Does anyone have for sale an HO gauge railcar fitted with a video camera? Our Willamette Model Railroad club has a beautiful scenic layout perfect for filming as you run down the track.
I just saw an ad in the new issue of MR for Micromark's cam car. Their prices are often good, in my opinion.
EDIT: Yikes! $125. Out of my range, but maybe a good price for a club? https://www.micromark.com/SMI-Premium-HO-Camera-Car-Modern-Era
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
It's surprising that Ed "gmpullman" or Mel haven't chimed in on this. They have built some camera cars.
Mike.
My You Tube
I really like the SQ13 camera.
Both the video and audio from the SQ13 are very good, it has a very powerful magnet on the back.It’s a bit larger than the SQ8, the SQ8 is also a very good camera but I think the SQ13 is better.The SQ8 fits inside a Athearn SD40-2 frame with a Proto E8 shell. The SQ13 is too large.My E8 takes very good video. Six 3mm warm white LEDs through the windshield give it plenty of light in my tunnels. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California Turned 84 in July, aging is definitely not for wimps.
Many of my "on Board" videos were made with this Contour Roam camera I bought several years ago (2013! Yikes!). I nested it into an old double-stack container car and added weight to reduce the wobblies:
IMG_2435 by Edmund, on Flickr
I do have an SQ-8 cmaera but wasn't impressed at all with the video quality. Perhaps they have improved it in Mel's SQ-13?
IMG_7956 by Edmund, on Flickr
Here's a screen capture of the SQ-8:
cube_cam1 by Edmund, on Flickr
IMG_7954_fix by Edmund, on Flickr
My third camera is this Mobius camera that is intended for use as a dash-cam.
It is relatively small and fits nicely on a flat car and gives very good video resolution and a bright picture. I don't have a recent photo of it on an HO car but I'll post one soon.
Keep in mind most of these "Sports" or action cameras have an exceptionally wide field of view, almost a fish-eye lens. I'd like to find a camera with a tighter F-O-V as watching the round-and-round of a train layout can get dizzying with that distorted view. Plus you get LOTS of ceiling and track in the view.
Good Luck, Ed
Here's my camera car.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html