[RayRegan]

I have a camera, but noticed that it is slightly to big to fit in between upper and lower chassis on my 250. I will need to order a new one. I wanted to know what is recommended. I have seen a lot of reviews of different brands and types. I know that what you read is not always what you get. I saw some newer cameras(not GoPro)that are HD at 60+ FPS and have an on board battery and video out with very little lag. This seems like a good route so I will only need one camera, what do you think?

[mazevx]

Hello, for me personally a special camera only for fpv ist the better choice than using live out from hd camera, accept your are using a gimbal and want to see what your are filming...
Some of the newest hd cams pretending to have very little time lag on the av out but I did not test that.

Im using a 20euro cmos cam with small case from Banggood and a PZ0420M wich is the better one of course... but at the moment I would recommend you to buy a HS1177 if its availble anywhere (seems tobe out of stock everywhere I looked)
The HS1177 uses the same chipset as the PZ but much smaller and comes with plastic case wich is big improvement.

[Mateusz]

Hi,

My recommendation would be CCD camera as those have better dynamic range than CMOS, you will see more with CCD in difficult light conditions. Furthermore, pick something around 40ms that is good enough. Most FPV systems use PAL or NTSC which is either 25fps or 30fps that is ~40ms. You won't get better latency than that.

I haven't flown RunCam2 which is HD cam and claims 40ms latency without recording. That sounds really nice.
I fly my PZ0420M and Effio Sony for slower flying.

[RayRegan]

Great info!
The run cam 2 is what I was looking at. Good to know that 40ms is about the best that can be expected for flight image over a 5.8Ghz TX/RX. It says 720p @120FPS that sounds like great video for high speed tight flying. The 1080p is 60ms lag and 60FPS. its a give and take as this point. 720p is much better that 500TVL cam that I was going to mount, and has to be lighter than mounting 2 cameras (one for flight and one for video). Weight is only 35g if used without onboard battery. If they could only add a self contained stabilized pivoting lens, that would be the even better.

[1morehobby]

Here is a good review fro RC Model review.

[TheOtherCliff]

Straight analog to vtx <-> vrx to low latency display
is as fast as you are going to get.  If you use a recording camera, it will capture it in full resolution and convert it to SD before it starts to output it.

For a non-recording camera, now days that typically means a half or whole frame delay at both ends?  Recall that a frame is actually two interlaced fields.  I think that CCD captures a whole field or even a frame at a time.  Display device might be designed to update either a frame or a field at a time to avoid tearing.

CMOS has a jello problem, but I think that means that it has (or at least can have) lower latency.  It does not need to capture a whole frame or field to start sending that scan line.

[Thrasher]

just got a runcam 2 a couple days ago. I picked it up to try it out as my main flightcam, even while recording @60fps the latency isn't bad at all.... i was going to do a recording with a stopwatch/timer/tv to try and get a better idea what the latency really is.

[RayRegan]

That will be a good test! Thanks for sharing. I am anxious to hear the results.

[Thrasher]

ka-blammy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=771JXxDdfAE&feature=youtu.be

[RayRegan]

Very Impressive!
I got mine today. When I get this quad to stop wobbling, I will mount it and try it out. Thanks for sharing

[ArnhemAnt]

Interesting topic.
I think, when looking at suitable flight cameras, you also need to consider the frame you are flying with.

 A camera suitable for a larger frame may not be the best choice for a smaller frame due to size and weight restrictions.

Having said that, I have been starting to play with http://www.surveilzone.com/DC5V-plastic-case-mini-sony-super-had-ccd-600tvl-super-camera-2.8mm-lens-for-fpv

And it is performing very well.
 

[Thrasher]

Very Impressive!
I got mine today. When I get this quad to stop wobbling, I will mount it and try it out. Thanks for sharing

keep in mind I more than likely have some monitor latency gong on, so the latency is actually much lower than what ya see there.

[RayRegan]

So I have mounted my new RunCam2 on my 250 to use as my flight camera as well as my HD Video recorder. I have flown with it about 4 times and made some great quality videos. I have been powering it with my flight battery to keep the weight down. It is rated to consume about 600mah, so it will eat into flight times a little. I have noticed and wanted to share that if you turn it on and are flying around without recording, it will turn itself off after about 3 minuets. I found this out in the scariest way possible. I was testing a new setup and all of a sudden...black. It just turned off. Fortunately I was close enough that I just pulled up my goggles and could fly it back line of sight. Just thought everyone using the RunCam2 should know that this is a possibility. I did some bench testing when I got home and found that it does not matter whether I use my flight battery or the onboard battery. I also found that if I do push the button to start recording within the 3 minuet window after turning it on that it will not turn off until it gets to its "segment length" time. This length is adjustable through the app on your phone or iPad. I tried to update the firmware as the webpage shows. They have created a setup tool online that allows you to set some parameters and then save them, which creates a config file that will download to your computer. Then they say to move that file into the micro SD card in the camera. They say upon restarting the camera, if the file is named exactly as they tell you, the camera will read it and make the changes in the file. Many people have had issues with this method as well as updating the firmware. I'm not sure why they didn't just make downloadable configuration software and include a small amount of accessible RAM on the camera for holding things like firmware and settings rather than using the Micro SD as a way to load it. Anyway the camera works well when used as I described. It does have very low latency and seems to be just fine as a flight camera as well as recording great quality HD video. Hopefully RunCam will get better with software and user features in the future.