Hey all,
Very new here, so please excuse me if these q's have been answered hundreds of times before. I have had a bit of a search through the FAQ's and still have some questions.
Ok, so I have just taken delivery of my ContourHD (rad) and am heading off to New Zealand to go snowboarding for a week on Tuesday. I am keen to get peoples opinions on just how water resistant these bad boys are. Not so much concerned about helmet mounting etc, but I do have some ideas about mounting the camera down on the board where it is likely to get a bit wet. I normally wouldn't be concerned in the Australian 'Ice Fields', but since they have had 75cm of snow in the last two days in NZ, there is a high chance the camera will be going under the snow.
So - how waterproof are these things? how concerned do I need to be about getting the ContourHD wet?
Next, given some of the mounting points I am planning, having the leash attached is going to extremely important, but when i went to test it the other day, I noticed that the hole for attaching the leash on both sides is too small for actually getting the supplied leash through - sort of like it wasn't drilled out properly.
So - has anyone experienced this before? I am thinking about getting a drill and just drilling out the holes so I can get it through. Has anyone done this before? Is there anything I should look out for?
Finally, being in Australia, all of our video over here is 25 fps. When I purchased the camera, I had just planned to shoot everything on the ContourHD at 30fps and just finish from there. Now that I have an idea of what this camera is capable of, I am looking at involving it in multi-camera shoots where all the other cameras will be shooting 25fps. Also looking at using this for some television work where everything is also 25fps. Now I have some clues about processing video from 30p to 25p from working with the Canon 5D, but most of the process involve heavy duty processing and some unwanted artefacts.
So - has anyone started testing any 'firmware updates' (hacks) to get the camera to record 25p? This would be very, very interesting....
Thanks in advance.
Cheers
Alister
- ps. If anyone is after tips on getting video from 30p to 25p give me a yell. It is quite processor intensive, but it does look pretty good.
you will find the contour more than capable to deal with the snow/ice with its water resistance. the leash you have to pinch the end to make it fit,try using you teeth,and then put a small bend in the end and its just like threading a needle. if you drill the hole you could end up losing the camera as it may weaken the mounting point.
as for the fps using an editing programme such as sony vegas its a peice of piss. when youve finished editing and you get to the rendering part of the process you can choose to render it in 25 fps so it shouldnt be a problem for you.
hope this is of some help :)
Hey David, Cheers for the tips. Greatly appreciated. I will have another serious crack at getting the leash threaded before I attempt any surgery...
Another question for those who have done a lot of snow work, what sort of life are you getting out of the batteries? I did a big test last night with my 3 batteries and 3 x 4GB cards. Each battery & card combo shot about 3 hours before it switched off. Any clues as to what battery life people are getting in snow conditions?
Cheers
Al
To get the leash through, get it as far in as you can, then push it with a toothpick or safety pin. worked for me. Wetting it first may help as well.
I sat down and had a good look at the hole for the leash. It seemed as though there was still some plastic tailings from the moulding process still in the hole. I grabbed a small nail and used that to scrape the excess plastic out and it was all fixed.
For anyone else looking for an answer to the 'how long in the snow' question, I was using it flat out in NZ and the temp was always sitting at around 0 degrees celcius, and I consistently got 1 hr-1h10m recording time out of a battery. If I left the camera for long periods on standby, this recording time did drop, but it was pretty consistent across the three batteries, every day for a week.
Oh, and on the waterproofosity... They handle the wet pretty well, although the back flap on the case could use a little extra touches. I was trying out mounting the camera to the snowboard, and cased a jump. The suction mount failed, and the camera came off. During the wipeout, the back flap of the camera came open, and the camera ended up with the back full of snow and ice - ie. usb ports, card slot, all full of ice. I took it back to cafe, cleaned all the ice out, used a hand dryer to clean out the rest of it, and it ran well for the rest of the day. I left the camera open in the drying room at the lodge overnight, and all seems to be good. Still trying to figure out what the hell happened in the crash to cause the camera to come open though...
I used this flat out during a week long spring snow trip to NZ in all conditions - snow, rain and bluebird, and there was no issues at all with the camera. Very cool
*shrug* sometimes when people get hit by cars their pants fly off. Who can really tell what happens in a crash?
-Nate
support@vholdr.com
fair call. it wasn't a big stress, just more of an observation. hopefully my pants won't come off next time.. :-)
I used a piece of string and pulled the cord through the hole in the camera
Hi all,
Ok, will the camera put up with rain, heavy rain, spray whilst out on the boat with no waterproof housing, as we have had shouts over the last two weeks that the camera has not gone on, due to the weather, the footage would have been rad to see and would show how bad we get it this time of year.
If you could let me know.
Cheers
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i used mine yesterday,you will know how good the weather was yesterday!! the camera was fine in dealing with the rain and a realy good splash, but i wouldnt subject it to that too often, i did have an occasiion that a big drip of water on the lens for a few seconds (due to camera angle)and it caused some condensation behind the lens cover, that cleared after a couple of minutes. if i was you i wouldnt risk it ,on the off chance you end up in the drink ;-)