Please give me your oppinions about camera angle

houkouonchi

So with all the stupid drivers in California I decided to start recording myself and road whenever I am driving. I bought a relatively cheap ($300) camcorder which reacords onto SD memory and can do 1080@60p. I haven't recieved my high capacity SDHC card so I recorded at 720@30p due to only having 2 GB of space.

So here is the first recording in my car I made of the video:



I stopped by fry's to get an inverter so I don't have to always record off batteries and an extension cable as the power adapter did not have a very long cord and the video is from my Work -> Frys. In the future I will likely record at 1080@30p so I have enough recording time for my to/from work daily commute.

No need to watch the whole video as I just uploaded the whole thing. I am curious about what people think of the camera angle. Should I have it angled up more so its just on the road? I thought it would be good to see the tach/speedo as well as the cars in front of me but I was worried about one or the other being blurry.

I am thinking thinking that in the future I should turn on the parking lights so the dash lights up so the instrument panel can be seen better as there was too much reflection on the road causing the tach/speedo/etc.. to not be able to be seen in a lot of the vid.

I am guessing if I focused it more on the road it would probably give higher quality video's but I was pretty darn impressed with the quality of what this relatively cheap camcorder gave me. I recorded a few other vids on my old $1000 HD based 1080@24p camcorder but it weighs too much making the video too bouncy *and* I am gonna kill the HD with all the bumps in the road so I bought a cheap one to specifically use for when driving.

Also I guess if I want to post on youtube I gotta be careful about having the radio on, lol.

In case no sound does bug anyone I put the original (and higher quality) version on my server:

http://box.houkouonchi.jp/drive_from...in_my_370z.mp4

kenchan

Looks good. Do you have a pict of the mount used?

houkouonchi

This is the exact mount I am using:

Amazon.com: Panavise 809 Camera Window Suction-Cup Mount: Camera & Photo

As many others said it did not come with the extension arm and I had to contact the company to get it but they were pretty prompt on shipping it out.

Here is the pic with the extension arm:

Customer Image Gallery for Panavise 809 Camera Window Suction-Cup Mount

The camera is mounted so its right near my head. If I move my head a bit to the left I will hit the camera. This makes looking over my shoulder a little bit awkward. I think one or two of the times it made me drift a little bit to the right when looking over my left shoulder, heh.

kenchan

Oh I see. Yah u don't want that thing becoming a tragectory in an accident so I would find one that mounts to the headrest posts and mount it on the passenger seat (mine's vacant)

houkouonchi

Like this?

CruiseCam In-Car Headrest Camera Mount

I am hoping I can mount it on the drivers seat. I want the camera to be as near my head as it can be so I can properly see the speedo/tach. I actually like the curent position quite a bit but it could definitely be a bit farther back so more could be seen.

This place is in Burbank, CA so not all that far from where I work in L.A. I will order one and see if I can pick it up after work today or tomorrow. Having it mounted on the seat would be a lot better as I would not have to worry about disconnecting power cables or the cables being in the way when opening my door not to mention I can roll down my window =)

spearfish25

You're investing a bunch of money in something that will give you little or no return. Insurance companies don't really care about your home video, and the likelihood of having an incident happen that will be caught on your camera and somehow need the camera for evidence is infinitesimally small. I suppose you could be one of those people who uploads their videos onto the local news website for a quick shout-out though.

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houkouonchi

Well the way I see it is if I always use it when I am driving then I will have evidence if its every needed. I figured if anything it would be nice for me to mock people that do stupid things that people do on the road and post a video on youtube of them doing it =P

I am not the perfect driver but some things just erk me.. I still haven't received my >2 GB flash card or I would have had it on video but these people wait till the last second to get into the lane for the exit ramp and make me just about completely stop ... annoying as hell.

Mt Tam I am

The video quality is very high. Take it on a canyon run. It will be much more interesting. Your current mounting allows the viewer to see your gauges, while a head rest mount will open up the field of view on the road. A trade off.

Recording the canyons will provide a great visual for all of us who don't know exactly what we are missing.

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Osiris

What if you use the suction cup mount and put it on the rear hatch window closest to the seats and face it forward? Or would that block the rear view mirror too much?

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VCuomo

Three fourths of the car isn't even visible! What you'll most likely get is a nice view of someone else's accident in front of you or of you rear-ending someone - not someone hitting you on either of the rear quarter panels or rear end. Most likely a waste of time and money, IMHO.

houkouonchi

Ok, I took my first vid using the 'cruisecam' but I don't know how it turned out.

I don't feel like unmounting the camera right now which would be needed due to the fact that the SD card reader in my monitor doesn't read the 16GB card I bought =(

As soon as I get a chance to I will retrieve the files and probably upload another vid on youtube.

EazyD

You could set the exposure manually on the camera so it doesn't keep changing based on how bright the scene is. Does putting the headlights on dim the dashboard? Most cars do because it figures it's dark outside so as to not blind the driver with a bright dash

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houkouonchi

Not sure how well manually setting the exposure is gonna work for my uses.

Anyway I got my video's off and took some pics of the cruisecam. Unfortunately I had the camera pointed a little too much to the left (trying to get my speedo/tach which would only be useful at night anyway). Next time I will point it so its more strait: