action camera selection

[br4inl3ss]

hi all.
a friend of mine is looking to start scooter vlogging.

he started off by asking biker around that had a camera.
he asked what they use and if they could suggest somethign for HIS needs.

msot of them ( about 15, iirc ) said if he want picture quality, its gopro or sony.
thing is he prefer something that will last some time over the best picture quality.
so we can eliminate gopro PoS right away. its also what they said, if he want product quality stay away from gopro.
that seems absolutly true afetr checking the internet for him.
3 of them msut replace their gopro every 6 to 16 months. that way too much especially for such a high price...
i know alot of people using noname cheap chinese camera that outlast them EASY, almost 6 years on them.
but picture quality is terrible. my C270 webcam from logitech got way better picture quality...

what is left to chose from, at a decent price ?

he can put up to 210$ if its 100% complete, or 170$ if he need to buy separate stff like mounts and so on.

ive spotted the famous Akaso EK7000 pro and Brave 4. but 10 videos the picture quality is decent, other 10 its terrible its worse than Senna cameras. but i know they have decent quality camera.

[aeroxbud]

The drift XL would be in that price range. My mate has used drift cameras for about ten years. Much better battery life than a go pro. But bigger.

[90GTVert]

I only know GoPro. I've got 3 Hero 9s now, had 3 Hero 4s total, and I think 3 Hero 2s. Used GoPro exclusively for 14 years and counting and I use at least a helmet cam on essentially every ride... I may occasionally miss a 2 mile trip to get gas and back, but not often. So 10s of thousands of miles and who knows how many hours and my next camera is likely to be a GoPro.

I had a Hero 4 fail from getting soaked and not having it in a sealed case. I had a Hero 9 fail recently for unknown reasons. Just kept shutting off no matter what I tried. I am a GoPro subscriber. So I pay $50/yr for discounts on accessories all of the time and the option to replace a camera essentially no questions asked for $100. I wasn't thrilled with the time that it took and they said free shipping to me but somehow charged me around $20 more in taxes/fees... which I think was their way of actually making me pay shipping. By the time you figure you're paying $50/yr and you're gonna pay $120 for a replacement and wait weeks... it's only worth it if you're real hard on your camera. One thing though; you can buy a subscription and immediately get a replacement. So $170... but still it needs to be a valuable camera. My Hero9 was just on sale for around $210 IIRC with normal price of $250. It's a more valuable service if you have a new model or the Max (360 version).

I will say that my opinion of the 9 has not been as good as the older models. Great camera as far as features and image, but I'm questioning it's reliability vs old stuff... but again this is for the amount that I use them. Just last week I probably had 30 hours of footage across 1-3 GoPros.

None of this is likely that relevant, since any newer GoPro is more than the $210 and not complete. Had to chime in though, because I doubt that too many people film as much as I do with action cameras short of other YouTubers.

One tip that I would give is, if your friend will film a lot... just get a large memory card now. Don't screw around with smaller ones. I've used 64 and 128GB cards for years. Bought 5 512GB cards before a trip to TN to prepare. Best thing ever. I can put 15-16 hours of 4K30 footage on a single card. No stopping to change cards in the middle of a long ride anymore and if you don't film much you wouldn't have to worry about it for multiple rides. Check what works with the cam that your friend gets, but I used these :
amzn.to/46OIkhr

...And keep cards and batteries in mind for the budget if you ride much at one time. Sometimes batteries go an hour and a half or longer for me, but I generally plan on swapping at roughly an hour so I don't have many unexpected shutdowns unless I'm not terribly concerned with possibly not having a section "on film".

[br4inl3ss]

Jul 16, 2023 13:13:22 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

The drift XL would be in that price range. My mate has used drift cameras for about ten years. Much better battery life than a go pro. But bigger.

oh yeah ive seen that one months ago for myself. didnt check further tho.
ill look into that again. thanks

EDIT
nope. thats way over his budget.

think ill show him Akaso camera then. look like the the best choice in that price range ( comes fully loaded with 2 battery ).

