Eric Greenwell wrote:

Actually, I think my requirements for a cockpit camera are few, mainly a
wide angle lens for better scenery pictures, and an LCD that is
practical for aiming the camera at another glider in flight. I think
that feature will make it air-to-air pictures easier and safer.

The Nikon 8400 works well for interior shots with its wide angle zoom
lens (equivalent to 24mm focal length on a 35mm film camera, or about
a 75 degree angle of view) and swing-out LCD. The cockpit of the 1-26
is a little tight for mounting, but the camera does the job -- eight
MB stills and 999 consecutive seconds of motion at 320x240 color or B&W,
and 60 sec. of 640x480 color. With sequence lengths of up to 16:39
possible, and proper editing, an interesting video could probably be
made. It will accept screw-in filters as a film camera does. I use a
daylight filter, as much for lens protection as anything else, but a
polarizing filter is worth trying.

Google Video has a short chopped-up piece made with this camera:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8599456403526520656&q=sailplane
This was a test, and the quality is atrocious due to Google's
compression for playback on the web. The original file looks good
on a desktop screen or TV.

For a pure video camera I'm still using an old bulky analog Sony
Hi-Eight, so I have no suggestions. The best place to mount that thing
inside a 1-26 is the ballast box, but it makes good pictures and I do
have a wide-angle aux. lens for it. Maybe next season I'll make a
three-hour unedited video of my fingers wrapped around the stick, with
the five point harness connector in the background. Should be exciting.


Jack