The dreaded hatcam syndrome

[MANFRED]

OPED
Just a personal opinion, but I think the hatcam is one of the worst ways to record a flight. It pains me to watch shaky, jerky camera action of some guy trying to show us his ship. First off, a little editing would help to some degree, don't need to see you fiddling around with the plane and radio before every flight. Second the bouncy walk and head jerking around before takeoff is maddening. The whole thing is an attempt to record a flight, but the minute the ship takes off it is nothing but a tiny dot flying around a blue sky. I miss the days when most people would have a friend shoot the flight and actually zoom in from time to time so you could see the aircraft in the air.
No offense intended to those of you who love this form of video, this is just a pet peeve. I do enjoy many of the fine vids on these forums including the in the air shots, keep up the great work. If you love your hatcam, more power to ya!
Just sayin'.

[xviper]

I don’t “love” my hat cam, but when there’s no other alternative, it’s better than nothing. I don’t always make videos of my flights for others to see but more to make a record of my plane before I destroy it. If it happens that I post it for others to see, it’s only because I just happen to have such a video and it may be the only video I have on the topic.
I don’t like to watch other peoples’ vids as you describe but there are times when, if that’s all there is, I’m grateful for them and I get what I can out of them. I always tell myself that if I don’t like the quality of the video, I stop watching it. That might be good advice for others as well. Complaining about them isn’t going to make the whole world stop making videos unless they have a friend with a high quality camera to do one for them.

[themudduck]

I don't like them either, but like Xviper said, sometimes its the only game in town. I don't always have a competent person available to film (or one who is interested in filming) using my phone.
I tried the hat-cam a few times and like Manfred, wasn't pleased with the "tiny dot" video.
So most of the time... no video of my flight!

So I started mounting a Mobius or RunCam to the airplane. Those videos are usually OK but I sure wish there was an easier way to get the view from the pilot's perspective and get a decent video.
It would really help if we could set the hat-cam to zoom in. When I have a helper take videos with my phone I usually set it to a zoom of 1:1.5 or 1:2.0 before I hand it over. That makes a big difference...but the little cam doesn't have that functionality.

Then when its done I try to do a little basic editing to remove the "fiddling" at the beginning.
I'm no expert and don't have fancy software, I just use Windows Moviemaker :Scared: (I heard that audible gasp from the geek section)

// CSB: One time I was using a hat cam to film my B17 at a fun-fly, and at the end of my flight I taxied in and bent down to turn off the airplane and the camera fell off and bonked the wing. And made a dent. Small children gasped as they heard several new words. I was VERY angry. :Poo: