I just ordered a refurbed Sony DSC-HX9V for 225.00 shipped...

[tstrike]

am I going to be pleasantly surprised or what? I've come to the realization that I love my 60d too much to sacrifice to the Gods of Gravity and have decided to go lighter in the cam dept. I would have loved an nex-5 but between my piloting skills and the random failure's these craft present, it was too much money for what inevitably will happen-death flips, gear failure, hard landings, blah blah blah.
I know this camera is soooo last year but the video quality I've seen blew me away for a ps. I've got 4 gopros already, one even has the sunex lens and they're great for what they were designed for but very limited as far as cameras go.

So I ask those who've used this little gem, what's your opinion, 200 bucks well spent or another point n shoot left in the drawer?
thanks-tom

 

[ChrisViperM]

With 200 bucks you made a very good deal....and this camera is far away from "...soooo last year"....still in the TopTen of travel-zoom cameras....will beat the GoPro left-right-center....I can't figure out how to use it while in air, but this cam got a feature called "Intelligent Sweep Panorama"...which I use over and over again on my Sony HX-1.
I promise...you will be happy.

Chris

 

[tstrike]

Thanks Chris, I'm kind of psyched to have a descent pocket size camera for flying as well as just a carry around, lugging my Kata bag with my dslr stuff gets to be a drag sometimes.

 

[ChrisViperM]

I know how to feel like an muel with all the equipment tossed into one huge bag which you can use as a raft because of it's size....sweating and swearing comes to my mind. I cut down a lot in weight with this 2 goodies:

Edelkrone Pocket Rig: http://www.edelkrone.com/the-pocket-rig/ (...only got the rig and the follow focus)
Manfrotto Video/Photo head: http://www.manfrotto.com/News+&+Events/News/MANFROTTO+PHOTO-MOVIE+HEAD/5222930

Your decicion to go with that DSC-HX9V is golden...takes away a little bit of that flumsy feeling in your stomach once the bird gets into air...please don't crash...please don't crash...

Once you got that cam, maybe you could post some of your experience with it.

Chris

 

[BIGTACO]

What the hay! I had no idea there exist a sub 500 dollar camera that can shoot 1080P @ 60 FPS! I may seriously consider this little dude.

 

[tstrike]

send me your gimbal and I'll send you pictures of it mounted:nevreness:. I remember when these came out last year they were pretty hot with a lot of the dslr guys. They all had big plans to have a cheap B camera to cut in with their bocalicious 5d footage. I looked at the gf3 real long and hard but all the footage I found had pretty nasty moire, this camera has it also just not as bad at least to me.
No live out and no remote or timelapse will probably suck but I'll get what I paid for.
Chris, I had a custom rig for mine, but I only use my stuff for personal and it kind of looked goofy at my kids swim meets, so now I hand hold the camera and focus with my pointer finger. If I've got to hand hold for more than 5 minutes, I use my monopod, more than 10 minutes-tripod.

 

[BIGTACO]

Tstrike did you try this camera yet onn your bird? I am seriously considering this camera but I hear it may have issues with vibration sensitivity. I hear its a "jello monster". Anything to report??

 

[kloner]

how does something like that hold up to a hard landing or a crash? I dropped a nikon point and shoot once and the thing took shakey videos on a tripod afterwards. it fell 3 feet out of my hand

 

[janoots2]

I had mine drop like a rock (onto grass) from about 80 feet up, and it worked fine. Keep in mind it was on a floating plate, a rubber mount and that the gimbal was between landing gear to protect it. Kind of bent the inverted screw mount on it but was able to fix it. It powered off upon impact, but when I powered it back up, it tried to recover the footage from that flight. I only lost about 15 seconds of the flight before impact. No issues what so ever, thankfully....

It was all about minimizing risk when I was making my camera decision. I could get a nice used HX9V of Ebay for $225 or a Nex5n for $600. I'm glad I minimized my risk

Mount it on one of these to address the jello and thank me later:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HL500-ANTI-VIBRATION-camera-stabilizer-mount-helicopter-multicopter-cars-boats-/120973017388?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2a8dc12c