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Action Cameras - GoPro alternatives - Any Recommendations?


brown dog

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Spent a week being impressed by a pal's GoPro footage, but thoroughly put off by the £300 price tag.

 

Anyone got any firsthand recommendations from the myriad cheaper alternatives - kitvision, evoplus, dbpower etc?

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I was recently in the same situation. I wanted a camera I could mount on my shotgun as a training aid for clay shooting but didn't want to pay the earth. I rented two mid range cameras from my local camera shop, a GoPro Hero4 session (£160 to buy) and a Garmin Virb HD (£170 to buy). After a day shooting with both, the Hero4 Session won for me on both looks, features, video quality and range of available mounting devices.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/GoPro-HERO4-Session-Action-Camera/dp/B00YMZF39C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1454845274&sr=8-3&keywords=gopro+session

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Sitrep!

 

Gopro managed to take away the distributions rights from their appointed UK distributor a fortnight before Christmas, thus depriving retailers of the product until further notice.

That further notice ended two days ago, although stock is still slow to appear.

 

Why mention the above when Brown Dog is asking about alternatives?

The reason why is because they have dominated the UK market place for so long; there are alternatives out there that look like Gopro's although when examined turn out to be quite nasty in terms of a cheap and tacky feel to them.

 

Sony have a nice product and Pentax also showed us what looks like a good alternative, the sad fact is Gopro now have the name for actions camera's which is going to make it a little difficult for others to break into regarding market share, which is the reason we didn't go down the Sony route, although a very good alternative.

 

The year before last we ordered all the Christmas stock in October, only for all of it to turn up in Feburary, another good reason why we should have gone to Sony!

 

Apologies if this sounds more like a rant than an informative guide to action cams! :)

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Sitrep!

 

Gopro managed to take away the distributions rights from their appointed UK distributor a fortnight before Christmas, thus depriving retailers of the product until further notice.

That further notice ended two days ago, although stock is still slow to appear.

 

Why mention the above when Brown Dog is asking about alternatives?

The reason why is because they have dominated the UK market place for so long; there are alternatives out there that look like Gopro's although when examined turn out to be quite nasty in terms of a cheap and tacky feel to them.

 

Sony have a nice product and Pentax also showed us what looks like a good alternative, the sad fact is Gopro now have the name for actions camera's which is going to make it a little difficult for others to break into regarding market share, which is the reason we didn't go down the Sony route, although a very good alternative.

 

The year before last we ordered all the Christmas stock in October, only for all of it to turn up in Feburary, another good reason why we should have gone to Sony!

 

Apologies if this sounds more like a rant than an informative guide to action cams! :)

 

Mick, You in tomorrow? Got anything suitable on the shelf?

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Friend of mine is a machinery fanatic and films our farm in the summer when we are busy.

He uses a gopro type camera but its not a gopro, im not sure but if memory serves me right I think he said he paid £60 for it from argos.

Here is some footage he took:

 

 

If you want more details I can find out for you

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I done a lot of filming a couple of years ago with a POV1. The quality was up to TV std ( I've been told a few TV company's use them) We had them on all the time while riding though Africa when something happend you want to keep the footage you just pressed a remote and it kept 10 mins before and after, timmings could be changed. They are also 100% waterproof but I don't know to what depth. They have a screen to watch the footage on without needing a pc. All in all they were very good. They are no longer sold the new modles is POV1 hd http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/POV.HD.html

 

Second hand I've seen POV 1s go for as little as £100.

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Friend of mine is a machinery fanatic and films our farm in the summer when we are busy.

He uses a gopro type camera but its not a gopro, im not sure but if memory serves me right I think he said he paid £60 for it from argos.

Here is some footage he took:

https://youtu.be/ZRrpeM7dc2w

If you want more details I can find out for you

Thanks for that! My boy is a tractor fanatic and he hadn't seen that one. :-)

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Thanks for that! My boy is a tractor fanatic and he hadn't seen that one. :-)

 

 

Search youtube for hillsend farm or dinny7777 is the guy who records all the footage.

We have a facebook page hillsend farm we update with videos and pictures now and again also.

Im trying to get him talked into buying a drone for aerial footage I think it would be great!

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Just bought a Sony as 200v from http://www.argos.co.uk/m/static/Product/partNumber/4185983/searchTerm/Sony+200.htm

It equals or beats the mid range gopros, Comes with a waterproof case, wrist mounted remote control which gives you the view the camera has in real time and you can control it with your smart phone if you wish.

 

I'm very very happy with it, I've not had much chance to use it as the weather is so crap but he hits of footage I've had are nice quality.

 

The kicker for me was the go pro hero 4 session has an internal battery which is (allegedly) non user replaceable.

 

The Sony doesn't have quite the range of mounts but that is what duct tape is for!

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I use a AEE Magi-cam old version SD21, I like it over the Go pros as it has 10x zoom you get more accessories than Go pro give you , i have sent this 60ft down in salt water ,sat it out in with pigeon decoys , one or two pellet hits (lol)

And sent it 150 yards up and 1.5 miles out over the sea attached to a fishing kite, we lost wind with the kite so whole lot dropped into the sea with no issues to the camera.

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The only problem is that with the Session is that once the internal rechargeable battery is kaput thats it for the day until you can get to a charging point.I took one to Croatia where it lasted 90 minutes out of a full day and I was constantly pausing it with the remote to try and conserve the battery.The only alternative was to buy an external power pack and run a wire to a concealed pocket.Although the other Hero's are bigger the battery life is far superior and can be swapped over in seconds (and no wires)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bought a DBPower EX5000 Amazon link

 

Just back from the Alps having used it all week.

 

It's AWESOME!

The HD footage is indistinguishable from a gopro.

 

At £70ish it comes with a 2" screen, a spare battery, wifi to your smartphone (you can see what it's seeing and control it from your phone) and a whole bunch of mounting bits and pieces.

 

Thoroughly recommended.

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