Bike videos - Zoom Q3 HD on trial...
Armed with my trials and failures with the "heavy" G11 and its unsuitable partnership with the Hama bikepod, I was quite hopeful to see a good marriage in the Q3 and the Bikepod.
The Q3 is light and upright, its new HD version is actually slimmer and lighter than the regular Q3, and its video quality isn't bad for a piece of equipment that is marketed as an audio recorder before anything.
Strangely enough the HD video with sound took less space on the 2gb card than the 640X480 format of the G11...I managed to get around 10min more ! that's not a good sign, is it ?
I leave you the surprise of the picture quality while cycling with the sample footage below but just on the general shooting quality of the Q3, though I was impressed with the sharpness of the images (and the auto focus when a close object came within range), it really fails to estimate the right exposure even in basic situations like the one I shot, which was just a very sunny morning. It underexposed the whole scene by at least 1 stop, 3 towards the end when I was in shade. Since it did tilt toward the sky with the shocks on the handlebar, that's probably where it started to get the exposure based on the top part of the video.
The lens is approx 50mm (I actually found no documents or anything to confirm this, which is mad, all it says is that you have a digital zoom and the aperture is 2.8 which is pretty cool btw) and so I was quite disappointed not to have a wider lens that would be allow me to show the whole scene.
Anyway, I've been waiting about a week before posting this because I was quite gutted that Plan 2 didn't work either.
I guess like Lorna commented in the other post, the best option is to get a liptick cam on a helmet and forget about the video / photo option combo.
The Q3 is light and upright, its new HD version is actually slimmer and lighter than the regular Q3, and its video quality isn't bad for a piece of equipment that is marketed as an audio recorder before anything.
Strangely enough the HD video with sound took less space on the 2gb card than the 640X480 format of the G11...I managed to get around 10min more ! that's not a good sign, is it ?
I leave you the surprise of the picture quality while cycling with the sample footage below but just on the general shooting quality of the Q3, though I was impressed with the sharpness of the images (and the auto focus when a close object came within range), it really fails to estimate the right exposure even in basic situations like the one I shot, which was just a very sunny morning. It underexposed the whole scene by at least 1 stop, 3 towards the end when I was in shade. Since it did tilt toward the sky with the shocks on the handlebar, that's probably where it started to get the exposure based on the top part of the video.
The lens is approx 50mm (I actually found no documents or anything to confirm this, which is mad, all it says is that you have a digital zoom and the aperture is 2.8 which is pretty cool btw) and so I was quite disappointed not to have a wider lens that would be allow me to show the whole scene.
Anyway, I've been waiting about a week before posting this because I was quite gutted that Plan 2 didn't work either.
I guess like Lorna commented in the other post, the best option is to get a liptick cam on a helmet and forget about the video / photo option combo.