ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.
Doing some research, I found a low cost ($80) digital video camera that would be excellent for making videos of your model trains. The camera is small enough to ride in a gon or on a flatcar in HO or larger scales. It's also waterproof and suitable for outdoor purposes, so it's useful for many things.
i tried friend's paintball cam. they are really poorly suited for close focus situations , not wide enough field of view, and really like plenty of light to produce good footage.
The problem with the wireless camera is that it's not easy to record to your computer for youtube clips and such. The two kinds of cameras server different purposes. Unlike the wireless cams some install in locomotive, this camera will be much more versatile. If placed om a flatcar, I can place it on a flatcar back in the train or on the end of the train like a conductor riding a caboose. You can also place it trackside in tight areas. And going beyond model railroading, I could mount it to on the tourist railway locomotive and video the valve motion. This camera has thousands of uses, a search of youtube will prove that. One of the best ones was where people strap it to model rockets and launch them. Here is a good model railroad video using the camera;
I bought a MRR camera about 5 years ago & mounted it on a flatcar. It never worked in my trainroom, because I'm in a metal building. I tried all kinds of things to make it work.
I finally mounted it about 10ft. from the receiver on a building roof & could watch trains go by. On rainey days it still wouldn't work. It takes a VCR, a plug in power supply & a TV to make the pictures show up. For awhile I had room for all that, not now.
Someday, someone's going to invent a camera for a metal building interior & that's when I will be able to show more movies. LOL
At 30 frames per second, it's a good camera for the kind of high impact things shown at the OS site but not very good for model trains. As has been said, the depth of field is poor and the video is pretty choppy. Our bike deputies use a similar camera, mounted to their helmets. It's good enough to know what's happening but not anywhere near as good as a normal speed video camera. OTOH, at $80, at least it's cheap enough to fool around with now.
I remember in the early 90s. Lionel came out with a camera equipped locomotive that im sure was kind of cheesy but appearantly it worked. Probably not very good but good enough for the time I guess. I could have sworn there was footage of it on an old episode of Track Ahead.
