhere else on the planet as the pedestrian  TCL SVC200 .  It ticks all the boxes, and with free delivery and no tax (getting it shipped to my in-laws in Washington State - strictly for evaluation use down there, of course...)  The vid is great.  You'll particularly enjoy the man waiting for the bus "singing" (and I use that term very loosely) his lungs out to a U2 track...Let this be a sage warning to us mere mortals...Never sing with headphones on.

I'll let you know how it fairs after a few months or so...Now where's that bike...