[br4inl3ss]

Jul 16, 2023 15:00:36 GMT -5 90GTVert said:

I only know GoPro. I've got 3 Hero 9s now, had 3 Hero 4s total, and I think 3 Hero 2s. Used GoPro exclusively for 14 years and counting and I use at least a helmet cam on essentially every ride... I may occasionally miss a 2 mile trip to get gas and back, but not often. So 10s of thousands of miles and who knows how many hours and my next camera is likely to be a GoPro.

I had a Hero 4 fail from getting soaked and not having it in a sealed case. I had a Hero 9 fail recently for unknown reasons. Just kept shutting off no matter what I tried. I am a GoPro subscriber. So I pay $50/yr for discounts on accessories all of the time and the option to replace a camera essentially no questions asked for $100. I wasn't thrilled with the time that it took and they said free shipping to me but somehow charged me around $20 more in taxes/fees... which I think was their way of actually making me pay shipping. By the time you figure you're paying $50/yr and you're gonna pay $120 for a replacement and wait weeks... it's only worth it if you're real hard on your camera. One thing though; you can buy a subscription and immediately get a replacement. So $170... but still it needs to be a valuable camera. My Hero9 was just on sale for around $210 IIRC with normal price of $250. It's a more valuable service if you have a new model or the Max (360 version).

I will say that my opinion of the 9 has not been as good as the older models. Great camera as far as features and image, but I'm questioning it's reliability vs old stuff... but again this is for the amount that I use them. Just last week I probably had 30 hours of footage across 1-3 GoPros.

None of this is likely that relevant, since any newer GoPro is more than the $210 and not complete. Had to chime in though, because I doubt that too many people film as much as I do with action cameras short of other YouTubers.

One tip that I would give is, if your friend will film a lot... just get a large memory card now. Don't screw around with smaller ones. I've used 64 and 128GB cards for years. Bought 5 512GB cards before a trip to TN to prepare. Best thing ever. I can put 15-16 hours of 4K30 footage on a single card. No stopping to change cards in the middle of a long ride anymore and if you don't film much you wouldn't have to worry about it for multiple rides. Check what works with the cam that your friend gets, but I used these :
amzn.to/46OIkhr

...And keep cards and batteries in mind for the budget if you ride much at one time. Sometimes batteries go an hour and a half or longer for me, but I generally plan on swapping at roughly an hour so I don't have many unexpected shutdowns unless I'm not terribly concerned with possibly not having a section "on film".

thanks for your answer.

i know gopro are the best ( or close to it ) when it comes to features and image quality. but thats not what he want.
he want a decent image quality in a camera that will work for longer than the usual known 6-12 months.
he's after durability not deatures.

[aeroxbud]

Jul 16, 2023 17:31:26 GMT -5 br4inl3ss said:

Jul 16, 2023 13:13:22 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

The drift XL would be in that price range. My mate has used drift cameras for about ten years. Much better battery life than a go pro. But bigger.

oh yeah ive seen that one months ago for myself. didnt check further tho.
ill look into that again. thanks

EDIT
nope. thats way over his budget.

think ill show him Akaso camera then. look like the the best choice in that price range ( comes fully loaded with 2 battery ).

You must be looking at the drift XL pro. That's about an extra hundred bucks.

[br4inl3ss]

nah i saw the pro too. i was looking at the XL.

on the official website its 150 USD without shipping and tax.

but yeah my mistake. i was taling CAD not usd. if it was usd yeah that would be it.

but after checking about 15 videos, the picture quality look twice worse than the EK7000 non pro.
duno if people dont know to encode a video or youtube overcompress it because tis not a damn gopro, but thats terrible.

did you find a video that represent the real picture quality of the drift xl ?

[aeroxbud]

Probably the way it's uploaded. It's a 1080P camera, so high definition. Obviously not as good as the newer 4K ones. But that's why you get hours worth of recording from the battery.