The best one i found was the Panasonic HDC-SD9... and its prices are falling decently on ebay... But it held the steadiest pictures i've seen from a suction-cup mounted camera in a long time (it has a very good hardware-based image stabilization system)... and it shoots full 1080 HD...

all the vids but the most latest one was shot with it:

http://www.youtube.com/composimo


I got rid of it though, because it doesn't have an external mic jack, and i wanted to mount it in the wind, and the onboard mic couldn't deal with that... lol!

So i'm shopping for something else.

 

So this is what I'm looking for in a main camera, and what I imagine most racers are looking for whether they know it or not.

1) HD (720p or better)
2) No vertical scan waviness
3) Solid state
4) larger than 2 gb capacity. Some digital cameras support larger capacity cards, but have a file size limit of 2gb
5) relatively light weight
6) wide angle lens, or optional lens attachments
7) camera screw hole
8) external mic
9) doesn't overcompensate
10) quality video (regardless of the resolution - ie lighting, focus, compression, etc.)

So far, I have not found a camera that meets all the criteria for less than $300.

 

Would you mind listing the cameras that do meet that criteria, and even a few that are out of the price range?

 

Well, I've been looking at the Canon Vixia series of HD cameras. Some are solid state. And I think new models came out, so the outgoing ones are going for around $500. I would imagine canon sells wider angle lenses, but haven't researched that far.

The camera I have now is a digital camera that records widescreen video rather nicely. Panasonic Lumix line. Better than most non-hd youtube type cameras. The new models do HD, but I'm not sure about the file size capacity. Whenever researching video on digital cameras, they only tell me how much video I can fit on a card of a given size...not how much continuous video. I can't risk shelling out $250 for a digital camera to find out I can only take 20 minutes of video (which is actually find for autocross, but isn't really for track days and such).

One other thing I like about the gopro, which I hope to test soon, is that I can bring it to my local indoor karting place.

 

And this looks neat:

http://www.smartycam.com/index_eng.htm

 

That SmartyCam looks very interesting... email sent for more info about that one

 

http://www.aim-sportline.com/pages/downloa..._stock_ecus.htm


no Honda ECU compatibility listed

 

I like mine, had a hard time getting a good sound out of it but here are a few on my old EP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CbM5R9QSuk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9erdOcLsg0

sorry none yet in the S though

 

The SmartyCam should look great since it's a $1000 piece of gear...

 

A two-camera chasecam setup will cost you around $1000. And that's without GPS tracking (but with two cameras).