Originally Posted by yabbadaba2

Okay, I tried to refocus but I'm like someone else posted, I'm not much good at it.

Please give your general impression of the focus of my camera now. I ended up screwing the lens IN about 1/8 of a turn but I'm not sure if this is the answer.

I know that it's not "shooting down the fence" but I did that to come up with this finished focal length.

Note that I like to fly high and far away. Plus some mid-range stuff. Not so worried about close (less then 3or 4 hundred feet).

I tried Tom's Avidemux tutorial and his settings to clip this with AvDemux and I'm not sure what happened to the sound at ~23 seconds. I'm sure it was something I did and I'm not concerned about that.

Just general impressions from you guys would help me figure if I'm in the right zipcode as far as focus is concerned.

Thanks

Yabba

Yabba... I think you have it nailed! Assuming it hasn't moved as a result of the flight motion....Quick, put a dab of silicon adhesive on the thread joint so it doesn't move, let it cure, then have fun!

I was just starting to refocus mine when your email came in. I've seen so far there is noticeable difference between focus at my frame center than near the corners, as would be expected with these cheap lenses. In addition to spherical abberation of the lens (I seriously doubt they are using aspheric lens elements), the focal plane of the lens is likely not flat, but the CMOS sensor is, so this is what we have to live with. I think this can explain why some have said they needed to turn their lens counter-clockwise (out) rather then clockwise (in) to get better focus. Focusing for sharper corners will decrease focus near the center, but might improve the overall perception of the entire frame.

FWIW, AviDemux has some bugs in the way it handles audio in the editor mode, but they seem to get resolved during the file output process. I found on one occasion that what I was doing on the computer while the file was being re-encoded screwed up the sound and video, and simply outputting the file again made it right. I always test my final output file before I close down my editors, just in case. I seldom care about audio in my AV videos anyway.

Originally Posted by yabbadaba2

Just general impressions from you guys would help me figure if I'm in the right zipcode as far as focus is concerned.

Thanks

Yabba

Yabba,

Looks like a very nice focus setting for aerial videos. You got it in the right zipcode and parked right in the driveway.

I'm still waiting for my HD808 camera to arrive. With my old #3 cam I used the webcam mode hooked to my laptop and sat out on my deck and focused on some distant objects. A neighbors deck, and another neighbor's multipane windows at about 100 yard or so, provided the fine details I needed to make distant objects pop. Having the instant feedback of the laptop monitor insures that you get the focus where you want it, without having to do multiple video shoots.

Doug

I just found this thread and was so excited. I forced myself to read through at least 20 pages of this thread though, trying to get an idea of any quirks to watch out for, etc. But after that, I ordered one almost immediately.

I had been wishing forever there would be a small camera with better quality of the keychain cam, yet still small enough and affordable enough to not be worried about if it crashes. To my knowledge none existed, until now. (If anyone does know of any others that are even comparible to price/quality please pm me).

Anyways, I know the Field of view is already larger, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried fitting one of those good quality .67x or 180 fish eye lenses on them. Those dramatically improved my old keychain cam footage.

As one of the first to receive this 808HD camera, and after all the warnings, I should probably not have done this. But encouraged by some of you who had success removing the date stamp I just HAD to try it. My camera was ordered Dec. 8th 2010 from internet-shop365. He (she?) has been very helpful and responded very quickly to my emails - he also sent me the timeset.txt file and the firmware file (with warnings!) early on.

At first I thought I had success also.
After I had copied the firmware file to the SD card and turned on camera, the yellow light came on (after some seconds), and I made a short test video. BEFORE turning off the camera I connected it to the PC to have a look at the video file. I was very pleased to see the date stamp had disappeared!
Disconnected the PC, turned off and then on camera again - then I realized I had forgotten to delete the firmware file. The firmware loaded like first time (took some seconds again), and I was able to connect to the PC and delete the firmware file.
Now the problems started. Disconnected the PC, turned off camera and tried to turn it on again. No go! Dead. Bricked!

Just for fun I copied the firmware file back to the SD card (by means of a #3 camera) and tried again to turn on the 808HD camera. NO.

I shall try to contact my vendor and ask him about a replacement, but shipping to China from Norway may be quite expensive - hope he will trust me.. Oh well.

/Jan

Originally Posted by carl1864

I just found this thread and was so excited. I forced myself to read through at least 20 pages of this thread though, trying to get an idea of any quirks to watch out for, etc. But after that, I ordered one almost immediately.

I had been wishing forever there would be a small camera with better quality of the keychain cam, yet still small enough and affordable enough to not be worried about if it crashes. To my knowledge none existed, until now. (If anyone does know of any others that are even comparible to price/quality please pm me).

Anyways, I know the Field of view is already larger, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried fitting one of those good quality .67x or 180 fish eye lenses on them. Those dramatically improved my old keychain cam footage.

Have a look here http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...&postcount=314

In this YouTube video you may see the effect from a .67x wide angle lens from ab. 2:15 in the "wing-cam" scene. Sorry about the bad weather..

Test 4 vignetting (5 min 43 sec)

/Jan

Originally Posted by yabbadaba2

Okay, I tried to refocus but I'm like someone else posted, I'm not much good at it.

Yabba - that's superb video, just needs a sound track! Don't touch that cam anymore - it might qualify for the Smithsonian!

Yep, focus is dead on Yabba! Just this morning I tweaked mine again, using the webcam mode this time. I think it's a little better this time. I know it wasn't perfect after my last attempt...

If I can get mine as good as yours is I'll be happy!

