What is your favorite SJ4000 accessory?

[Pavle]

I would like to know what gear you use for yous SJCAM cameras in general?

Do you use all of those that came in original packing or you got some additional?

I use few of the original ones, and got bunch of additional such as head mount, car mount and also a power bank and batteries which are my favorite.

What do you guys use?

 

[Pavle]

Okay, until someone mentions more gadgets for SJ4000, I have writen a short list of gear I use on my blog.
http://sjcamguides.com/top-11-accessories-for-sjcam-sj4000/

 

[mollydog]

I won’t say these two items are my favourite SJ4000 accessory, just that with these two items I’ve increased my options and versatility of the SJ4000 at little cost

a good portable tripod is a must, unless you plan on fixing the SJ on your person or vehicle at all times, I got this one: Velbon EX-Mini, from eBay for £21 posted to my door






very compact when folded away and goes to a good hight when extended,

here with my Drift time lapse fitted to the tripod



which leads me to my second item that will add more versatility to the SJ4000 at little cost, its the DRIFT time lapse, got this off eBay too, £20 included P&P to my door



I was going to buy the Ikea egg timer, but the nearest store is over 55 miles from me, and with P&P form Ikea their egg timer was going to cost about £14, so for the extra few quid I went with this one

and another item I just thought of is the extra batteries, and a charger that charges two batteries at a time, this is the one I got for my self



from the same UK bayer that I got the SJ4000 from @£11 with the two batteries

what I’m looking for now is a hard case to hold two SJ4000 and a few accessories

 

[mollydog]

my first time lapse, not pleased with it. I set it to take one photo every 3 seconds

then did this in my back garden playing with my daughters dog and set it to capture video one frame every second

if I do have a little niggly bit with the SJ4000, its having to reset the date and time, if/when the battery goes dead or, like me swap over the battery for a freshly charged on, but that aside, for just over £50 image quality I’m very pleased with, I’ve tried it in the car as a DVR and it out performed in image quality (in my opinion) the mini 0806 costing twice the price and is a dedicated DVR

I am amazed that this camera can be sold here in the UK for so little, when on has to take in to account that this camera has had import duty and VAT added to it for the £54 I paid for it (unless it came off the back of a lorry)

 

[mollydog]

did these this morning in my front garden

 

[mollydog]

Got this steady-cam for use with my SJ400 from eBay only cost £17.64 and that included P&P, ordered it on Tuesday night, arrived Friday morning





got it from here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311230152695
photographically what can you buy for £17? I remember being at Focus on imaging at the NEC in Birmingham a year or two back and these kind of steady cams were costing anywhere from £90 and saw some costing over £150, these weren’t professional ones, they were more or less just like this one, only costing a lot more money

 

[petepete]

What software are you using to convert the timelapse photos... ( assuming your sj is the same as mine and doesn't have the "video lapse" setting....

And out of curiousity...

I notice my waterproof case has very slick buttons that barely protrude from the case 4mm with the silver bit of the button flush with its tube housing and am overly impressed with the fitting of the back etc - feels real quality...

All others I see on the web the buttons stick out much further ????

Is your case the same ?

 

[mollydog]

I didn’t use any other software for these time-lapse I’ve shown, mine does have video lapse

As I use Mac’s, for other slow motion or fast motion, I use iMovie, and iMovie can also perform the task of gathering all the images and forming a movie (not that I’ve tried this out myself, just what I heard), also for the Mac there is a (donation) bit of software called Time Lapse Assembler, I have it but not used it yet

I also find sometimes the buttons need to be pushed in a second time as the first time wasn’t pushed in far enough, but as I’m getting used to it it’s happening less often

What I’ve found (not repeating what I’ve already said) I’ve noticed on two occasions the screen was showing the red time numbers and when I went to look at the card, it hadn’t recorded, but no way of knowing, wouldn’t want to paraglide down a mountain only to find it hadn’t recorded,

after I has formatted the card it seemed to record as if nothing had happened, I inserted a card yesterday to play about with it in the garden and a message came on on the screen telling me to insert the card, kept telling me this till I formatted the card, so maybe before it found an error but I didn’t notice the warning message, I’ll have to investigate this


while outside in the garden I spent maybe to sessions videoing my daughters dog, both sessions lasted about 10 minutes, the first session had iirc about 500mg of footage, the second had only 52meg of footage

while I was recording I didn’t know it had stopped recording and the red numbers with the flashing LED were still showing


