Heroic camera could have industrial application

Every once in a while I see a new technology that is so remarkable that it starts me thinking about how it could be used in the graphic arts.

My son is a student of film at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He spends his days looking through a viewfinder, and spends his night dreaming about timecode and transitions. He has a gift for putting visual stories together in video.

The Hero Hi-Def video camera is about 2.75 in. wide, and about 1.75 in. deep. It is a surprising piece of equipment.

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He came home this weekend to visit his mom and dad, and to visit with his friends for halloween. One of those friends is a race car driver in-training. And one of that freiend’s friends is the developer of a remarkable miniature HD video/still camera that is being readied for market. My son’s friend has six of these little video cameras called Hero HD cameras that he has been testing for the manufacturer. The company is shipping standard-definition cameras now, but the new HD model comes out in the next week or two.

Along with the cameras, the company makes a variety of camera mounting hardware for putting the camera on helmets, surfboards, kayaks, and on racing cars. The young filmmakers were out yesterday on the country roads near here, zooming back and forth with the Hero attached to the fender of the car with a suction cup. The footage they got is very exciting.

The Hero mounted on the optional suction cup camera mount can be placed on a car, on a wall, on a window – anywhere that is smooth.
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At a glance, this camera looks like it might be a cheap-o video capture device. But, when you put it in your hand, the Hero is solid and relatively heavy. Inside its case is a nice microphone and a complete HD video camera including the ability to make still photos. It can take 1080p high-def video with sound.

The Hero is designed for extreme sports, and you will be amazed by the videos hosted by the manufacturer. I tried it out, and began wondering if there might be some industrial application for this microscopic Hi-Def camera.

You could mount it inside a machine to collect video in a difficult-to-reach spot (conveyor system, feeding mechanism) for troubleshooting, or mount the camera in a tight spot while making training videos for machine set-up and operation.

The camera has nearly infinite depth-of-field, a very wide lens, and the quality of the resulting video (MP4) is better than you would expect. In the coming weeks and months I am going to try this little camera in a variety of locations to see if it’s helpful to me in making my video blogs (something new!).

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