2013-05-13T21:00:00
Rated 3 out of 5
Okay IQ, Wind and condensation issues
I bought this for my girlfriend to record movies on her motorcycle rides. I mounted it on top of her helmet and it worked out perfectly. The camera sits a little high, but the field of view is pretty good, even at the 120 degrees settings. The color in the recordings might be off but look good. Shots are a little blurry, but looks to be about comparable for action cameras.
Issues with this camera is that when the camera is in the waterproof case (which it needs to be since all the mounts attach to the case), it will start to create condensation in the case in front of the lens in about 15 minutes. I saw that sony sells anti-condensation strips to put in the case, but I just drilled the case to provide air and better sound. It's no longer waterproof but we do all our riding in dry weather anyway. Speaking about the sound, the sound quality is good, until you start traveling about 10 MPH then the wind sound takes over. I don't know what can be done about that, and it seems like all action cameras suffer that same issue.
Night shots are pretty good in that you actually can still see details and the backlit sensor works well here. Better than probably all other action cameras. The only issue is that it is quite blurry, as if the camera is set on a fixed focus somewhere that isn't quite right. It's still better than not recording anything and is usable.
By the way, there is a firmware update for the camera and you can record 1080p at 60 FPS with sound. That's what I use. With a 32 GB memory card, the battery will last about 2.5 hours of recording.
Overall, it's a decent camera, but as always, there is room for improvement. Oh as a side note, you can find mounts for this camera on thingyverse to print on 3d printers that will hold the camera without the case if you wanted. I haven't tried it as the camera works well on top of the helmet.
Ford T.
