A few months ago, I had a car pulled out on me, which led to a small collision resulting in the cars wiper fluid reservoir and bumper being destroyed.
There was less damage to my bike, only a bent gear lever. Since I was going home from a long day of school, and wanted to go home, we (the car driver and me) opted to not fill in any forms, I didn’t bother because my bike was scratched up already on that side, and his car was a wreck.
After that, I searched for some helmet cams with a good enough FOV and resolution.
I was thinking about the New GoPro Hero, but that one didn’t have a replacable battery, and is also too “blocky” for my taste.
So I went on and searched, till I found the Sony AS100V, but the price, that was a bit too high, till I saw the Sony HDR-AZ1VR.
The Sony HDR-AZ1VR was the perfect companion for me, not too bulky, and even rain-proof without a case, which meant great audio!
In addition to the AZ1VR, which costed me around -,€250 including the Live-View remote, I bought the helmet side mount (VCT-HSM1) and a 32GB Sandisk Class 10 card, which in total sums up to -,€300.
The camera is not so easy to set up. I was fiddling for a quarter of an hour, just to get the live-view remote to work. But when I was ready, everything was set up via the remote.
I thought the image stabilisation will help me getting a smoother image, but it zooms in too much. All my videos are recorded in 1080P 60FPS without image stabilization.
When the camera is in the case, the wind noise is just horrible, even a muffler doesn’t work.
I then took the camera out of it’s case and jerry-rigged a piece of fur on the microphone holes, and it seemed to work, but I still have a problem with buffeting on my motorcycle.
That’s why the audio is so unclear.
Operation time
– About 60 minutes till battery empty on “Wifi Setting on”, I haven’t tried wifi off yet.
I’ve also bought some “DSTE” replacement batteries for the AZ1, they fit right, and hold the carge very well. I could record for about the same time as the original NP-BY1.
If I didn’t have a helmet cam, and hit him in the flank (where he’ll drive off) I never have proof of what happened.
cda441.wordpress.com 