The set-up.
The days of relying on traditional (and expensive) photography film are long gone. Now precious memories can be captured using consumer device in high-quality video and pictures.
To put some of the latest devices to the test, I set out with my son, his go kart, a Kitvision Edge HD30W Action Cam (with additional 32gb card), a Kitvison Knuckles handgrip. my trusty iPhone 5S and a Kitvision Bluetooth Selfie Stick (yes, Selfie Stick). The goal was just to see just what the average family can produce using this standard kit.
My son is an adventurer at heart, and also wanted to hunt a few dinosaurs. This was easily provided through the Action Movie FX app, and it gave us some narrative to add to our film.
Let’s find some Action.
The Action Cam comes supplied with a waterproof housing, which given it was raining I decided to use, and several choices of mounts.
Using industrial velcro (I love this stuff) I was able to secure a mount to the front of my son’s go kart in a fashion to keep it locked in place, but also add a quick release option.
This meant that the Kitvision Edge was able to record his journey as my son peddled to the park.
The Kitvison Edge comes complete with a wide angle lens and various recording modes. As my video was going to end up on YouTube, I chose the 720p video recording mode. You can either control the camera through built-in hardware controls or through an associated app – which comes in handy for hands-free control.
I was impressed with the quality of the recording captured by the action cam – recording fast-moving video that low to the ground provided a different and unusual view to the video I would normally capture.
I’m normally critical of Selfie Sticks, especially when they swarm together in public places, but they do allow images to be captured from different angles to the norm and during our trip to the park the selfie stick allowed me to get a close-up image of my son’s face whilst he was racing along. The Kitvision selfie stick can be extended to up to 100 cm in length, provides a cradle to hold your phone securely and controls your phone’s camera functionality via a Bluetooth connection.
The Velcro mount came in handy during the adventure as it allowed us to easily switch to the Kitvision Knuckle grip as part of filming.
Looking a little like a knuckle duster, the Knuckle grip fits over the fingers and allows you to wear the camera securely on your hand whilst filming, and allowing extra versatility. In our demonstration, it allowed my son to easily film his ride on a zip wire and the results were outstanding.
The overall quality of the video from the Kitvision was good, and the camera is simple to use, with a single button to start the video and a second button to stop the video, but above all it was fun!!!!
Being able to capture these precious moments is important, and as the video below shows it doesn’t have to be difficult to get fun results.
The App and The Flaw.
As mentioned, there is an associated app for the Edge camera, although before you can use it you need to put your camera into wifi mode which generates a wifi hotspot to connect your phone to.
After the app is connected to your camera, you are shown a video preview of the view of the shot, you can then take full control of the camera through your app, and it works very well.
There is also an option to review the videos stored on the camera, but there is a serious flaw here (on the iOS version anyway). You can download the video onto your device for viewing, but you cannot export them onto your camera roll. This is a serious oversight.
To make the video editable or accessible on my iOS device, I have to plug the SD card into my laptop, upload the video to Dropbox, and then download through the iOS Dropbox app onto my device. The same device running the camera app. It’s a right pain in the neck.
Is it waterproof?
One of the accessories that comes with the Edge is a waterproof casing, which protects the camera up to a depth of 100 meters.
To test the waterproof casing, I recorded a test video in a running bath, and the casing worked well, although the image recorded did lose some of the clarity and image definition.
Whilst this is a rather cool option and protects against the camera being dropped into water, if you are looking for a dedicated underwater tool you may need to look to other specialist devices.
A Camera for Childs Play.
The Kitvision Edge HD30W is easy to use, and to demonstrate how easy it is to capture decent footage I let my son (reminder: he’s 5. Not mental age; ) loose with the camera attached to the knuckle grip, around The Deep in Hull. The Deep features a number of challenging lighting issues, so not only was this a test of the ease of use and durability of the camera, but also a test of its shooting abilities.
His footage needed a little editing, but the video shows how easy it is to use the camera as a point-and-shoot device and capture good footage of key events.
Memories are precious so make sure you capture them, especially now it’s this easy.
