First Dash Cam - Opia2 quick review

[hyperm3]

After 2 weeks(day and night) of relentless research, I ended up pulling the trigger on the Opia2. My requirements were that it had to have: a suction cup mount, capacitor not battery, excellent night recording, ability to swivel, excellent support from company.

I picked up the Opia2 along with the Vico Power-plus. The hardwiring wasnt technically difficult in general. My biggest issue was finding fuses that were Hot/Accessory in the same box. I ended up not being able to do that so in one fuse box I have the power lead, and for the accessory lead I tapped into an already tapped fuse for my radar detector. This did not seem to pose a problem though as the motion sensing recording worked when the car was off.

After the install I set up the cam the way I wanted it. My only two gripes with the setup were that you cant change the time format to normal, its always in 24hr time. And that the date is in European format, although thats not really terrible. The time thing really gets to me though.

The field of vision is superb and the definition in the recordings is really absolutely fantastic. Im extremely happy I went with this cam. I only was able to take recordings at night since it got dark by the time I was done installing it. However, I have included a snippet of my first night time drive and recording below. I also installed a CPL filter on the unit and the night quality was still excellent. I have to admit though, having LED headlights on the car really helps as I can see the difference in my videos and others I have watched on Youtube. Theres a point in the video where a Subaru STI passses me on the left and you can make out the license plate very clear.

The other thing you will note is the audio recording is really good. This was with the mic at medium setting and the music was very clear.

 

[kamkar]

Looking good

Hard to judge by the night footage but i think you might have too much sky in the frame, but its not sure some cameras handle such things better than others, so if your day / afternoon footage apear to be a little dark you can tilt the camera down to have less sky in the footage and it should ajust itself better to the lower light at street level.

 

[hyperm3]

Looking good

Hard to judge by the night footage but i think you might have too much sky in the frame, but its not sure some cameras handle such things better than others, so if your day / afternoon footage apear to be a little dark you can tilt the camera down to have less sky in the footage and it should ajust itself better to the lower light at street level.

Interesting, I never knew about that
Thanks for the tip!

 

[kamkar]

For a long time the norm have been a 60/40 split on the horizon, that be 60% below and 40% above horizon in frame.

But newer technology seem to not be so sensitive in this regard, but still the camera have to do its metering some place. ( some newer models you can choose where in frame and how the camera do its metering )

But it is a common mistake some do installing a camera, cuz people think why have so much of my hood and dashbord in the frame, not thinking why have so much empty sky in the frame not much go on there either, though some might think well i might be lucky and capture a meteorite like those Russians did a few years ago.

So just have a look at the footage, and i bet you do, we all do at first with a new toy on the windscreen. And if the day/afternoon footage seem a bit on the dark side just angle it down a little bit and so forcing camera to measure light on something a bit darker than the bright sky.