Camping and Fishing Adventures

Lights, Camera, ACTION!

I’m sure you already know how the market is filled with a lot of action cameras like the GoPro, and they all have their unique characteristics to give one a lot of variety to how they want to use them, not to mention all the accessories that allow the owner to do everything action related.

If you’re a skier, there’s a helmet mount for those thrilling downhill shots, or even those crash-into-something shots.  Or, you can attach them to a bicycle handle bar and record just about every trick you can do.

           They even go underwater for those beautiful fish or corals shots, or even you on a surfboard.

Our JVC camcorder was a good one and served its purpose, I decided that getting an action camera that would be waterproof would be a great idea.

           Since we do lots of camping and fishing, I wanted to shoot and post videos to YouTube, and I did with the JVC, however, it wasn’t waterproof and we knew if it got even a little water on it, then that would end its life as a recording camera.

 My research started with checking out a GoPro Hero and ended up with me ordering one. When it arrived, I charged it, installed the micro SD card and starting recording a few things in our house

Immediately, I noticed that the wide angle was a lot more than what I was looking for.  I could stand three feet from any object and see everything out to my left and right side.  Not exactly what I was looking for so I turned around and sold it on eBay!  That’s what I call perfect recycling!

During one of our weekly shopping trips, we walked into the camera department and I saw a few action cameras so I started taking notice what they did and what type of lens they had, etc.

When we arrived home, I started doing my regular research and was a bit overwhelmed with the information available.

I was more interested in the Vivitar DVR786HD, I gathered as much information I needed to start my search for one I wanted.  I found a few that I liked, but didn’t want to wait for them to be shipped.

So, during our next camping trip we wanted to do some fishing a little later, we drove up to the nearest store and bought a Vivitar DVR786HD action camera.

We drove back to our RV where I charged it and installed a micro SD card, and then I did the overall setup, which was easy. I had a great time recording little things, taking photos and just giving it a good test. 

            We did go fishing and ended up recording a large bluegill catch, which I posted to YouTube the next day.

            What I liked the most was the fact that the lens angle or field of view was more concentrated around my subject, which was the fish.  You can set 3 different quality levels so I tried them all.

            The quality is good on all the levels.  But the only thing I found I didn’t like was that the use of the zoom made the subject a little fuzzy. 

Just to sum this up, the Vivitar DVR786HD has a 12.1 megapixel with full HD 1080P @ 30fps. Waterproof up to about 10’, a 2” preview screen, 4X digital zoom and a wireless remote control, and all under $60!

            If you’re thinking of buying an action camera, put this one on your list of ones to fully check out.

            I’ve attached this recent video so you can also see the quality: https://youtu.be/jADvtjD3isA