Ready, camera, action!
A great adventure is even better when you can share it with the folks back home -- and relive it yourself. A new breed of ultralight, compact and waterproof cameras/camcorders lets you do just that. Carried in a small pocket or mounted on a wrist, helmet or handlebar, they deliver good to excellent quality video and stills of your day’s outdoor excitement, whether it’s mountain biking, running, kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, horseback riding or sky-diving.
-- Roy M. Wallack
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Fly on the wall
GoPro HERO 3 wrist camera: Mighty mite that’s right there when you need it.
Likes: Instant access for stills, superb point-of-view for video. You barely know it’s there; the 2.25-inch camera, clear plastic waterproof housing and Velcro strap assembly total only 7 ounces. Three-megapixel photos are fairly sharp. Records for 40 minutes on two standard AAA batteries, two hours with lithium. Inexpensive enough that you can buy several and mount them in different places -- looking forward and backward on a bike or a kayak, for example.
Dislikes: No playback through the camera. You don’t know what you’ve shot until you connect it to a computer or TV (cables for both included).
Price: $140; helmet mount model is $170. (415) 738-2480; www.goprocamera.com.
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Bathing beauty
Sanyo Xacti E1 underwater camcorder: Superior quality, all-terrain, all-in-one still and video camera.
Likes: Sleek, compact (4.5 inches tall and 2.2 inches wide) pistol-grip design has a 2.5-inch fold-out screen. Simple to use; I barely read the directions, easily switched between still and movie mode and downloaded it to my Mac in seconds. Battery allows 70 minutes of excellent, TV-quality video (30 frames per second) on a 1-gig SD card. 6-megapixel stills. Hand operation, with all key functions thumb-operated. With the view window folded in, the camcorder becomes the size of a standard digital camera. Even the battery charger is space efficient, with simple flip-out prongs rather than a cord. Almost idiot-proof; it verbally announces “playback mode” when you switch to playback and even sounds musical notes when you shut it off.
Dislikes: Not made to go deeper than 5 feet for more than a couple minutes. So snorkeling, yes; scuba, no.
Price: $499. (818) 998-7322; www.sanyodigital.com.
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Indestructible
Olympus Stylus 770 SW underwater camera: Takes a licking, keeps on clicking.
Likes: Crush-proof, freeze-proof, waterproof. I got a kick watching jaws drop when I deliberately dropped the camera on concrete floors from 5 feet high -- and it still worked. It’ll also withstand 220 pounds of pressure, work in temperatures down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit and takes good underwater photos and video at depths to 33 feet. Solid-feeling at 6 ounces, it shoots fine 7.1-megapixel stills on land and has a macro mode for close-up spy shots.
Dislikes: Focus can be less than razor sharp on facial features, especially in low-light and flash situations.
Price: $379.99. (888) 553-4448; www.olympusamerica.com.
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Aim and pray
Oregon Scientific ATC2K video camera: Budget, low-resolution camcorder.
Likes: Waterproof to 10 feet deep. Uses 2 AA batteries. Includes hardware to mount on a helmet and handlebars. Compact at 4.5 inches long and 7.2 ounces. Low-res quality OK for action shots. Like GoPro, inexpensive enough to buy a couple of them.
Dislikes: No still-photo capability. So-so sound quality. Iffy mounting system and heavy for a helmet. Best used on handlebars. No viewfinder or playback, so you can’t aim it correctly or see if you filmed scene correctly.
Price: $129. (800) 853-8883; www2.oregonscientific.com.
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Irvine-based Roy M. Wallack writes about health and fitness. He can be reached at roywallack@aol.com.