I just took some images of the buttons on mine to show what mine are like















in passing for the price I am very pleased with it, so much so I bought a second one after only a few days after the first one

 

[petepete]

got a link to where you bought and what is the firmware version ? I m on N20140929v01 and am wondering if yours has the later N20141218v01 and that is the reason yours has "video lapse" straight out the camera.

I ve been on the sjcam site and it seems they are doing uk stocked free post, £50 for sj4000 and £63 for the wifi.

my case is the same as yours and on sj site so am assuming its legit !

 

[mollydog]

I got mine off Ebay, UK seller



got it from this seller

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/160926639225
mine is the wifi one, it has gone up £10 since I bought my two, the guy on ebay makes a big thing about his are original, I ran the serial nubers on SJCAM site again (after many tries) and its an original SJ4000 wifi

my FW is: G2015 04 08 V02
date: Apr 82015

 

[petepete]

noticed the price

and noticed its wifi which is why it has the video lapse... sjcam uk are doing that for £65 with 2 batteries and I m hovering !

somewhere I read the vo2 with the new screen has 720 interpolated to 1080 but that could be internet misinformation .....

I do like the sj though even though the motion detect couldn't spot a bull in a china shop attached to its nose !!!!

 

[mollydog]

Myself unless you’re going to use it in parking mode, I wouldn’t bother with motion detection and that goes for DVR’s too,

my SJ was £53 + a few pennies, the guy I bought it from had a few offers and one was to get it with two batteries, as the SJ doesn’t come with a battery charger you are only going to be able to charge the battery when its in the camera, so without a battery charger if both batteries are running out you’ll have to wait around an hour or more before you can use the SJ

so I went for the one battery package and then for £11 went for 2 batteries and a charger that charges 2 batters at once, myself, don’t go for a charger that can only charge one battery at a time, get the one that can charge 2 at once

by doing this you will have 3 batteries, you charge two as you use the 3rd in the camera,

the battery chargers I got uses USB (both micro and mini) to charge, so with the right connector can be charged from your car cigarette lighter or with the right plug your home,

I also have one of these SilverCrest power bank SPB 2.6 A1

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I paid (I think £6 when I got it) from Lidl, so with it if I’m away from external power to charge the battery, with this I can squees a bit more out of the SJ batteries (or any other item that can be charged with a USB cable)

I'd skip the motion detector, and you should be happy for the price they cost

 

[petepete]

you can see what sjcam uk are up to here..

I think the offers are good and you know you are buying genuine...

like you I prefer the sharp image they give and a quick adjustment in vlc of the saturation and hue and you can match the vivid colours of the yi s strong point and keep the sharpness the yi lacks...

screen record then saves the tweeked video....

 

[mollydog]

3 batteries a double charger and camera and bits all for less than £65

this is a cracking little camera, yes it has a few niggles all of which I can live with, the images it captures is far beyond what I expected at this price point, it gets my vote

maybe even the Gopro costing a hundred or two £££ more might have a few niggles

 

[jokiin]

GoPro aren't without their glitches either

 

[mollydog]

Pavle, hope you don’t mind me adding this here? as I’ve shown what I’ve done with the Drift time Lapse here, I thought instead of adding a new thread, I might as well place it here

as unless one goes for a professional time lapse, I’ve not seen any mechanical ones, even egg timers (Ikea’s) travel from right to left as you view the movie, they get wound up by turning them clock wise

I’m sure others have thought of this, but as I’ve not seen/heard of them I thought I’d show what I did

I got hold of scrap bits that were kicking around in the shed and put this together:











I got hold of a bracket and with a few 1/4 20 nuts mounted the SJ upside down, and here is the clip

then I imported the clip in to Quick Time Pro (on a Mac) and with two clicks it did the right way up, right way round

as I now don’t tend to have the date and time showing, theres nothing giving it away that it was shot upside down

 

[Pavle]

Some awesome tips and ideas, thanks for sharing. Keep up the good material coming!