Tom, I ordered the 0.67X wide lens a few days ago, it'll be here in a week or two I guess. Do you happen to have a picture of the HD808 with it mounted? I'm just curious about the size. Any chance you could measure the outer diameter of the lens where it sits on the camera? I'm hoping it will fit another little camera I have here too, but it will need to sit down in a recessed area on the front of that one. Maybe you can spare me the anticipation while I wait on the slow boat to get it here...

Originally Posted by jhi

Now the problems started. Disconnected the PC, turned off camera and tried to turn it on again. No go! Dead. Bricked!

Do you still get the red LED to show up? Like when you charge it via USB?
If so, theres a chance to turn it on again by loading the "Date On" bin-file back in the cam like i described above.
Worth a try before you send it back.

Thank you!

Yes, I get the red light, but no response from the ON-button. Shall try your suggestion later and report back. Thanks again!

/Jan

Originally Posted by deepinside

Do you still get the red LED to show up? Like when you charge it via USB?
If so, theres a chance to turn it on again by loading the "Date On" bin-file back in the cam like i described above.
Worth a try before you send it back.

Originally Posted by yabbadaba2

Okay, I tried to refocus but I'm like someone else posted, I'm not much good at it.

<<snip<<

I tried Tom's Avidemux tutorial and his settings to clip this with AvDemux and I'm not sure what happened to the sound at ~23 seconds. I'm sure it was something I did and I'm not concerned about that.

Thanks Guys, I feel better. I know I liked the looks of the focus but hell, I'm old, I've had cataract surgery. Everytime I would look at it I would think something different so I relly wasn't sure until I got your responses. Thanks

Tom,

AviDemux has some bugs in the way it handles audio in the editor mode, but they seem to get resolved during the file output process. I found on one occasion that what I was doing on the computer while the file was being re-encoded screwed up the sound and video, and simply outputting the file again made it right. I always test my final output file before I close down my editors, just in case. I seldom care about audio in my AV videos anyway

So You just re-save the file (same settings and output, etc) ?

I'll start checking BEFORE I close Avidemux next time, thanks.

Also, I had to re-name the saved file to add the .MOV extension to it.. Is this correct? I think I remember seeing that somewhere, if it's correct to have to do that maybe you could consider editing the Avidemux post and mentioning that. Or maybe I did it wrong and managed to stumble across a way to save my goof-up

But the tutorial was spot on. It will help a lot of people like me who are having to learn many things we never wanted to learn

Thanks All,

Yabba

OK, I tried your suggestion and was able to revive the camera!

- I put the "ON" firmware (FW96630A.bin) on the card and pressed the ON-button. After 10 LONG seconds the yellow light came on and the camera was ready for shooting video.
- Removed the firmware file from the card and tried again. No response after several minutes. Looks like the camera now need to load firmaware from the card - perhaps not enough capacity on the IC Tom talks about in post #16.
- Now I tried the "OFF" firmware. To my surprise, this time the yellow light came on after 10 seconds again. Test movie showed no date stamp . The first time I tried this (when I thought I had bricked the camera) I probably did not wait long enough.

Conclusion.
I have a "semi" working camera which depends on the fimware loaded on the SD card. To make it fully working I need a new IC as described in post #16, but I don't think I am able to change it myself.
I guess I shall ask for a new camera, in the mean time the old one is OK - it only takes 10 seconds to start it..

Awaiting email from internet-shop365.......

Thank you deepinside for your response and Tom Frank for the IC information..

/Jan

Originally Posted by deepinside

Do you still get the red LED to show up? Like when you charge it via USB?
If so, theres a chance to turn it on again by loading the "Date On" bin-file back in the cam like i described above.
Worth a try before you send it back.

jantares - re bitrate variation

I agree with you, it could be significant, but doesn't seem to affect the video quality. The test clips from China were at the low bit rate, and quality looks good. Here's the "crossing the bridge" sample

While we're checking focus, here's what mine looks like after tweaking it again. Look good?

(I know it's different than being in the air, but I have no time to fly it today, or any time soon... )

HD 808 focus test... (0 min 30 sec)

Originally Posted by yabbadaba2

Thanks Guys, I feel better. I know I liked the looks of the focus but hell, I'm old, I've had cataract surgery. Everytime I would look at it I would think something different so I relly wasn't sure until I got your responses. Thanks

Tom,

So You just re-save the file (same settings and output, etc) ?

I'll start checking BEFORE I close Avidemux next time, thanks.

Also, I had to re-name the saved file to add the .MOV extension to it.. Is this correct? I think I remember seeing that somewhere, if it's correct to have to do that maybe you could consider editing the Avidemux post and mentioning that. Or maybe I did it wrong and managed to stumble across a way to save my goof-up

But the tutorial was spot on. It will help a lot of people like me who are having to learn many things we never wanted to learn

Thanks All,

Yabba

Just re-saviing the re-encoded file worked for me the one time I had a corrupted output. The second time I wasn't mucking around in the backgroud while AviDemux was copyin, and that seemed to do the trick.

If you selected the MP4 output container like I recommended, the file type tag should be .MP4 not .MOV. If I neglected to mention that you need to include the file extension to match the output format you select, then it was an oversight. I'll go back and take a look. So, if you output as an .AVI file, when you are prompted for the name of your new file, you would type in your name and add .AVI.

FWIW, .MOV and .MP4 are kissin' cousins, so you can usually use either extension and the files will play (do I hear banjo music!? )

Originally Posted by KeithLuneau

While we're checking focus, here's what mine looks like after tweaking it again. Look good?

(I know it's different than being in the air, but I have no time to fly it today, or any time soon... )

Nail it Bro. The Trampoline is just slightly out but the tree limbs starting at ~13 or 14 sec and the building are crystal clear.

Which means, with my eyes you'd better start all over

Naw, really, you nailed it.

Yabba