Helmet Cameras for Mountain Biking (Part 1)
There’s no better way to share your experience bombing down a trail then to have actual video footage of it to show your friends. Helmet cameras have become very popular since camcorders and lenses have shrunk in size.
I have been creating helmet cameras since 2001 and the one thing I’ve found is that you have to sacrifice picture quality for convenience. There are two types of helmet cameras for mountain biking.
Lipstick Camera or Remote Lens
This type consists of a separate camera lense often shaped like lipstick which is attached to your helmet. There are cables going from the camera lenses to a recording device in your backpack. While this type of setup is often the lightest for the rider’s head, this setup is the heaviest and picture quality and convenience is sacrificed.
In addition to the lens on the helmet, the rider needs to carry a recording device, batteries for the camera, wires and sometimes a small microphone. In order to begin the recording, the rider would have to hit record on the camcorder and then place it in his backpack, put the backpack on, and then ride off.
Camcorder on Your Head
The camcorder on your head has always provided the best quality picture of any helmet camera set up. By placing the entire camcorder on your helmet, you are using the camcorder’s large lens and all the electronics behind it. You get it’s auto-focusing ability, its large CMOS or CCD and most importantly it’s image stabilization function. There are also no wires going from your helmet to your backpack.
The main disadvantage of this method is the weight of the entire camcorder is on your head. In fact, the weight of 2X the camcorder will be on your head. This is because you mount the camcorder on one side of the helmet and you will need to counter-balance it with an equal weight on the other side.
My Recommendation - Panasonic SDR-S10 - Camcorder on your head method
Last week, I believe that I have found the “perfect” mountain biking helmet camera. It is the Panasonic SDR-S10 camcorder. While it is not the best in any separate category, it’s has all the attributes needed to be a good helmet camera.
- Low price ($230-$270)
- Records on SD card
- Super light weight
- Horizontally mounted
- Decent image stabilization
There are many reviews of this camcorder itself on the net, Cnet.co.uk has a very good review. However, this article is about using it as a helmet camera so I won’t go through basic camcorder functionality or usability.
This camcorder weighs under 0.5 lbs. Add another 0.5 lb counter weight to the other side of your helmet and you’re set up only weighs in at 1 lb. I have found that you get used to this extra pound of weight very quickly.
The fact that it records on an SD card instead of a mini-DV or hard drive means that it can take the shaking and vibrations during a ride without missing a frame.
Being a horizontally designed camcorder enables us to mount this to our helmet very easily.
The fact that we are using the actual camcorder lens means that we get the benefit of using its image stabilization during our filming.
The Mount
The first thing I had to do was fabricate a mounting bracket to attach the camcorder to my helmet. I created a template from a piece of cardboard and through trial and error I came up with two mount points on the helmet. To mount the camcorder onto the mounting bracket I decided to use the tripod hole at the bottom of the camcorder.
Once I had the cardboard template completed, I created my mounting bracket out of a thin sheet of aluminum. I mounted the camcorder using a bolt on the bottom and my main portion of the helmet camera was complete.
Details
The mount point on the helmet will be different for everyone. This is determined by the type of helmet you have and also by the angle of your head while you ride. To mount the bracket to my helmet I used two screws. I drilled two holes through my helmet and used a tee-nut on the inside of the helmet. A tee-nut (shown on the image to the left) has 3 sharp prongs that bite into the helmet.
With the aluminum bracket the weight on the left side of my helmet was just over 0.6 lbs. I had to counter weight it with 0.6 lbs on the other side. In the past, I just zip tied some lead strips to my helmet. But this time I decided to make that weight useful. I attached a small pouch to the right side of my helmet so that I could fill it up with things that I needed to bring anyway. A sunglass case works perfectly to carry things. So what works in the case? Anything that fits that isn’t a hazard when you fall.
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