Saturday 26 February 2011

Helmet cams, Metoffice and Twitter

So for Christmas my girlfriend got me a small camera designed for recording outdoor pursuits. Naturally (and lets face it this is true), everyone has thought about using a helmet camera to record them doing something cool, so for me this was the ultimate piece of coolness for my kit collection. The camera included a 4gb microSD card, a mount for bike handlebars, and a mount for webcam use. Sadly the mount supplied didn't fit my bikes handle bars, and the transfer cable seems to be a bit dodgy. So eBay provides! £4.98 got me a new mount (helmet compatible and an SD card adapater). The new mount arrived the other day and is 1000x better than the one that was included. This one had flexible rubber straps to attach the camera, and to attach to whatever you want to. This means you can attach to a helmet by passing the straps through the holes in the helmet (see picture). Sadly this doesnt work on my grivel salamander due to the lack of vents in the helmet. However it was fine on Petzl Meteor and a Giro Indicator.So I fitted the camera up last night,
and with a planned trip to Harborough rocks tommorow, I figured it would be the ideal chance to get some good BETA footage. Sadly the Metoffice had other ideas. When i went to bed (11pm) the Metoffice was forecasting overnight rain, but dry from 4am, then sunny from early throughout the day. Sadly (in truest form with the Metoffice), when I got up it was slinging it down. The 'forecast' had then been updated to say rain throughout the day. Now honestly, what use is that? The past 3 times I have relied on the Metoffice they have let me down, as a geography graduate, and dabbler in meteorology, I appreciate the finer subtle details of weather forecasting, but HOW do they keep getting it wrong, there is a huge difference between "Sunny all day" and "wet all day", as Reynolds said "it is the only job in the world where the can get it wrong everyday and not get fired". So instead of being at the crag today I am sat updating my blog. The last thing I wanted to mention was
Twitter. I have heard "tweeting" talked about a lot recently, and it wasn't something I had ever done. However I decided to give it a go, and actually it seems very cool. All the major gear companies, mountain centres, and organisations seem to be on there. So having "followed" all of them, I can now access their tweets about latest releases, competitions etc. Seems very worthwhile. I can also update my tweets by texting a number (at no charge), which updates my profile. I have also added a gadget to my blog which allows a display of my current Tweet, so anyone who is interested can see what I am up to/working on. (I don't expect many people will be, but I think it's cool!). Thats all for now anyway, I will get some helmet cam footage up soon, and also update on whether Sonim's 14 day replacement quote is accurate!

2 comments:

  1. Helmet cam eh bud? You'll have to let me know how it works. I could do with a second camera and a helmet cam seems like it could be the way to go? Whats the sound recording like on it and how much video time does a 4gd micro SD hold?

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  2. I'm not sure how much footage 4gb would hold, but you can buy 16gb cards for it quite cheap. The camera itself is awesome, and at £16.99 from 7dayshop.com you can't argue! They don't come back in stock on there until 1st April, but if you can wait they are worth the money! Uploaded a low res clip to youtube tonight, didnt get the orientation of the camera right though, so had to rotate the vid, and looks a bit daft, but lesson learned!

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