Tachyon OPS HD Helmet Camera

EDIT: I just watched the video that I posted and the quality on amazon is garbage. it even looks better on facebook. Compared to this my saved video on my PC if perfect. not sure where the problem is. This Is the first time I actually used the camera, I was fortunate that it was also a pretty good run for me. 1st game of the day and was a 3 on 3 match. I eliminated all 3 of the enemy players. The picture is better than I expected I was especially impressed at the quality of the picture when I was running. I move pretty quick and even when spinning around it didn't loose much quality. I uploaded this to FB and the picture isnt as good as it is when I watch it from my computer but I guess thats FB's fault not tachyons. I have a massive PNY 32gig card that is a class 10 I bought from best buy. I would recommend a high quality card that is a class 6 or 10 dont buy them online cuz there are so many bootlegs out there that say they are class 6 or 10 but are really class 2. spend at least $40 on a card and you will be fine. I ordered this camera from www.amazon.com but since amazon didn't have the Plastic Shell (impact armor) for sale I bought that from the tachyon website. Since I have prime shipping I got it on Friday and custom mounted it to my mask that night was ready to shoot video that Saturday morning. The Impact armor hadn't arrived and I was a little afraid that I would damage it that day but I did have the water resistant rubber shell(which comes with the camera)on it. I bet that the water resistant shell works as well as the impact armor does really, it has a fairly thick plastic lens cover on it and the rubber covers the whole camera. I didn't take a hit directly to it so I cant say for sure how well it would protect from a direct hit but I can say that it did a excellent job keeping the camera lens and all clean from the splattering paint that was covering me. I will upload a sample video and a picture of the camera on my mask. Here's the low down Pros: Very small size (might be the smallest there is for HD) Light weight Inexpensive Has a time lapse still picture setting that is pretty cool Comes with several mounts and rain proof cover Tons of accessories availible (gun cam mounts, impact armor, chargers ect...) Uses micro SD cards. (I recommend a Class 10 sandisk or a PNY from a brick and mortar retail store) beware of bootlegs online Easy to use - turn on/off, upload ect. Rechargeable internal battery Battery is said to last up to 4 hours on a charge Can mount in many positions Body is square so you can set it on something and have good level shot and it wont roll around. No cords coming off it unless you are charging the camera or uploading video Cons: (None really but I will try) The picture quality is not as good as some of the other HD cameras out there but considering that it is half the price that is reasonable. It would be nice if Tachyon would offer a lens cover that you could get to zoom the image. I only say this because when I shoot someone I can see it clearly and easily through my eyes but every thing looks far away in the video. ((Wide angle lens)this is typical of helmet cams)

Nifty little camera. It's pretty durable. Very lightweight, small, and affordable. Its transition from outdoor to indoor and vice-versa is decent. Catches audio surprisingly well. I've had the camera for only a few hours now and have ran into a few issues, not necessarily about the camera but more so about the mounts. The clip mount doesn't work well with goggles since attaching it to the strap allows the camera to shake and bounce a lot. The clip mount is very versatile, but is also cheap. It can be adjusted by loosening and tightening two screws, but because of the cheaply made mount, overtightening the screws and breaking and chipping the mount is VERY VERY easy to do. I was barely tightening the screws before part of the mount chipped off. Pros: - Lightweight - Small - Durable - Comes with multiple mounts for many uses - Affordable - Versatile Cons: - Mounts are made pretty cheap - A lot of flickering in video - Only records in 720p and not in 1080p

I mounted it to my helmet per instructions, mount held secure at 65 mph. Movie files are saved to .mov which is a quicktime format. The files play smoothly on my pc, but are jerky on my Galaxy Tab (probably the fault of the android player). Very small, very light camera, but takes big video in hi-def! Very pleased with purchase. I tried it in low-light, household light, and daylight conditions; and the camera adapts quickly and automatically. I plan to use the cam on a 2-day ride in March, and a 3-day ride in April. The battery uses a usb connect to charge; I'll be using my Galaxy Tab to recharge it while stopped at the campground. For $150 you can't go wrong. The small size makes for less wind resistance than a GoPro cam, a major consideration for me. UPDATE 3/26/13: If you record at highway speed, playback is not smooth, even with a class 10 micro SD card. I'm guessing the camera's processor just can't transfer all the data as fast as it needs to. Resolution is great however. I am curious how a similarly priced GoPro camera would compare in smoothness.

Don't buy this if you want to use when moving. I used this camera horseback riding yesterday through the woods. Mounted to the side of my helmet, similar to as shown on box camera came in. Went from bright sunlight to deep shade and everything between. Video quality is very poor. Very poor. Brights are washed out as pure white. Darks are pure black. Everything between is not in focus. Focus improves and colors deepen IF you stand still, but even then, not very good. Response time of camera focus is slow and its ability to handle light and dark contrast and color in the same image is very poor. They must have developed this inside under controlled conditions. Frankly, a waste of money and I am going to return. I wouldn't be caught dead showing these videos to my family and friends as they would think I lost my mind.

