Hi Guys,

I am only new to these forums, but have been an onlooker for a while.

With Action Cameras becoming more and more popular these days I am interested in what cams people are using to film their windsurfing adventures.

I have done a bit of sport/game fishing in the past and most of the boats I have been involved with use GoPro’s, for both above and below the water filming. After looking into what other cameras are currently available, it seems that there is lots of serious competition around the top end of the market.

Obviously each camera will have its positives/negatives and certain applications will suit one camera better than the others.

I am currently considering the following cameras;
Garmin Virb Elite
GoPro Hero 3+ Black
Sony Action Cam 2 (HDR-AS30V)
Contour Roam 2

If anybody has feedback on any or all of the above cameras it would be greatly appreciated as I would like to make an informed decision before purchasing.


Regards Greg.

Hi

I just bought an action cam after doing weeks of research, and wanted one specifically for recording my progress.

I just want to say, GoPro's are like Apple products. Nothing special, but have a strong marketing team and promotions from athletes making it appear better then the rest. They are also a complete ripoff because of this.

I settled for the Contour Roam 2 and awaiting its delivery. It was $199 delivered, small and light AND waterproof (no case needed unless your going scuba diving). Over 3 hours recording time (the longest for any action cam) and can be mounted to your baseball cap, with a small plastic mount I got for $38 delivered.

It should be here within the next couple days so I'll post back with my final review, but theirs already a myriad of them and it ticks all the boxes.

I didn't like the idea of mounting a camera on my board, for fear the mast/sail will fall onto it. The Roam 2 will be mounted on the side of my cap for a POV style recording. I don't like the idea of trying to mount a bigger camera to the side of my head, doesn't seem comfortable, I don't want to know its their.

Hope this helps.

PS: Only downside I can think of is the contour roam 2 doesn't have an interchangeable battery (from memory)

Im no expert but have had some fun doing vids. I have the original GoPro and am very happy with it. For someone who just wants to do a bit of filming sailing or supping with your mates its ideal. You can mount them a myriad of ways, I have Flymount, helmet mount, boom mount and board mount for different perspectives. They are pretty robust (have had some good high speed stacks and no probs) and easy to use.
A good quality SD card is the go. I can get a couple of hours of footage.
Don't know anything about the others so its a thumbs up for the Gorpro for me.

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Sailfish87 said..

I've had the Contour Roam 2's for a year. I like them because they are simple to use. The video quality is pretty good. To record, it's Slide Lock. The only disadvantage is the 0.5m depth rating (an issue if you tape the camera to the top of your mast and then stack it so that camera ends up 4m below the water), it's weight and that the company no longer exist.

I've got a pair of Replay-XD minis for 3D recording. These are light weight, small, duel wide angle view and normal view, simple to power on/record (like the Contour) and have a versatile package (ie: they are cirular and you can use push bike reflect adaptor, or hose clips to or even electrical tape mount them). The quality is okayish, but I'm disappointed that the image gets badly washed out my the sun (most of my shots are facing westward in the arv). I probably need to play with the settings to fix this. In all fairness, I haven't played with these cameras enough. As soon as the season kicked in, I lost interest in filming (my priority is sailing, not filming). I'll post some of this 3D video in winter when I have time to process it. So watch this space on that.

The Go-Pro's I've never been a big fan of. The 1.0 (which I have used) was too complicated to use in the field. I have never liked the package and the fact that an enclosure needs to be used for water sports. Gopro always seem to have endless firmware issues with the unit's freezing up.

Just beware as soon as the lens/cover of your action cam becomes misted from vapour, salt or sun screen cream, your high end camera that you paid an extra $200 for the best and the latest chipset becomes a $30 one. My opinion for windsurfing: is don't get too hung up over quality. Look at reliably and simplicity.

just get a gopro 3 or newer.

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jn1 said..

The Go-Pro's I've never been a big fan of. The 1.0 (which I have used) was too complicated to use in the field. I have never liked the package and the fact that an enclosure needs to be used for water sports. Gopro always seem to have endless firmware issues with the unit's freezing up.

I have had the GoPro 1 for more than 5 years. Can't quite see what you mean with "too complicated". Push the front button to turn it on. Push the top button to start filming. Push it again to stop. Seems easy enough for me.

I have used it for about 50-100 sessions each year. With about 2 hours of video each sessions, I have a few terabytes of video around. I have replaced the original housing with the dive housing, since it sheds drops better; the new housing is similar. I also had to replace the batteries once in these 5 years ($20 for a pair of aftermarket ones with more capacity and charger). Some example videos at /videos

I never had firmware issues after updating the firmware once, about a month or two after buying the camera.

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jn1 said..

Just beware as soon as the lens/cover of your action cam becomes misted from vapour, salt or sun screen cream, your high end camera that you paid an extra $200 for the best and the latest chipset becomes a $30 one. My opinion for windsurfing: is don't get too hung up over quality. Look at reliably and simplicity.

Condensation on the inside is the only issue I have encountered. The anti-fog strips work well enough to address the issue. Wash the outside with a bit of dish detergent once in a while, and keep sunscreen off. To shed drops better, rub some spit on the lens cover before you go out. If the GoPro housing would ever get badly scratched, replacing it costs just $50.

