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Deleted member 24437
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Yummy!
No go salmon milkshake
No go salmon milkshake
As pirates say on their ships, avast! Belay that boat chatterrrrrr. End of boat stuff. Which showed up because we're bored with waiting for the SJ8. [/ wink ]
A cable that can do power and a mic should be standard. Make the mic jack waterproof when it's not in use (seal the cable end of the jack, and put a "rubber" plug in the other end). If I'm riding my motorcycle, I may want to add commentary, not record only wind going by. Or I may want to put the mic close to the motor or exhaust. An external mic is the answer.
I disagree on "gotta use the screen". If you're in the water and want change the resolution, for example, there'll be no way to do that. Put the camera on a helmet and the only way to change settings is open the case. Pushing the settings button makes these issues go away. Flash will help in the helmet setting but won't be available in the water.
What kept you from using the SJ7?
With the "motorcycle" case or in the bare frame, there's no problem with being able to use an external power source. There is a video how-to for making a power/mic cable. The process takes the skill of a surgeon to do the soldering. IMHO.Yeah I agree, I am fine with having that special USB cable and feed the external microphone through a mini or micro USB port. And running the camera from external power source. That should be standard by now I think. The touchscreen is probably a cost issue, but yeah. I do not mind having both, and then select the one you want to use, or both at the same time.
The SJ7 is almost totally not protected from anything in the air. Take out the SD, move the camera around a bit while looking into the SD slot, and the insides of the camera are visible. The mic port, connectors, speaker, etc., are also not sealed. Dust can get in, rain or spray can get in. SJCam "stepped on their necktie" in failing to give even minimal water / dust resistance. By comparison, GoPro made the Hero 5 safe to take in a swimming pool. OK, that level of waterproof adds to the cost; making the SJ7 only water-resistant shouldn't cost as much.Anyway one big problem is of course water and housing for any camera. That scenario is not easy to work with, depending on what your demands are for quality of sound and video. I am looking forward to the SJ8 camera. These new Ambarella H2 and H12 chips look great of paper, will save battery life but the best part is heat as they are 14nm construction.
I vigorously disagree about the SJ7 and heating. I've posted a lot about this in the SJ7 and Dashcamtalk SJ7 areas. Sitting on my desk and shooting 1080@60, it hit 57C / 135F. I burned my fingers on my SJ7 after it crashed into "gotta pull the battery" mode. I had to take the camera out of the case and that's when it happened. It was only 1st degree burns, but burns nonetheless. Additionally, two batteries have swollen, which means they overheated. Swollen lithium batteries can ignite when the swelling creates an internal short circuit. Not Good. The SJ7 heats up and not just a little. I can't comment on the YI 4+. I haven't seen or tested one.Also the SJ7 Star had such a nice construction and in reviews people say it does not get hot so that is great. The YI 4+ does seem to have some problems with different things but I feel it was rushed to the market.
Remember that the SJ7 has dash cam capability - looping, power detection, etc. |I'd call that a static use. With lots of sunlight heating things up on a sunny day.I think it is rare the people that will use a camera for prolonged shoots in a static environment, aside the the many that will put the camera in the WP housing to give it some degree of protection as the hurl down a mountainside of their bike,,,, or whatever like that.
I see that, but shooting from a motorcycle or whatever, a longer shot may be needed. Better to have too much footage and trim off the excess than to wish there was more footage, which doesn't exist.For my use it is rare i use the WP housing, only in situations like above where the camera stand on a small gorilla pod in a body of water, cuz then it dont take much for some idiot to knock it over
But in my case shots are only a few minutes at worst before we reset for next location / shot.
I suspect there have been at least a couple of production runs, with engineering changes added to later runs. IIRC, the mic location was changed. Different cameras come with different fimware rev.s.I have a sneaky unfounded feeling that there might be differences within cameras in some unexplained way, i have made prolonged recordings in my window sill and yes the SJ7 did get hot, but not something i could not handle, and maybe becuz of that i also have not seen any thermal shutdowns.
The basic idea here is to get rid of as much heat as possible. Adding at least a metal front panel is a step forward. Many heat sinks have fins, ridges, etc. to increase surface area. That's not an option in this situation. Additionally, the case should have at least the same radiating surface area as the camera itself. Having less area means the camera will need more time to hit thermal equilibrium. Not Good.If cameras could have a nice flat ALU bottom thru which it could dissipate heat thru, then a WP housing in ALU if you screw the 2 together could soak up that heat and pass it on to the water or air rushing by its outer surfaces.
I am pretty sure all performance cameras would go thermal belly up in a WP housing during a prolonged shot, but outside of such a housing it should not happen, maybe with the only NUT being if it was in a hot place at first like a windscreen or otherwise sunny place with little or no circulation to talk about.
It's more likely that GP recognized slippery cameras are no fun. If it's no fun, it's not bought. The same thing for at least some degree of water-proofing. If the camera will drown in a splash at a pool, or in the rain, that's no fun. Deliberately boost the failure rate? I doubt it. OK, it'd help sales. But only to a point. If a product gets the reputation of failing shortly after coming out of the box, there will be fewer boxes sold. Not Good. (again)I also think this is why GoPro changed to a self sustained camera, waterproof to some degree in it self, and with the side benefit that more people would break it and go buy a new one.