 

[mollydog]

I shot this time-lapse in my back garden yesterday, its nothing special/brilliant, in fact I’m only showing this to show what I did to do this time lapse

I could of used the small Velbon tripod I bought the other day, but as I wanted to leave the camera running in my garden for many hours unattended, I thought I’d use my sturdy tripod from my past life as a photographer



I’m planing on making a lead weight for the velbon tripod, then a slight breeze won’t tip it over.

As the sun was shining bright, I made myself (I think they call it) a flag (not sure now) I used to have one very similar to this one years ago,



so you can shadow bright light hitting the lens, so I had to make my own as I didn’t have the one from years ago

these are some of the bits and bobs I used to make one



the magic arm was only £11 from eBay (a few years back)



hung a few bits up to spray black









whilst the magic arm is OKish, you do get better flexibility with the arm part of the flag thing, and here it is, I used a bit of cardboard to shade the lens from the sun, something light, if you look closely I slipped up a bit as there is a bit of lens flare




then a part to rest my power block to keep feeding the SJ with power as the SJ battery at most will run out after 90 / 120 minutes,


how to use print screen

with this power pack I switched on the SJ around 3 in the afternoon and around 9 / 9:30 in the evening I went outing switched off and took everything indoors thinking,

1, its getting dark, surely the SJ can’t be capturing much
2, the power pack has 4 green LED’s

4 on 100% power
3 on 75% power
2 on 50% power
1 on 25 % power
0 on 0% power

no green LED’s were showing so not knowing how long the power pack could power the SJ, I thought maybe the pack had run dry hours ago and as the SJ’s batter at best was only 2 hourI’d finish this time lapse and see what I captured, when I got inside I did notice that all the green bard on the SJ were still on so maybe could of gone on for another hour or two, I’ll have to experiment on that

looking at the footage, looks like it was still capturing right till I switched of, 6 hours + of running, as by the look of the trees going darker

the time lapse was taken yesterday but these photos were taken today to show you how and what I did,

hope its of help to some one

 

[mollydog]

A week or two back I made some sort of Heath Robinson effect regarding my SJ’s and a tripod
.

After digging around and searching on Ebay this is what I now have and it’s a lot more streamlined and functional


the use of this bracket come to it’s own when used for time lapse photography/videoing

First off I’m, using a Justrite bracket I used to use in my past life as a photographer, they’re not cheap but I’m sure someone who’s resourceful will be able to make one up themselves

on the bracket I fitted quick release to the base to fit on a tripod and a quick release for the SJ. The thing I like about this bracket is, on one stem you can have on SJ pointing in one direction (time lapse) wile the other, as I’ve shown in my images could be used with the Drift time lapse,

here’s showing the base with a manfrotto quick release

the top of the bracket with the Drift time lapse, the bracket used to hold the Drifter is a “Joby” bracket

reason for the Joby bracket is as all these low price/home made timers rotate from left to right as you look at it
with this bracket, the drifter can be turned up side down so the time lapse starts from right to left as you look at it and the SJ isn’t up side down. only the drifter

Here is the just rite bracket with a lip on the side to hold a power pack (or two)

I got this flag thingie to help hold something near the SJ’s or as I use them with a card (not shown) to shade the lens from the sun hitting the lens

this red grip didn’t come with it but the flag thing only cost about £8 from eBay so can’t complain

hope these images gives others food for thought and make their/your own up

 

[TeriTerryTarry]

My favorite accessory (and only one other than suction mounts for the car) is the Veho Duopod mini monopod and tripod. It makes a nice tabletop tripod, handgrip and selfie stick. When fully assembled and extended it's about 32 inches tall. Note however it could only be used for action cams. It's much too light for anything else. Even my point-and-shoot digital camera is almost too much for it but it's great for my SJ4000 Wi-Fi. About $21 at B&H Photo Video.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...C_A019_MP_Duopod_Mini_Monopod_and_Tripod.html