Cheap & Easy head-mounted camera

We've had some problems where I live with car drivers who drive too closely to cyclists, so I decided to video my daily bike ride to work each day.  Long story short, it made more sense to use a head-mounted camera than to attach one to the bike.  (Vibration, view angle, etc)

 Fortunately I already owned a micro-camera, the only challenge was to find a way to mount it - and you can see the solution in the photo above.
 

Step 1 Materials

Parts list:

* Micro video camera ($13)
* Head-mounted lamp ($3)
* Screwdriver
* Rubber-band

These Micro DV  cameras range in price from maybe $90  to $13 shipped.  It may depend on whether they're being sold in a spy store or as a toy for children :-)
 
The head-mounted lamps are all over the place now.  Mine was a cheap one from China which was already broken, so I didn't mind dumping the flashlight to free up the headband).

Comments

[gtoal]

I've since bought 3 more of these cameras to create a 360 degree view.  That plus a pocket GPS tracker - Google Streetview, eat your heart out!

[mack_jigger]

BTW: while not perfect, this little cam is quite good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAnYuew2iLs

[mack_jigger]

I paid 26$ Canadian funds for the Cam (AVLogic) & $2 for the LED light in a Dollarama (a 1$ store).

Nice job btw here, thank you ;-)

[gtoal]

Is this the camera you used?

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=035169

[mack_jigger]

I already had the cam:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MLG-100MC&cat=CAM

ordered by my friendly local computer store, as I said, paid 26$ plus the sales taxes. Then I read this, remembered I had bought 6-7 months ago the LED headlight, so I searched through my things and made your instructable. Works damn well ;-)

Thank's again

[gtoal]

You mean you actually went out and bought the parts made this from my instructable? Wow. That really makes it worth the effort doing these things. Thanks!

G

[gtoal]

Until the Instructables bot gets a bit smarter and finds all the related 'ibles, here's what I found with manual searching:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Headmount-for-compact-cameras/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheap-Head-Cam/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Sweep-Cam-aka-head-mounted-camera/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Helmet-Cam-hands-free-video-production/

If my version isn't what you're looking for, maybe you'll find something that suits you better in that list.

These little mini cameras are quite versatile and I expect them to appear in a lot more 'ibles.  In fact a friend recently sent one into near space on a weather balloon for his high-school class' project!

regards,

Graham 

[gtoal]

PS Some commercial equivalents at Amazon. (I hope links are allowed here. These are not referral links, I'm not fishing for a commission here, this is just for the benefit of readers)


http://www.amazon.com/Veho-VCCA003ESP-Extreme-Sports-Camcorder/dp/B002CS8VCC/ - mounting kit only, doesn't include the bike helmet that's in the picture.

http://www.amazon.com/Veho-VCCA002WPC-Waterproof-Micro-Camcorder/dp/B0031LX6F6/  - very similar to my design but waterproof too

http://www.amazon.com/Veho-VCC-A003-PHM-Professional-Handlebar-Camcorders/dp/B0031LVE0K/ - bike kit

[bertus52x11]

Here's one for the traffic coming from behind:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Rear-pocket-camera-mount/

[gtoal]

Nice. The body-mounting on that one solves the vibration problem in a similar way to mine - just about all the other bike-mounted options will vibrate too much on the roads - maybe good enough for still photography with a fast shutter speed, but a problem for video.

I've been considering putting 4 minidv cameras on a bike helmet for surround-video, Google Streets style :-) Currently when I look behind, my head turns maybe just 30 degrees - I can see behind or to the side fine, but the camera doesn't pivot like my eyes do and it doesn't record what I was looking at.

It's going to look a little weird though. Weirder than it already does I mean.

G

[jman 31]

Oh, nice job with the ible by the way! :)