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Getting the most from your camcorder: tips, tricks, and new products for those who want to take better videos.
Camcorders, Tech and Random Rants Blog
Getting the most from your camcorder: tips, tricks, and new products for those who want to take better videos.
Aug 28, 2005 8:00 PM
Posted by Richard Baguley
Video of the Week: The Rocketcam
Posted by Richard Baguley
 I’ve always had a fondness for model rockets, setting them off and watching them zoom off into the blue sky. And I’ve always wondered what it looked like from the rocket’s point of view, to watch the earth quickly recede. Fortunately, I don’t have to wonder anymore, because Matt Campbell found out: he took a CVS disposable camcorder, took it apart and mounted it inside the nose cone of a model rocket. The very impressive resulting videos show the launch from the rocket’s point of view. We spoke to him about his home-made rocketcam… CamcorderInfo: Why did you decide to put a camcorder into a rocket?Matt Campbell: Mostly just for the obvious reason, it would be cool! It was a project I wanted to undertake for awhile since seeing the numerous rockets with on-board X10 cameras. The problem with those projects was that the violence of a launch would always cause static on the video. The benefit of the camcorder is that since the video is stored in memory, not transmitted, there is no static.
CCI: How difficult was it to modify the rocket and the CVS camcorder to fit into the rocket nose cone?
 MC: The camcorder modification was very simple. We removed it from the case and soldered on a connector for the battery pack. We later added a USB cable directly to the camera to make downloading the video faster.NOTE: There are pictures of the construction process here.
CCI: What were the advantages of the CVS Camcorder for this?
MC: The great thing about the CVS camcorder was the relatively low weight and very low power requirements. This allowed us to put it in a rocket without needing special boosters. We also had the benefit of the low price so we did not have to worry about losing or breaking the camera.
 CCI: Any advice that you could offer to readers who might be interested in doing the same thing?MC: Strip the camera down to just the circuit board, this will save weight. It will also run just fine on AAA batteries, but you can only record about 15 minutes of video, so have extra batteries on hand.
Thanks to Matt Campbell for answering our questions about his rocketcam. He has more launches planned: check the Web site for updates!
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