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Product Review

Looking for a CHEAP digital camera to mount on your R/C airplane? Look no further, the Aiptek PocketCam X is exactly what you need.
Model:PocketCam X
Manufacturer:Aiptek
Vendor:2fidelity.com
Wingspan:N/A
Style:Digital Camera
Power Source:(2) AAA batteries
Price:$29 + $10 for 512MB SD Card
Flight Weight:3.9 oz (with batteries and SD card)
Reviewer:HappyKillmore
Review Date:11/15/2006

This camera is not the world's greatest digital camera, but then again, it's only $30! At that price, if it falls off in flight or smashes to pieces during a crash, you won't have to loose much sleep. I mount this camera on my Outrage Biplane facing backwards. Nothing more than Velcro to hold it in place and I've yet to have it fall off. You'll need to place it rather close to your CG point on a park flyer because at 3.9 oz, it can weight as much as the battery.

This camera will take 3.1 megapixel still photos and video at 320 x 240 Pixels (QVGA) up to 20 fps...and here's the best part. WITH SOUND! Now you can hear the wind wooshing by and that motor screaming!

I've only found two real drawbacks, however, I'd bet you'd find this with all video cameras. First, when the camera is mounted facing forward, the prop creates horizontal lines that can be very distracting. Second is the camera does not handle vibrations very well. During flight, they won't be very noticable. If you try strapping the PocketCam X to the top of a Nitro Monster Truck and go for a spin, you'll see the distortion.


Non edited flight at the Strongsville Bus parking lot. It's been converted to a .wmv from an .avi file and reduced to save space. Original .avi file was 9.0 megs for about 1:20 of recording time.


This picture was taken indoors with the PocketCam X under florescent lighting.


Picture taken seconds later with a $300 Canon SD200.


Small size is ideal for R/C mounting.


I used some of the border material that the wings and tail were cut from to beef up the main strut and added some velcro.


Here's the mounted camera, lens cover open held in place with velcro.


The shot is always down the right side of the plane due to CG limitations and lens placement.


Note velcro locations on camera.



Conclusions
You sure can't beat the price. It's been very durable (even after 6 or so hard landings). The picture quality is adequate for what I'm trying to do.

Rating: 4 out of 5!



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