Over the course of the past year and a half I’ve pretty well documented every ride that I’ve taken with my super compact Canon SD10 digital camera. It’s an absolutely fantastic gem of a camera. I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat - whether they’re a rider or not. Whats become clear to me is that it’s absolutely amazing how quickly you can become enamored with digital photography when it applies to areas of your life that you enjoy. However, during the past several months even though I’ve greatly enjoyed taking digital still images of the rides I take, my mind has increasingly moved in the direction of digital video. The chance to document the absolutely amazing natural beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains and the SoCal experience of canyon riding with video seems to picturesque an opportunity to pass up.

Due to a number of factors based on all of this, a unique opportunity has presented itself. As some of you might recall in a previous post, I wrote a short bit about how a company called Twenty20 Camera has recently introduced a new line of helmet & motorcycle cameras. A short time after I posted about it, one of guys who runs the company named Jason Green was kind enough to offer me a chance to actually get my hands on a unit and take it for a spin this weekend while I’m out at the CLASS course on the Streets of Willow racetrack.

Long time readers of this site will know, in the past I’ve reviewed some other items on this website simply for kicks. This is the first time that a manufacturer has asked me to review their product on their dime. So that’s pretty cool. That being said I want to be clear that I only agreed to this if I was allowed to give an honest evaluation of the product, not a tit-for-tat feel good piece. I feel I owe everyone who reads this site whether it’s regularly or not at least that much…

All the pieces of the Twenty20 Camera Kit

Late yesterday the unit arrived - right on time which I took as a good sign - and today I finally had a chance to check it out a bit and get it ready for a pre-trackday test ride.

My first step was to lay all the pieces of the kit out. Being the A/V guy that I am, I can’t say that I actually read much of the directions. The part that I glanced at seemed extremely easy to grasp. If you can plug one VCR into another one, you can set this baby up. There just aren’t that many items or connections to make and quite frankly the Twenty20 gang has done a really nice job clearly marking each part. Of course a helmet camera system isn’t exactly as complicated as rebuilding a carburetor, but then I’ve known some guys who couldn’t tell the difference between an RCA jack and a S-Video cable.

Obviously the kit comes with the actual camera unit. This unit is permanently connected to a wiring harness that splits about two to two and a half feet away from the actual camera. At the junction point the cable splits into three other cords; a cable with a clip-on microphone, a mini-plug connector for your recording device and a battery connection.

Having had the opportunity to work with some other brands of lipstick and miniature cameras while at work, I was pleasantly surprised at how well constructed the actual camera unit seems to appear. It is not a very heavy unit at all, yet its very substantially built and feels gutsy. I kept thinking of the marketing phrase ‘Built Ford Tough’ because it almost looks like you could run the camera over with a pick-up truck and it’d still work. Some other lipstick cameras I’ve worked with in the past have been surprisingly toyish in comparison.

I quickly popped open the battery tray and added the required 9v so I could power the unit up. Some other lipstick cameras that I’ve used in the past have housed AA or AAA batteries within the actual camera unit itself which of course meant that there was no actual power unit. Unfortunately for a motorcycle application a power system built into the camera would make the unit to long to mount to your helmet. Twenty20 thus went in a different direction by using a separate power supply. While looking the camera kit over for the first time my inital reaction was ‘how is this going to work?’… Later on while sitting on the bike it made a great deal more sense to me and in retrospect I really shouldn’t have had any concerns. My only real complaint with the battery tray is that the connector doesn’t give you a great feeling of confidence when plugging it into the wiring harness. I wish the plug was a bit more solid in its construction.

Since I haven’t had a chance to go for a ride with the system yet, I’m still not sure where I’m going to put the battery pack, but my guess is that I’ll just slide it into one of the front pockets in my leathers or perhaps still it in the fanny pack (more on that later) with the Canon ZR-80 that I’m using as a recording device. I have a feeling that will be a little bit of trial an error to find the most comfortable solution.

I choose the ZR-80 as a recording device for a couple of reasons, first I’ve now owned several Canon digital video products and they’ve always been good to me. Secondly my local camera shop had a decent deal on a refurbished unit for $200 bucks including tax. Since the helmet camera and it’s CCD chip is responsible for acquiring the images, I really didn’t have any reason to care about the picture quality of the ZR-80. Just it’s price. I’d have a hard time spending anymore for what amounts to a mini-vcr for my motorcycle. Who really wants to spend a ton of cash on a camera that’s getting bounced around on the weekends?

Yet perhaps the most important reason that I decided to go with the ZR-80 is that the video-in plug on the camera (what they call an A/V plug and primarily intend for folks to use for deck-to-camera recording) is not a proprietary plug like some Sony cameras I’ve used but rather an actual mini-plug just like the mini-plug built into the Twenty20 wiring harness. While I know that Twenty20 offers a number of adapters to fit several different cameras video-in plugs, I generally try my best to avoid any additional conversion or adapters in my video wiring chain. I don’t have any tangible proof, but it just seems to me that the simpler you can make the chain the better quality signal you’ll get recorded to tape. For right now I’m going with a simple $10 fanny pack that I picked up at my local Big-5 Sporting Good Store. Its just about the same dimensions as the ZR-80 and with everything loaded into it there’s no wiggle room at all.

Once I had everything connected, the next step was finding mounting positions for the camera on the bike. The Twenty20 Kit ships with several super heavy duty pieces of what appears to to industrial Velcro. The stuff is pretty hardcore, especially to the those soft to touch Velcro strips that early 80’s athletic shoes had. Simply no comparison. I choose four locations and very carefully applied the Velcro. The Twenty20 gang has assured me that the strips come off with no problem and won’t screw up the paint on the bike. You can also get a fixed mount, but I opted not to install that for now. It already pains me enough to see the Duc’s fairings with Velcro on them…

Once I had everything wired and my mounting positions picked out, the next step was to turn the ZR80 on and get a feel for the camera angles. I haven’t had a chance to grab any still images from this test yet, but initially the images on the ZR-80’s screen seemed very, very soft. I was greatly concerned that after all of this work to get the camera set-up, the lens was to blurry for my tastes. Then I had the inspiration to unscrew the camera unit and look for a focus ring.

I was guessing that there was perhaps a tiny screw that might have gotten loose when the unit shipped. To my surprise, the unit has an actual focal ring. I really wasn’t expecting that. Some lipstick cameras I’ve used have had them others haven’t. It seems like a hit or miss element. Luckily the lens sits on a spring mount that twists about 80º. I strongly suggest that once you find your mounting positions and place the Velcro strips, you power up your recording device and check your focus. The minute I played around with the focal ring the image dramatically improved. And to my surprise, depending on what look you’re going after, the lens has a fair amount of focal range. I was easily able to get both a shallow and deep depth of field. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some time to add a few screen captures to illustrate this a bit better. The bottom line is that so far the camera is everything it was advertised as being. The set up was quick and easy, two things I definitely appreciate, and its seem very well built. Of course it’s a digital video camera, so the real test will come once I get out on the bike for a ride.