Low budget action cameras...

[Hard-Drive]

I was thinking about a really low end action camera to film some of the stuff I get up to. Skiing, dinghy and yacht sailing, the odd track day, mountain biking. Yes, I know a Go-Pro costing many hundreds of pounds is the way to go, however there are cheap chinese cameras as low as £30 which offer a degree of the functionality at a fraction of the price.

Am I some ripped athletic 20 something who is going to drop into some huge powder off piste tree run in perfect sunshine, do some "sick dope shredding", and then spend hours editing the footage on my iMac, before viewing it in my home cinema and sending it to my thousands of adoring insta fans? No. Am I middle aged and not desperately fit, sort of occasionally carving my way down a fairly dull red piste, stopping to get my breath every so often, and then perhaps putting some footage on Facebook to share with a few similarly unskilled mates? Yes. There seems no point in having utterly amazing footage of not particularly exciting subject matter.

As a cyclist I know all about the law of diminishing returns...a £250 bike will be a bit crap, a £1000 bike will be pretty good, but a £7000 bike will only offer such marginal gains over the £1000 bike that only the most seasoned pro would really benefit from it.

Something like an AEE Lyfe for around £40 seems like it would fit the bill, give me a bit of holiday footage to remember and then get chucked in the cupboard for a few months before being used again. Has anyone got any experience of these kind of cameras?

[ukfan]

I got one of these with some extra batteries a few years ago. Pretty pleased with it. Video is decent in good light, audio a bit muffled. Battery life bout 70-90 mins at 1080p. Regularly comes up as a lightning deal

AKASO EK7000 4K Sport Action Camera Ultra HD Camcorder 12MP WiFi Waterproof Camera 170 Degree Wide View Angle 2 Inch LCD Screen W/2.4G Remote Control/2 Rechargeable Batteries/19 Accessories Kits (Black) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HPXH29Q/ref=cm_sw_r...

[anonymous-user]

Most of the gopro copies are fine, and much of a muchness.

I used SJCams with great success

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SJCAM-SJ4000-HD-1080P-S...

They are less than £20 and work very well. I've used them for snowboarding, fireworks, off road enduro.

This is a £20 SJCam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpkujfVlHls

Again, SJcam, but on a car. (note - using a seperate sound recorder)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb2SwbrtCIA&t=...

I also have a Gopro Hero5 Black I bought a couple of weeks ago.

This is the Gopro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw38VOcJ-Lg&t=...

I bought a real Gopro because I use it a lot, and wanted proper, 2 way remote control (to see what my camera is doing and control it, rather than one way simple remote control which is what the cheapos offer, unles syou use your phone as a controller, which isn't exactly convenient on a snowboard/bike etc)

What are the key differences between a cheapo and the real thing.

- the video quality is clearly superior, more steady (in built stabalisation), higher bitrate. The youtube clip doesn't do it justice - Youtube compresses videos horribly. A good reason to buy a cheapy if thats where your videos all end up....
- The batteries last WAY longer. On the cheapy, I'm swapping batteries every couple of hours (not continuous recording). On the Hero, On a whole day riding off road, I change the battery once at lunch time

p.s. I don't bother with 4k on the Hero - handling 1080p files is cumbersome enough

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 18th January 10:05

[Hard-Drive]

Cheers guys. I've given an AEE a whirl...we shall see what happens!

[Dave.]

I was in a similar predicament about 6months ago, I opted for a used gopro (hero4 black iirc).

You'll get more use out of it if it produces better quality footage.

For balance, I also have an SJ M10 which is OK as a backup/second camera for pic in pic stuff/etc (not that I've ever bothered )

[ecsrobin]

I know you’ve purchased one now but for others I went the mid range route before buying a GoPro the difference is night and day.

I think you can pick them up for £120ish and the new ones you can do a firmware change to unlock better features that the more expensive devices offer.

[Riley Blue]

I've been looking at them too as I'd like one for a charity drive later in the year. There are so many available it seems a new name appears every week but this looks a good specification for the money: https://www.amazon.co.uk/VanTop-Waterproof-Lightwe...

[Dave.]

It's hard to ignore reviews like those.

I just think about the cost of all the accessories they throw in, the remote, the packaging, etc. Doesn't leave much budget for the actual camera.

I have a load of cheap mounts and stuff I bought from China, and also a proper gopro rollbar mount. The quality difference between them is unreal.

[sparkythecat]

If you want to see reviews of budget action cams and see side by side comparative testing of them with GoPro offerings, check out a YouTube channel called Techmoan.

Here's one of his reviews to get you started

https://youtu.be/EASnXTyRYE8

[DuckSauce]

What's the GoPro Hero 5 session like? It's not a bad price on eBay for a refurbished unit.
I've had SJ Cam before and had to send it back, as it chewed through memory cards.
My Mobius action cam is still going strong in the car as a dashcam