Dashboard Cameras

[Timelord]

I am leaving Saturday for a 9,000 to 10,000 mile road trip. This is scheduled for about 4 weeks. I am looking into getting a dashboard camera for my car so that if anything interesting happens that I cannot get to a camera for I would get a video. Looking on amazon I notice that I can pay anywhere from 15 USD to 500 USD. Obviously I am wary of both extremes. Does anyone have experience and advice on this subject?

The trip is this: Leave Ohio and head west up to Montana hitting parks and other interesting items along the way. There are a number of 'attractive roads' to be driven and the camera should be nice there too. Once in Montana I am heading into Canada and then taking the northern highway over to Nova Scotia. I hope to find a way to get up to Hudson Bay on the way but I am not really seeing any roads up there. After a few days in Nova Scotia I will go back home. If the trip needs cut short I can easily do it by missing Nova Scotia and leaving it for another time.

[StuartR]

Wow, sounds like fun.

[HansV]

That lokks like an interesting trip!

We don't have any Russian members, I think. Russians have LOTS of experience with dashboard cameras...

[Leif]

Strangely enough, there is a website called Dashboard Camera Reviews, which may at least give you an idea of what you can expect for your money, what features you do or don't want, etc.

Have fun, and a safe journey!

[Rudi]

Enjoy the trip and drive safe. Fortunately you are far away from Claude's cellar. And if you struggle with that dash-cam, just pop your smartphone on the dash with with some double sided tape.

[HansV]

Perhaps this would be a useful application of Google Glass...

[GeoffW]

I've got a low end camera. The resolution is not great- not enough to make out a number (licence) plate at anything but very close. This meant that the police couldn't use my footage of a vehicle dropping pallets onto the road and leaving them.

So I recommend a higher resolution but with a big storage card.

Then you would probably want super good pictures so that your footage of a meteorite crashing to earth can be shown in prime time TV.

[Rudi]

Then you would probably want super good pictures so that your footage of a meteorite crashing to earth can be shown in prime time TV.

If the meteor was big enough, non of us would be around to see it broadcasted on Timelord's super high resolution cam anyways!

[BenCasey]

Don't forget that the storage of a dash-cam is limited. Mine is about 2 hours and then it rolls over and starts over-writing itself ad infinitum. There is a "Lock" function that you can press to save that bit of the scene where the other car plows into you but apart from that, if you want to preserve your whole journey then you will, periodically, have to hook the card to an external storage and save the capture there. If you don't do this, then all you will have at the end of your epic journey is the last bit where you pull back into your drive !!

Other dash-cams may be different but something to watch out for.

[Rudi]

...If you don't do this, then all you will have at the end of your epic journey is the last bit where you pull back into your drive !!...

Woah...that would be a tragedy...
Similar to the overseas trip with an old SLR only to find that the lens cap was never removed!!!

[Timelord]

Thanks Leif, that site was a great boon to my research. I ended up going middle of the road on the camera. 8 hours recording time though so I will not have to worry too much.
I am hoping that I only find it useful when a large animal crosses the road or something. :)

[Leif]

Similar to the overseas trip with an old SLR only to find that the lens cap was never removed!!!

Difficult to do with an SLR - no?

[HansV]

Rudi was probably taking pictures at night, so he wouldn't have noticed...

[Rudi]

Oops....
You're quite right...

Correction: One of those older camera thingymajicks with a view finder.

I recall my father-in-law having a video camera that half a trip of blank video tape!!