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Hey!
I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with buying/using bike cameras?
I have a road bike and do 26km per day commuting to and from work. So I'm interested in getting a camera for my bike to record the daily ride should anything happen, and I have to produce evidence.
I leave quite early in the morning when it's still dark so good recording in low light would be important. I was thinking of one of the cheap chinese ones (akaso) but was put off by the reviews - exactly for poor low light performance.
There's the whole GoPro range but a lot of them have a through the roof price, and it's hard to know which is good. I had seen the session model. Small cube-like camera which might do the trick. Affordable too.
Any past-experience and/or info much appreciated!!
(Apologies if this information is elsewhere in the forum)
Thanks 🙂
Yi cameras look good for the money but I've not used one.
Thanks. Never heard of them before.
The camera looks great, bit pricey though
I have a Fly6 and a GoPro Session.
Both produce pretty good footage in daylight, but not really that good in twilight.
but not really that good in twilight
Really? I see some vids online and it's not bad - definitely better than the cameras you can get for under 100€ for example.
Twilight and night-time would be quite important. Either for the dark mornings in winter, to the early evenings in the autumn
Interested in this thread. I have an Aldi combine rear light/camera and while it's ok, a front facing camera would be much more use.
A dual-purpose camera in a GoPro format would be even better so that I can record my off road mincing....
Pleased with the image quality from my Shimano CM-2000. Battery life is pretty crap though, about an hour, so you have to remember to charge after pretty much every ride. Trawl the web for deals, can be found for £60+
Previous cheapo eBay special was better, but didn't have the funky phone app and nice choice of mounts (Shimano uses GoPro compatible).
Go-Pro Session or Polaroid Cube would be worth a look.
Yeah I'll definitely have a look on ebay etc for 2nd-hand deals.
I had forgot about that Polaroid cube product - very similar to the session in design.
I'd like the session because of the (relatively) good low-light performance and the fact they're so multi-purpose. I could easily pop it in the car with a mount, and it turns into a car dash-cam.
not wanting to get off-point of course...the main aim is to get a good bike camera 😀
These look cool, and give you those speedo overlays on your videos
https://www.mantel.com/uk/xplova-x5-evo?r=L3VrL2NvbXB1dGVycy1ncHMmdmlld19hbGw9MSNzdGFydDEzMA==
Wow haha
Looks awesome but miles out of my price range.
I've got a cheap camera and it's very good (for the money) in anything but low light.
TBH even in twilight it might be "good enough" ...
I've also got a GoPro 5 Black...and yep it's better and all but eats battery and storage compared to the cheap one when at higher res... (and actually being used beyond the capability of the cheap AMK 4000 camera) .. don't get me wrong its better in almost every way and if you want to make some once vids as well as evidence from a commute maybe worth paying more for an equivalent.
Its better in low light but I'm not so sure the cheap one would be unusable for the purpose of evidence. It might not be pretty in low light but it would probably be "good enough"
I’ve got a gopro session for my commute and it’s good in low light but not great. It would be ok for evidence of a crash, but no chance of getting the number plate of a close pass in the dark. Fine in daylight.
The battery is on on its way out though I think, it’s not lasting the whole ride in this cold weather, which is a bit crap. It’s only an hour and a half tops.
mate, GoPro Session 4, end of.
£150 max, one touch start/stop record. Easy.
Multiple mounting methods (nice bit of alliteration there too).
Beats all the competition.
I have a rear mounted Fly6 too, it's crap.
Ah-hooo!!!!
Try Aldi. I got a Go Pro copy for about £40 and it works great. They also do a rear light with a 1080 camera built in for a rear facing camera which looks like it might be useful for commuting duties. Not got one but again at £40 you can't go too wrong.
Proper Go Pro's and the like are big overkill for a basic camera for commuting duties I think. If you've already got one, or want a camera for other duties then fine, but if not and want something specifically for the commute then cheap and cheerful will be more than adequate.
Got a Go Pro Hero +LCD for sale for £80. Used twice. Once on holiday Snorkelling and on a motorbike ride.
"Interested in this thread. I have an Aldi combine rear light/camera and while it’s ok, a front facing camera would be much more use"
I use a second rear Aldi light at the front, cable-tied to the handlebars (light off 🙂 ) The circulating red light isn't noticeable next to my front light/in daylight. I masked the red lens with some yellow reflective tape
Useable under streetlights to pick out company names, approaching headlights tend to mask the reg number whether full dark or streetlights. Excellent in daytime
Hey again...
couldn't get round to replying, sorry.
To be honest I was decided on shelling out the cash for the new hero 5 session - 180GBP. Not cheap but awesome.
The big drawback being the battery life.
But TBH I'm now swinging towards the "good enough" argument. I had completely forgot about the AKASO range.
They're selling the AKASO EK7000 on amazon for 70GBP, and its got a 4.5 out of 5, from 2000 reviews.
Plus if it turns out to be crap, you can just return it to amazon.