Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Daniel Niendorff on May 1, 2019 at 2:30pm

I’ve been happy with my Garmin VIRB ultra 30. Can plug into aircraft audio, and records gps data.

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Permalink Reply by Clint L Gosch on May 1, 2019 at 5:31pm

Hi Patrick,  I've been using a pair of SJ6 cameras, they are about $140 each on Amazon.  For audio I bought a $20 lapel mic and stuffed it in my headset,  audio is decent but not perfect.  For another $30 I bought a set of ND filters that filter out the prop quite nicely.  Other than a few odd firmware issues (image stabilization works backwards when mounted upside down, and the camera won't replay full 4GB files, have to use a PC or smart phone to view the large files). Battery life is about a bit over an hour on a warm day, and about 40 minutes on a 20F day mounted to the wing.  Image quality does not stack up well against a friend's gopro hero 7 black, but it's good enough. Uses any standard gopro mount.  No GPS or data collection features like Garmin, but my PFD logs everything for me.  Overall the sj6 is not nearly as polished as the garmin or gopro, but for the price they are hard to beat for a basic action camera.  The Virb Ultra 30 was on my short list, it's probably the best full featured aviation camera on the market, I decided to save my money for 100LL.  I still may end up owning one someday.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Eggenfellner on May 1, 2019 at 8:12pm

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Permalink Reply by Paul Sanders on May 2, 2019 at 7:43pm

I bought a VIRB ultra for inside the cockpit, can overlay gps data on the video, capture audio. Then I repurposed a GoPro for the wing. Works very well for me except that I haven’t yet worked out a good way to march them during edits.

i know if you buy Sony action cams, you can send a single start command to all of them at once, gets around the edit issue nicely, and they are cheaper than GoPro or garmin. 

https://youtu.be/HwsmBQY8xUU 

huh can’t remember how to embed anymore.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Niendorff on May 3, 2019 at 9:00am

VIRB says they have a feature to start all cameras simultaneously, but I have found that feature to work poorly. That’s the one thing where I would like to see improvement in the VIRB.

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Permalink Reply by Damon Brantley on May 5, 2019 at 10:25am

While still relatively new and a bit exprensive, you might take a look into 360 cameras, which can give an all around view.

A very cool example is from a thunderbird cockpit. Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6SsB3JYqQg

If you have not watched a 360 video before, there is a little control in the video that allows you to look around.

I only recently became aware of these cameras myself.

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