helmet camera

I called my wife on the way to our regular Tuesday night ride with one simple request…”bring the box that is on the front doorstep to the ride…please.” In the box from the big brown truck was the new ContourHD helmet camera from VholdR and I was not going to wait to try it out. This point of view (POV) helmet camera from VholdR claims better video quality than the competition by providing 720 lines of HD resolution.

The small freeride section of our local trail system is a tough shooting site. You are in and out of trees in a dark are while the sun continues to set. This makes difficult lighting for small cameras that normally have a hard time adjusting to changing light conditions. The VholdR ContourHD helmet camera has outperformed the GoPro Hero and the V.I.O. POV.1.5 by far. If you don’t believe me…check out my first video shoot below. In the near future, I am going to run a test doing the same run…at the same time…with all three cameras to get a side by side comparison.

What did I learn from my grab the box and ride routine?

• I need to aim the cam up just a little bit more to catch more of the action.
• The goggle mount is in the perfect spot to capture the action that I see while I ride, but it is not stable through the rock gardens. Next time out, I am going to try out the surface mount to see if I can get rid of some of the circular twitching.

I had a little bit of fun with this video…enjoy.

Fast action bonus! If you pre-order the ContourHD helmet camera from Amazon…you get a $50.00 gift card. Click here to find out more.

In a world where we love to capture our adventures on camera, GoPro has come up with a reasonably inexpensive way to record footage using a mounted digital camera. The Digital Hero can be mounted several different ways and comes in a couple different configurations to fit your needs.

In the mountain biking scene, we are constantly looking for different ways to record our favorite trail or that perfect run. Until now, doing that meant very expensive equipment or rigging something up that may or may not work correctly. GoPro‘s Hero solves these issues in a little package that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Check out their website for the different configurations.

From the website:

The Helmet HERO is a waterproof digital helmet camera that also quick-release mounts to bikes, kayaks, skis, cars and more. Works with any vented or non-vented helmet.

Use a 2GB SD card to shoot 56 minutes of TV resolution 30 fps video with immersive sound. Or activate “Photo Every 5 Seconds” mode to automatically shoot hands-free photos of the action for over 2 hours (1400+ photos).

Camera Specifications

• 56 minutes TV quality video w/sound
• 3 megapixel sensor with glass lens
• 3X sequence photo burst
• Photo every 5 second mode
• Adjustable sound recording levels
• Always On Mode lasts 3+ hours
• Supports up to 2GB SD cards
• PC and MAC Compatible/Driver Free
• 2 x AAA Battery
• 1 Year Warranty

What is really impressive about the unit is the quality that it puts out. It really surprised me how a small inexpensive helmet camera could put out good enough quality to post on the internet and watch on tv. Now, this isn’t going to be HD quality, and you will probably see pixels on really large tv’s, but this little unit is really great for what it is.

A friend of mine, Jeff, has been trying one out at Big Creek lately.

Trail Riding – Cool shots of the Fox fork doing it’s thing.

Big Creek Freeride – Top Gully Run following me.