"Could you hold that sun a little higher please..."

I went and bought a helmet cam and tried it out on a 13-mile roundtrip jaunt to the ASU campus from my house. I won't bother to post the video (or even portions of it). Though the camera was mounted properly on the helmet (I'll comment on that a bit more later), cycling in a recumbent means your head, and so your helmet, is tilted back a bit more than a "normal" cyclist. As such, I had an hour's worth of video of tree and telephone pole tops and the bright blue sky. And the mounting mechanism that came with the camera for helmets consists of a small plastic fixture (into which slips the camera), a rubber pad between that fixture and the helmet, and a velcro strap (that goes into the head space of the helmet). Not real secure or steady.

The next time out, I mounted this small helmet cam on a "boom" of sorts made from PVC pipe fittings hooked together and forming a platform on which to hook the camera (with one of the many mounting devices it came with). This boom was tightly affixed to the frame of the trike and rose above my head and helmet. We used this for the first time going through the ASU Research Park in south Tempe. Again, I won't bother to post the sped up video here either. The camera kept drifting to the side (so most of the scenary is as if you were looking out of a car window). And, even when straightened out, we were out late in the afternoon and as such, the sun was low on the horizon and continually got into view, washing out the view (showing up as a black circle surrounded by bright light).

I was also a bit disappointed by the quality of the video (even when just walking around with it in hand and taking video). Granted, the camera is ruggedized to withstand hitting the ground and bumps and such for off-road cyclists, and, if you fall into a lake, can take pictures to up to three meters under water, but still, the 640x480 resolution seemed a bit blotchy. I have seen video taken with this type of camera before and thought it would be better than this. Maybe it's just my setup or maybe I got a "bad" camera. What I am thinking now is to expand my PVC pipe fittings mount to allow me to attach my regular digital camera (the one I held by hand as I took the video posted elsewhere on this blog).

I will give the camera one more try on my helmet, tying it down in a more secure manner (yet to be figured out) and angled farther down in front so when I am riding reclined, it is looking straight ahead or slightly down as well.

Now the only problem is, if I do start using it on my helmet and getting good video, how can I disguise it so I don't look like I am wearing Marvin the Martian's helmet...?