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Canon 5dmk2 Helmet POV Camera
I will be testing a demo version of the ContourHD “wearable” HD video camera. But I have not received it yet from the company. I have a shoot this weekend with a World Cup downhill mountain biker. So I had to come up with something! I am going to be the “chase bike”. I will be trying very hard to keep up with a fast mountain biker as he rips down a mountain. I wanted to mount my 5Dmk2 digital SLR to an old motocross helmet, so I did. I used corner brace metal as the mount and just bolted them to the helmet. I decided that a counter balance was necessary since the camera was a bit heavy. I used an old, dead Anton Bauer Hytron 50 camera battery. I first tried a 24mm f2.8 Canon lens on the 5Dmk2. I found this was not quite wide enough. I next tried a 16mm Nikon (with Canon EOS to Nikon adapter ring) f2.8 fisheye. This worked great. Take a look at the video link at the bottom of the page for a test of the system. The light was fading and I just managed to get this done late this afternoon. I hope to test this more on Thursday at the mountain in much better light. I will also experiment with higher shutter and closing the aperture on the fish eye for a deeper DOF.
This video blog is by no way endorsed by Philip Bloom of philipbloom.co.uk. 26 comments to Canon 5dmk2 Helmet POV Camera |
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Copyright © 2012 Tom Guilmette - All Rights Reserved |
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Nice!! Forget the ContourHD… Although, it would be a bit lighter… and smaller… and less devastating if you crashed… I hope you have good insurance.
I have four ContourHD’s on order. It seems they are getting close to shipping.
sweet. they are sending me one the week of Sept 7th!
Hey Tom -
Thanks for posting this – Very cool. Image is a lot more stable than I thought it would be considering the only shock mount / damping is pretty much coming from the foam in the helmet, correct? (And the full-suspension bike I guess)
Good job avoiding the death cookies / baby heads (AKA “boulders”) and bog of eternal stench.
Looking forward to the ContourHD footage / writeup – You just may have inspired me to strap my DVX100 to my head and hit some trails until that time.
yea actually my neck is the shock absorber! i will be using this on a full suspension downhill mt bike this thursday at speeds of 50 miles an hour, so we shall see what happens.
Hi there,
we used the Contour as Pov Cam during the TV production for the Windsurfing & Kiteboarding World Cup in August and converted / Downscaled the HD footage to PAL SD. The footage was aired by major TV stations throughout Europe.
Although the cam was way better than previous lipstick cams we had used, we did find the footage very soft. The super agressive h264 compression and the crappy lens eliminate a lot of details. (No wonder for a cam with that price tag)
When you use Contour footage in a SD project it does quite all right, but even there it looks soft. When used in a HD project it really does not match good.
But with the ease of use and the fast turnaround th Contour did the job for us.
cheers,
Chris
my bud eric said that the contourHD cam does not work well in sun/dark patches in the forest. i will soon have it to test. thanks for the info.
Probably all the 5D2 is good for now,(a POV Cam) now that the 7D is here …hahha.
Nice try Tom, I’m on to you.
Cheers Rambo
yea, the 5d mark 2 is old news now with the 7d! philip bloom is gonna get his hands on it before me!
wow. not sure I would’ve done that with a 5dMkII, but I’m glad somebody did. good results, Tom. What about using your Lumix, or did you already try that?
the lumix just is not wide enough. i really like this setup. i will test it tomorrow on the mtn!
Very cool, until you loose focus on how far it sticks out or take a spill and mess up the camera. Hey no guts no glory right.
yea. i had trouble walking thru doors in my house when i tested it out!
Congratulations Tom!
This a brilliant idea! I look for a solution for the fixing of the camera for a long time. I try it on my motorcycle.
good luck, tell me how it goes.
Hi,
One way for carrying only half weight is attaching the camera under the helmet (You will not need counterweigth, or an smaller one)
http://jelmetcamexperience.blogspot.com/2009/02/70-soporte-universal.html
Image can be more interesting with handlebar on first place.
Saludos !
i could, but not with the size and weight of the canon 5dmk2! i now have a contourHD camera so i can stick that almost anywhere!
you’re a brave man for strapping such an expensive camera to the side of your head, but the footage looked great!
thanks! the camera worked quite well under heavy vibration. probably took a few years of life off the thing tho!
You are a brave man. I remember duct taping a Sony handycam to the side of my dirtbike helmet years ago. All was going great until I wnt down a set of stairs (dont ask) and took a serious wipeout. Camera caught the fall but nothing else ever again..LOL
gonna stick the 5dmk2 on the snowmobile this winter! chasing you!!!
I can’t believe how stable the shot is. Looking forward to see the footage.
the footage is up. check out the alex couture video on the site!
you think there will be a few 5dmk2s being dumped cheap now with the 7d available? I thought the 5d would be more valuable since it’s full frame???
i think the 5dmk2 will hold its value because it is full frame and the fact that it is rumored that newer firmware will up the functionality of the 5dmk2 with 24p recording and possible more frame rates/formats.
Tom these guys took your 5Dmk2 headCam to a whole new level
http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/images/CameraConfigs/Helmet-cam.jpg
Cheers Rambo
wow. that is soooo bad for the spine and neck! looks like a remote follow focus and video transmitter so that someone can control focus somewhere else. SICK!