Three New Action Cameras to review
Monday, December 5, 2011 at 10:10PM 
Redleaf, the Chinese company behind the RD32 action camera have been in touch. They saw my rather uncomplimentary review of the RD32 camera and said that they appreciated the feedback as it gave them ideas where they could improve their products and as a result they wanted to know what I thought of some newer cameras in their range. I don't know about you, but this kind of honesty and openness is not something that I am used to. When I picked myself up I emailed them back and said that I would be happy to look at their cameras. So fast forward to today and a parcel arrives with three action cameras inside. These are...
The RD32 Mk2 - A 720p 30fps camera with 20 metres water resistance and a 120 degree lens (I think this one might have fixed the purple colour problem of the original RD32.
A metal bullet style camera with 30 metre water resistance, a 137 degree lens and 720p 30fps avi video.
Finally the top of the range model - A 1080p 30fps/ 720p 60fps RD32 lookalike with a 120 degree lens, H.264 encoding and HDMI out.
I will be doing a separate review of each of these cameras, each one will take me a couple of weeks to put together and I aim (but don't promise) to have all three reviews out before the new year. I'll start with the RD32 mk2 and work my way up the range. I've no idea how much these cameras are supposed to cost - but if you find any links to resellers, please feel free to post these in the comments.
Reader Comments (18)
I'm a spearfisher. so thank you to doing that. These are very useful information for us... I am waiting
Reviews for those cameras will be a very big help. I'm looking forward to your reviews.
We expect to see you skateboarding around the walkways of Manchester, base-jumping in the Andes, swimming with sharks, and snowboarding off piste through forests to give them a suitable test. Maybe you need a Suzi Perry character in your videos to add a bit of sauce ? purely in the interest of science and research though.
Anyway, keep up the good work, I enjoy all of your videos.
@Graham If anyone wants to buy me a new motorbike to strap these cameras to, I promise they'll get a mention in the videos......anyone......hello
I'm looking forward to your reviews too.
I bought the #11 808 camera and the 1080p GPS dashcam after seeing your reviews.
Keep making video's
Greetings from holland
I look forward to your reviews. After all these years, I am finally setting up an RSS feed to keep up with my favorite sites. Your blog has been added.
Kirk
Oh good this really really good. China made products seems to easily broken.. With your review it help me a lot. Whether to buy it or not.. Thanks again. Great review by the way..
First of all thanks a lot for your professional, clear and profound reviews without the sales blah blah! Finally some quality :).
Please always check if cams can do continuous looping recording while charging/powered by wire (without the power supply it doesn't make much sense as battery life is usually shorter than memory capacity), because this is almost never mentioned in the specs. Or even unclear in the user manual in case of the Replay XD1080 (what about adding that one to the review?).
... still looking for a small "always on", POV, action cam with clip saving function à la LooxcieMoments (and the rest of the recorded video can be overwritten) ... catching my drift (pun intended @Drift)?
Best,
Ruud
I found them here diytrade.com
Full hd for $125,-
Please continue your excellent revues.
I am sure you are aware on the rather large trail camera community in the UK, US and elsewhere who use motion activated (usually passive infrared) trail cameras to capture images of animals. Most of these units are bulky,expensive and produce low quality VGA images.
It would be great to find a miniature camera that is 1080p, waterproof, has a large capacity mini card, can be triggered via built in pir sensor, and can be set to film motion captures of selectable length. Perhaps time lapse sequences as well.
I know, tall order, but this technology exists and perhaps some Chinese manufacturer is sure to come out with a unit not associated with an American company (since they manufacture all of them in China anyway) and give the big boys a run for their money. If they do, and you see one, please let us know!
looking forward to your review as usual.This camera has great potential for use on R/C models,especially aircraft like my own Quadcopter.
Please check how long the video out function stays on ,as many will use this for First Person Video(FPV-remote flying).
Cool! I want to have this. It will be very useful in my sport activities. looking forward to your reviews. Thanks for sharing this :)
Looking forward to it. I know they're designed as action cameras, but it would be useful to hear in the reviews whether you think they'd work as dashboard cameras, for those of us who feel the v1000GS is that little bit too pricey.
The Tri-Mount looks cool. Are you planning joint or separate reviews? Merry Christmas!
@Rob - I'm going to do a joint review for the two 720p cams and then a separate one for the 1080p h.264 cam. I don't think there are enough differences between the tow 720p cams to make it worth splitting them into individual reviews and I've already reviewed the RD32 before, so I'm just doing an update on that one.
@Everyone else - apologies for my slow responses. I'm a but snowed under with these reviews, but I aim to cover everything that you've asked for. If I do miss anything, I'll be able to clear it up here afterwards. There is also another camera review coming before these three...hopefully it's something you'll find interesting (hopefully I'll have the voiceover for this one done within 48hrs).
Desk and walkabout test photography are now complete for the two 720p cams, just the driving footage to do. I may have to bump the 1080p one into early Jan.....but we'll see.
Nice! I'm looking forward to these reviews. I've been on the hunt for good HD video from a small lightweight compact camera. (for my FPV planes) So far cheap and lightweight belong to the 808 #11 (and #16 now?) while pure video performance goes to the GoPro and RePlay line. ;) I don't expect we'll ever see a 1oz camera for $40 that delivers GoPro level videos, but I'd be happy with something somewhere in the middle. I tried the Tachyon OPS HD and was sadly disappointed. Poor video, bad light handling, dropped frames, etc. That was a $140 camera, luckily Amazon.com gave a full refund no questions asked. I'll be watching the review of the full HD camera closely. The 60fps is great for aerial video!
Great review but no recommendation on which you would prefer? The 11 or 16? Seems that the 16 is better from your review but I was wondering if you had an outright opinion.
this should be the full hd version or not ?
ebay