The Yi action camera. Price tag $64 dollars.

Finally! A video camera in my price range!

(And, a camera operator that will work for Kibbles n Bits)
 
The CAT ACTION VEST has got to be the greatest addition to video technology since the shoulder strap!

I must have one!.....now to find a cat...
 
I would like to see you try get a cat in to that thing, my cat would rip my hands to shreds :smile:

cats are very independent.
 
Seriously, what does one expect for $64.......

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com

ps - remember last year a NAB, a Chinese company was pitching a Steadicam rig (gimbal, arm, vest) that handled 25lbs that sold for $750....comparable unit from Steadicam $9-12K, Glidecam $3-4K....and some people actually were considering it.......you never get something for nothing.
 
It seems to be one of the best action cameras on a tight budget right now. And I need an action camera. But I need it with scuba diving enclosure, and these guys are taking forever to make theirs available.
 
The scuba diving enclosure eventually became available, just in time for my holidays :)

This is my first test with the Xiaomi Yi, shot a couple of weeks ago at a beach party with some friends. It has some color grading with MB looks, but very mild (just a standard cyan-gold preset, set to 25% strength).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO9KGEOY9zQ

So far I'm greatly impressed by this little camera. Particularly the DR is nowhere as bad as I was expecting. The only issues I have found so far are that indoors it gets noisy really quick (with bad splotches because of NR and codec) and outdoors it uses a fast shutter to keep exposure and looks Saving Private Ryan all the time. Also, it can be a bit buggy if you stress it: leave it a second to think about what it has to do before you press the next button, if you don't it can freeze and require a taking-out-the-battery reset. BTW battery life is not stellar, around 40-50 minutes of continuous shooting (which will have to happen in four parts because it stops recording after 2GB, which is around 12 minutes). For an action camera, this seems like a bad issue.

The app for the phone is essential, and at least on android it works reasonably OK. It has some very useful options but lacks others (no controls for things like contrast or NR, for example).

The optimal settings seem to be 1080p60 with no lens correction. Lens correction works well and is nice but introduces a bit of softness, and loses some FoV, which is bad because you're likely to move this camera like a maniac. 48p is soft, and lower fps don't make a lot of sense because the camera is going to use a fast shutter anyway, so I may as well shoot everything in slowmo and apply 200% or 300% speed for some shots if needed.

In totally unrelated news, if you ever wondered how I look like: shiny white, that's how XD



edit: I just saw that the app has an option called "loop recording". If it does what I expect, then it can record for around 40-50 minutes straight, in several files, until the battery dies.
 
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Samuel H said:
The scuba diving enclosure eventually became available, just in time for my holidays :)

This is my first test with the Xiaomi Yi, shot a couple of weeks ago at a beach party with some friends. It has some color grading with MB looks, but very mild (just a standard cyan-gold preset, set to 25% strength).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO9KGEOY9zQ
Click to expand...

Not bad at all!
Still, for action cams 4K is a must now (for me at least), but I guess there will be a 4K version soon.

Looking at the Xiaomi site it seems China emancipates more and more from a "producer for the western market".
 
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