Nig-Cam
I've never been a fan of video as it seems even more intrusive than still
photography but I do confess to pleading for a copy of the helmet-cam tape
when I've been on a surface supply rig doing Archeology.
However once I saw cheap digital video cameras, say well under £100, and I
began to think that home helmet-cam couldn't be too complex. I was quite
prepared to buy it a big memory card but what I wanted was switch-on, close
box on helmet, put on helmet operation, so no controls, no complications, no
frills. This is the Nig-Cam project that resulted.
So here is the Camera. It is so simple minded and of rather tacky construction but
for a project like this that's all I want. It was £49.89 from an Ebay
seller including postage etc.
It's very light with the two 2.3Ahour AA NiMh Cells I put in it contributing a
lot of the weight. I bought two 1Gbyte SD memory cards at £33.93 the pair
and on a test it records for over three hours on one card and one set of
batteries.
The quality isn't too bad. It runs at 320x240 pixels and 9 frames a second. In
bright light it stays pretty crisp but as it gets gloomy it starts to smear if
you move it fast as the 'shutter speed' decreases. Here is a
short clip taken from a window of Brighton Pier.
The lens is fixed focus with two click stops: close and distant - the change
over point being about one meter. I guess I'll set it based on the visibility
expected. Actually this is better than a smart auto-focus system as I'd just
have to find out how to switch that off or it would probably focus on the wrong
thing.
Now I needed a waterproof box. A see-through waterproof box. I was talking on
the Yorkshire Divers forum and Janos suggested Otter. A quick web search and I
found an online supplier that had one that seemed big enough for £19.00
inclusive so I ordered it. Frankly I could have probably gone for a smaller
size as there is a lot of free space. I might revise this down later.
Now this isn't a very transparent box. I took off the 'Otter' label and found a
nice flat bit but no way is it 'optical' glass. We will have to see how it goes.
Also it is rated to only 30 meters and the seal is quite small. Perhaps,
longer term, I will swap it into an old torch body. That usually offers
better glass and more depth.
Then I needed something to mount it all on. Now conceptually this was a helmet
as that is where I started from and I think that is prefferable to, say,
shoulder or chest mounting it. I bend my neck a lot holding a nice horizontal
trim so anything other than screwed to my head is going to be pointing in the
wrong direction most of the time. Back to Ebay and I found a nice
rock-climbing/caving one for £12.95 inclusive. It's lovely and it's
rather sad that I'll have to drill lots of big holes in it so it doesn't trap
air.
OK I've now spent about £116 plus some batteries which I already had and
I've not even got something ready to go in the water. Time to start work.
