Need Helmet Mounted Camera advice

Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:48 pm

Hi everyone. I need to take some digital video while formation flying and I thought the collective wisdom and experience of the group might help me solve a couple of problems.

I want to mount a digital video camera on the side of my helmet - roughly at eye level. I want the camera to look where I'm looking. I need the camera to have the following two characteristics:

1) A plug for a lavalier mike. I want to be able to shove the mike under one of the helmet earcups so as to pick up all communications without a lot of engine noise. The mike has to be small.

2) The exposure has to be adjustable. The following two still frames were taken by me with my digital photo camera which has the ability to take short movies. Believe it or not, the video was taken on a clear, sunny, blue sky day! I was in a Super Decathlon and held the camera on the glare shield as I pulled a loop. Clearly the image is overexposed. I need to be able to stop it down some.

There's a helmet mounted cam by Tachyon which might be ok except I don't think it has a plug for an external mike.

Has anyone had experience with this? Any ideas?

I can't expect there will be someone in the back seat to do the filming. Besides, as I say, I want the camera to look where I'm looking.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks!

Last edited by Saville on Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fri Aug 21, 2009 7:03 pm

I'm not sure what to tell you on the exposure, but I do have a suggestion for the audio. When I record comms, I use a 1/4" jack-splitter (which you can buy at Radio Shack or a music store) and plug it into the headphone jack in the airplane. The headset jack is exactly the same as the 1/4", if you have civilian plugs. Then plug your headset into one of the open plugs, and a cable to your recorder in the other. *quick edit* the cable from the other plug to your camera should be a 1/4" to 1/8"... but check on your recorder.

By doing this, you will eliminate almost all of the engine noise without placing something under your headset (can get uncomfortable after a while). I've used this method in a variety of aircraft and have not had a problem yet. One word of caution though, make sure you test it out and arrange your cables prior to flying... It can save you a big headache later.

If you need more specifics on cables or anything, just let me know. Good luck with your project.

Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:11 pm

You may want to look at the Evolution system at www.raceoptics.com We have one of their systems in the P-51, and it seems to work great. It records right to a SD card, and if you want to go up to 4 cameras, you can go with the quad pro system. The unit is smal enough that you can put it in a flight suit pocket during the flight.

Fri Aug 21, 2009 9:30 pm

Check an Ed Shipley Horseman video from Oshkosh a couple of years ago over at ASB.
He flew the wing with a helmet cam. Lauderback led in Crazy Horse, Ed flew wing. They flew the routine both on the wing and then in the belly.
Rich

Fri Aug 21, 2009 10:11 pm

You could always buy a cheap $300 netbook computer and use a USB webcam and a USB extension cable long enough to work. Use the connector at the usb extension cable and the webcam end to connect or disconnect it from you as needed.

Netbook computers with solid state drives in them should be ideal because they can get knocked around and handle some abuse without crashing the hard drive. In this setup you could probably wire in a headcam and a cockpit webcam both. IMHO, it would be interesting to wire a warbird with USB and multiple view webcams. My guess is it would be around $500 for the computer, cameras, misc parts and cables.

Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:57 am

kmiles wrote:You may want to look at the Evolution system at www.raceoptics.com We have one of their systems in the P-51, and it seems to work great. It records right to a SD card, and if you want to go up to 4 cameras, you can go with the quad pro system. The unit is smal enough that you can put it in a flight suit pocket during the flight.

Kmiles,

Thanks this may be just what I need. I have wondered if having the camera inside the cockpit would affect the exposure setting causing the outside to be overexposed. I'll check into their web page.

Saville

Sat Aug 22, 2009 8:49 am

kmiles wrote:You may want to look at the Evolution system at www.raceoptics.com We have one of their systems in the P-51, and it seems to work great. It records right to a SD card, and if you want to go up to 4 cameras, you can go with the quad pro system. The unit is smal enough that you can put it in a flight suit pocket during the flight.

Is this the same system used by the the Collings group in there P-51C??

Lynn

Sat Aug 22, 2009 8:52 am

We have found the Quad pro system to adjust to changing light conditions pretty well. We have one mounted in the rear cockpit looking forward out through the cockpit, and it seems to do ok even when flying into the sun. Kyle at Race Optics may be able to give you some pointers for setting the cameras at a mid setting so that it is not too dark when looking away from the sun, but dark enough not to wash out when looking into it.

Sat Aug 22, 2009 9:41 am

The good news is that the helmet cams have come a long way. 5 years ago I bought a popular system for my motocross racing. I think I paid $800 for it. It was ok at the time, but the video quality looks really dated now. The hot ticket today is the new Gopro series, which uses a wide angle capture. I used my old cam while doing acro in the Pitts and found the narrow view made a crappy video (for lack of better terms). I don't know which system would be best for your usage, but the Gopro specs can be found here:

http://www.goprocamera.com

for a comparison on how much better the quality is with today's systems as displayed on Gopro's website, look at this old (now crappy) video shot with my cam about 3 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ4lyu0zhTk

Sat Aug 22, 2009 4:35 pm

acropilot wrote:I'm not sure what to tell you on the exposure, but I do have a suggestion for the audio. When I record comms, I use a 1/4" jack-splitter (which you can buy at Radio Shack or a music store) and plug it into the headphone jack in the airplane. The headset jack is exactly the same as the 1/4", if you have civilian plugs. Then plug your headset into one of the open plugs, and a cable to your recorder in the other. *quick edit* the cable from the other plug to your camera should be a 1/4" to 1/8"... but check on your recorder.

By doing this, you will eliminate almost all of the engine noise without placing something under your headset (can get uncomfortable after a while). I've used this method in a variety of aircraft and have not had a problem yet. One word of caution though, make sure you test it out and arrange your cables prior to flying... It can save you a big headache later.

If you need more specifics on cables or anything, just let me know. Good luck with your project.

Acropilot - very good idea thanks!