I generally make 960p movies of the entire session, and later look for the good parts or screen shots. Have thought about getting a newer model with a remote, but it's not worth the money for me. Screen shots from the movie are perfectly fine for posting online on my blog - here's an example from a recent session:


5 years, hundreds of sessions, several hundred hours of windsurfing videos, still as good as on the first day - as far as electronic gadgets go, that's pretty darn good reliability in my book.

I have just got the Garmin Virb, i have only used it once as there has been no wind but look good to me.

Thanks for the replies posted so far guys...
Some great info there, its good to hear from people using a variety of cams.


Greenleader, those pics off the GoPro look great, "A picture is worth a thousand words"
Like you, we have always found they take great footage however I don't think we have ever captured stills of that quality though.

Boardsurfr, I agree that your GoPro has proven to be very reliable if it has provided 5 years of good service. It sounds like the GoPro does everything you require with pretty much no associated issues.

Jas71, that video does look pretty good – I thought someone might be using a Garmin.
I have been seriously considering a VIRB Elite as I think the GPS and data overlay would be a cool feature to add to vids.
I am a little cautious as I don't want to spend the same amount of money as I would on a GoPro and end up disappointed with the video quality as I can see the overlays being a bit of a gimmick –as cool as it sounds i am not sure how often I would want to refer to the additional data.

Sailfish87 I agree 100% i tried the GPS overlay on that video but it was way out. As i said it was the first time i had used it so it is hard to say how good it is as yet.
I was also looking at the Shimano sports camera and it looks quite good water proof to 10m and a 135deg wide angle lens. I would be interested in hearing from anybody who has used it.
www.shimanofish.com.au/content/fish/oceania/au/en/homepage/articles.html

Bought a sony last year for skiing. AWSOME for the price.

Always depends on how you're going to use it, anyhow here's my lengthy take for my usage.
I have maybe 50 heavy uses of the GoPro Hero 3+ so far, both planing freestyle (well, trying stuff) and non-planing.

I beat the bejesus out of it: hammered rocky bottom with the boom when it was clew-mounted - ouch, forgot it was there.
Missed flakas when top-mast mounted, I even landed & stepped on a board-mounted suction cup - to no avail, it just keeps going.

You can freeze frames at 1-60th no problem, it's not interpolated unlike cheap cams (for Contour & others I don't know).
No it's not complicated to use, but it's more fun with the remote, a must when mast-mounted.
I never drained the battery after 2 hours, that's probably its top shelflife, I don't even know. I get tired before 'it'.
I have 2 spares - never used'em yet.

The pic stabilizer is unreal - I tried everything to break it, including a wobbly, clumsy home-made 6" extension for a mast-mount,
and the picture still comes out clear. No idea how that works. Coming from the old Sony and Cannon cams where breathing kills
the shot for a full 2 seconds, that is refreshing..

Bits & pieces are expensive in-store, but rather inexpensive from the net. I use the LightnBox web site, real cheap.

I'm not saying other cameras don't do all of the above, just saying I don't see how they can do it much better, as stated above.
Even the GoPro 4 is no improvement to me: more $$ for 4k or the viewer, neither of which I care for.

Cons are extremely minor, even added together, but here are some for the picky ones:

in HD at 60 frames, it creates new files after some 12-15 minutes - annoying, but very very minor.
It's prob. better this way with the native filesize.

The supplied software sucks and doesn't do 90 degrees (not that it's ever desired).
Just use QuickTime Pro, which is wonderful at it all, and dirt cheap. Just don't load their stupid software.

There is no AVI, only MOVs contained in an MP4. Very livable, perhaps better thusly.
Using the fast VDub woulda been fun on AVIs, but alas.

Sound quality is terrible when on and around water, except I so don't care.
Cannot select-delete individual clips, but I really don't care on a 64Gb card, esp. when windsurfing.
Can't delete files from a USB connection, must either delete all or take it out on a USB mini-socket where selective deletes are allowed.
No biggie., but their reason given ("security"??) sounds like BS.

The battery for the remote drains quickly, like 1 hour. Annoying, but liveable, I turn mine off once the cam is started.
This is fixed with the Hero 4 am told?

Hope this helps, best of sailing in 2015..

I have a GoPro original and i find it takes fully sic vids like any other vid you see uploaded by what appears to be professionals. It seems the quality and the talent of person in the frame that changes......i am improving though. Still not good enough to share......with the public

here is my older post on the subject:

joewindsurfer.blogspot.com/2012/12/gopro-hero.html

What 'discussion we were having'? 2 months ago...

Spammer

But seeing as though you brought it up - I would not go anywhere near Hobbyking.

It is an Asian chain that tries to lend some credibility to itself by having an aussie webstore. But when u ask a question, yup you guessed it - reply is in Engrish from some idiot in Shonk Kong. And what is "aussie stock" often isn't. I can only imagine what would happen if we had a problem with one of these Turnigy cameras.

The real stores are simply HobbyKing buying out the independents, then only stocking their own stuff. My local hobby store went from having a great range of vehicles and being able to buy racing spares there, to now only have battery operated foam planes and cheap rebranded LiPo's. It almost kileld the local club as nobody could get quality fuel or tyres

So no, I'd rather spend $400 ona GoPro just on principle.

^^^ offending spam before my post was removed. I am not nuts and talking at Joe all angry lol