HD Cameras
Contour vs Drift HD 170
Stealth
Added 1/30/2012
At OSH 2011, I went armed with some cash, hoping to get a nice HD
camera for recording some stuff in-flight. My intention was a
camera that I could use outside of the airplane, on some sort of
mount,
but also inside the airplane. I ended up buying the new Contour +,
which I
got from Sportys, via Nflightcam.
They
add
couple tweaks such as the Aviator Lens, and Avaiton Adapter
cable, mark it up $100, and sell it to us aviators. The
current
price is $499. It does a fantastic job on HD video, and with
the
Aviator lens, the prop doesn't leave that awful prop effect in the
video. It has some other cool features like, it logs the GPS
location during filming so you can follow where exactly the video
was
shot, in real time; it can use Bluetooth to talk to the iPhone which
you can use as a viewfinder; it has an HDMI port and cable for
connecting directly to HD TV's for playback; it has the Y-cable for
hooking into a standard aviation headset jack. (Lucky for me I left
one
of these jacks in place as a 5th jack in the rear seat...I use Bose
jacks everwhere) I took a couple of trips where I brought the
camera along and it does do a very nice job on video. I also
bought this $50
Waterproof
case for it and took it with the kids for their SCUBA
certification and it does a great job underwater too. So all
around it should be a super compact and handy camera. It has a
very wide field of view. There are only a couple of things not
to
like: 1) The power button is hard to use, 2) It's more
expensive
than some other cameras...but, it is one of the more feature filled
cameras around. Also, with the price, I was a bit leery of
mounting it outside the plane. I know they use them all the
time,
and even just using the self-stick mounts they trust them. It
sounds like they are very secure with self-stick mounts, but I just
couldn't bring myself to do it with a camera that cost that much.
Oh,
and while I'm just fine with it, this camera uses MicroSD cards, so
they cost a little more for the same capacity. I bought 16GB
cards of class 10 speed.
Enter the Drift
Stealth
HD 170: This camera is a little larger (probably not
heavier) than the Contour+, and will make your prop look awful, but
includes a small LCD screen to playback your video, and a remote
control. While Drift does have new cameras out that have HDMI
output on them, this one does not...but the newer cams cost a lot
more
money, and I got this one from B&H
Photo
for
$159, WITH an extra Long-Life battery. Now this
camera is a great little camera too, and does a fantastic job at HD
video as well. Neither one of them has the features of the
other,
so they both have their own plusses and minuses. The drift,
being
unable to hook to HDMI, makes it tough to review footage on HDTV's
without first copying the files to some other device to play
back. The drift DOES use standard SDHC (I got 32GB class 10
cards), so memory is a bit cheaper. Although larger, the
camera
is pretty light and smooth lined so kept forward facing it probably
doesn't add a ton of drag. I tried this camera out while snow
skiing and with the remote, it worked very well for video taping the
kids skiing, and was easy to start and stop without touching the
camera. The contour is easy to start and stop, but required
sliding the top switch to do it....not a huge deal either way.
The drift, however, at that price point, is a LOT easier to stick
out
on a wingtip, under a tail, or somewhere outside the aircraft.
It
does not come with a Y cable to hook into your intercom, but by
adding
something like 1.5Mohm to 2Mohm resistors into the cable, a custom
cable can be made that makes it work OK with the intercom. The one
complaint I have about the camera in function, is minor, and
fixable. The field of view is so wide and tall that in
mounting
it above and below the wing, it was hard to keep the wing OUT of the
picture. Even in my outboard wing access plate, it had such a
wide angle that it picks up my nose gear in 720P mode. As it
turns out, this is fixable if you are willing to sacrifice space and
shoot everything in 1080P mode, because the 170 degree view gets
reduced down to around 140 degrees in that mode, and it is not as
tall,
aspect wise, either.
So in short, I'm glad I have BOTH of these cameras. I think
the
Contour is definitely the nice one for in the cockpit. It's
smaller, more feature filled, and comes with that Aviator lens to
make
the prop a nice blur. The Drift though, is cheap enough to
throw
outside and not worry about. They both can rotate their lens,
and
both are good at the things they do. Neither camera has any
sort
of optical zoom, so neither will replace your handheld HD camera,
sorry
to say.
Mounting
the Cameras
I don't currently have a photo of my Contour mounts, but, I have a
suction mount that I can mount to the windshield and not see the
RV-10's windshield bar, and I also installed a small 1" ball mount
directly into my overhead console to attach to the camera.
This
makes it reall good for forward facing shots in the cabin. I'm
not much into shooting video of myself, so aft facing isn't
something I
care for right now.
For my Drift cam, I so far have tried the trick of attaching it to
the
top of the wing using 2 screws through the included flat plastic
plate,
which worked OK but left the wing very visible, and then I ripped
off
Vic Syracuse's idea of the wing access plate mount that he had good
luck with on his alaska trip, and made me one. The only real
changes over his was that I did mine in flush rivets rather than
screws, hoping for a permanent and rigid structure. The wing
access plates are cheap, from Van's online store. Under the
camera is a strip of velcro that ensures the camera won't spin, and
it's all secured by a 1/4"x20 stud and nut. The mount is very
solid, doesn't affect flight characteristcs, and generally should
work
pretty well. The only downside is that it's going to aim
slightly
downward, to avoid the wing, so don't count on getting lots of
high-angle shots. For many people this is a non-issue, and it
will help keep both the sun off the camera, and the camera from
being
hit by the sun's glare in some of the shots.