Bikers What Cam Do You Use?

Soldato
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Yes and yes - there's a twin battery pack and charger on the rainforest, the normal battery is 1010mAh, the pack comes with 2x 1200mAh batteries.

They last around 20 minutes longer (80-90 minutes) at 1080p 60fps and high settings than the standard battery, so that means with the 3 batteries I have nearly 4 hours of total recording time. My 45 minute commute in the mornings leaves the battery with around 45% battery life.

Oh and you can record on the Yi when it's being charged, even without a battery in - I can see me rigging up one of these as an always on camera powered by the bike on a top box when I get a touring/summer bike (Multistrada), with a battery in you'd only ever be limited by sd card space. 60 minutes is about 12GB of video, so that's abut 5 hours you can fit on a 64GB card.
 
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IC3

IC3

Soldato
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Aren't you tempted to see how much you can get out of those batteries with the LED's turned off? :) In my case the Yi holds longer, not sure how long as I haven't measured it.
 
Soldato
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I'll charge up a battery and let you know :) Only problem then is that you don't know when it's run out of battery!

I bought a 20000mAh powerbank and I'll need this if I do any timelapse as it only lasted the same amount of time as doing video, so for long stuff it needs external power.

Edit: So 80 minutes with the LEDs on... 82 minutes with them off. :p

I think I'll keep them on :D
 
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One

One

Soldato
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I was thinking about it, I'll need to build/buy something that takes bike voltage/amperage down to yi levels though. I'd probably have the only forty year old bike with a usb outlet :p
 
Caporegime
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I was thinking about it, I'll need to build/buy something that takes bike voltage/amperage down to yi levels though. I'd probably have the only forty year old bike with a usb outlet :p

you can get plug an play usb connectors for bikes.
 
Soldato
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Not sure if his bike runs on a normal 12v battery though, being 40 years old.

if it does, then year it just needs a boogo standard ebay usb power, they take 12v and output 5v.
 
Soldato
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I've done a proper relay on my CB400 with distribution block etc, so that my USB port and heated grips are only on when the ignition is on.

I'll want to have a powered connection in a top box on my next bike, looks dead easy to do too, that way I can have a camera mounted on the top box powered by the bike, and charging points in the top box for kit.
 
Soldato
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Anyone who has a GoPro with an external mic, does the mic cancel out any road noise and only record what the mic picks up? Or will I still hear traffic and background noise?
 
Soldato
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Anyone who has a GoPro with an external mic, does the mic cancel out any road noise and only record what the mic picks up? Or will I still hear traffic and background noise?

It'll depend on where you mount it, inside your helmet should eliminate any wind noise but you'll still get background/exhaust noise. I'm pretty sure they don't have noise cancellation like the bluetooth headsets which cancel out road/wind/exhaust noise. It'll record exactly what the mic hears.

Where you mount it depends if you want it to pick up your voice - you could mount the mic anywhere on the bike with a long enough mic cable.
 
Soldato
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Yeah it's all good - the 1200mAh batteries I got last a full days commute, 45 minutes to work and 40 minutes home - and I get pretty much a full weeks worth of recording onto the 64gb sd card at 1080p 60fps high quality settings. It's never crashed or stopped recording for no reason, or corrupted files.

Only issue is that nothing really interesting happens on my commutes! :D
 
Soldato
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Anyone who has a GoPro with an external mic, does the mic cancel out any road noise and only record what the mic picks up? Or will I still hear traffic and background noise?

It depends where you mount it. Under the seat will probably just get engine and exhaust. The below video used an external mic on a belt bag and it gets everything - road, engine and other external noise. Thankfully not much wind though.

 
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