Worked well when it worked. Felt cheaply made. Plastic housing, Plastic clips and mounts, The clear plastic cover snapped the 2nd day. Be very gentle with that. When it stopped working, it wasent realted to an accident or damage. I had not used it for some time. maybe a few months and decide to charge it up. It never came on after that. Conclusion: Spend a little more. Do it only once. Now I have to spend again to buy something that hopefully will last. PS: Also, I do want to mention one thing again. When it did work, it met my expectations. Maybe even a bit more. The video was good. Easy to use, light weight, extremely portable and interface to the PC was a snap. Just connect it via USB.

This is a low cost, simple to operate, digital camcorder that's claimed to be "high-def". It may record 1280x720 video, but the quality is not very high; the geometric resolution is probably like DVD level, and the image fidelity (brightness, contrast, noise, color resolution) is a little better than cell phone quality. I don't have the equipment to make quantitative measurements, so these are just eyeball comparisons against other camcorders I have. I used this a couple times to record various settings and a couple of my bike commutes. I combined two of its included mounting hardware to make one that worked better on my helmet. The first thing I noticed was that panning the camera, even at very slow speeds, causes the images to flicker, and sometimes tear. It's as if the image processor does not have enough power to deal with this many pixels at 30 fps. So for example, the effective resolution was so poor that I had a really hard time reading license plates of cars passing by, or those that I pass. I have to make special efforts to track a plate in order to read it. I'm using a Class 10 SDHC card that works fine in another HD camcorder, so that's not the problem. I also tried to use this at night, mounting it immediately below my Niterider HID Storm helmet light, which casts a huge and intensely bright pattern in front. This camera was obviously not designed for low light usage, as I could just barely make out rough features in the light's hot spot. But shooting indoors with normal room light makes very noisy images that seem to flicker a lot as the camera struggles to adapt to lower light levels. You would need the room very well lit in order to produce viewable images. I see Tachyon has introduced a "Night Vision" model specifically for night use. I have no experience with it, but it looks like they've opened up the IR end of the sensor. Those demo videos look a lot better than anything I was able to get with mine. That may be deceiving though, as it looks like most of them were shot with something much better, and we catch short glimpses of videos actually shot by the OPS HD. One thing that was impressive was how well the camera suppressed wind noise while I was riding, and staring straight ahead. But turning the camera from that position picked up a lot of wind noise. So if you're using this camera on a gun mount, where you're not moving around very much, in bright day light, it would probably do well for you. If you want to capture scenes where you are moving around, you may not be happy with the results, especially if your target is not very well lit. The strongest features of this camcorder is that it is tiny, and low cost. But for just a little bit more, you could get something like the Samsung Q10, which has much better imaging capabilities (though also not very good in low light conditions), but it has more features that a regular camcorder has, like zoom and auto-focus, image stabilization (which could have helped with the jumpy images of this camera), and smoother awb and auto-level control. However, I can not mount that to my helmet as nicely as I mounted this one. Update 2015-03-21: I posted this video which is a composite of a daytime and night time rides I shot with this camera mounted on my helmet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA1As_EbXy8 I did not have the "night vision" version of this camera, so the quality of the night shots was pretty bad. Even the daytime shots with late afternoon lighting showed pretty poor quality. In general, this camera, like most cheap cameras, needs a lot of light to be able to capture images with good contrasts and color saturation. Even then, you can't move it very fast or the image will tear. I just switched to this camera: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Action-Camera-Mini-Video/dp/B00N2KD9VM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426933875&sr=8-1&keywords=sony+hdr-az1 which achieves much higher definition than the Tachyon HD. It has much better low light performance, and can actually keep up with the motions I normally encounter in mountain biking. It fitted nicely in the Tachyon's helmet mount with a little bit of foam tape around the body.

I bought this camera to capture footage on my scooter in Boston for my new youtube series, "Scootin' in Boston". This camera does what it's supposed to do and it does it pretty well! The only reason I am not giving it a full 5 stars is that it picks up a lot of wind noise, even with the rubber rain proof cover on. I thought it might help to dampen the noise but it really doesn't. If there was some way to reduce that (e.g. with a wind screen or something), I would say it's a perfect 5 stars. Also, the 720p, 30 fps resolution is good but at faster speeds, I think 60 fps would make the video look a lot smoother. However, that's just for riding applications. If you're going to play paintball or shoot with this thing, the 30 fps is great. The 4 hour battery life is another reason I chose this one over their micro helmet cam. If you get a 16 Gb card, the battery and storage should run out at about the same time. I also love the fact that it works well with my mac. If you'd like to see it in action, check out my youtube series. However, keep in mind that I had to process it to a smaller size for uploading to youtube, so the resolution is not clear in some of the earlier ones. I figured out how to keep the quality up in the later ones (by experimenting with different settings in Quicktime). Anyway, this is a great camera and I recommend it for anyone who would like to mount a tiny camera on top of their helmets while riding.

The more I use this camera the more I love it , it gives me the HD quality with out the hassle of a huge camera . its light weight small and does vary well in low light , I would have to say it is the best camera for the price . it comes with many mounts right out of the box . it is vary easy to understand and use. its no weak camera let just say I have drooped it a few times and still going fine. STUFF THAT IT COMES WITH tripod mount hat mount curved helmet mount a plastic impact cover and some 3M Dual Lock tape and of course data cable / charger and you can get many more mounts and accessories @ [...]