When shopping for a camcorder for my Soloshot (v1), I chose the Sony CX130, because of:
- powerful zoom. You can see it in action in the first sequence of
A standing SUPer fills half the screen 1400 meters aways (tested recording an outside reef break)
- good non-interlaced ("p" modes, "i" modes are crap, never use them) modes, full HD 1920x1080 at 50fps
- ability to run while the LCD is off to save batteries. You can set it to still record while you close the LCD lid
- good optical stabilizer
- good battery life
- cheap: as the CX series was very good early on, you can shop for 2nd hand ones, no need to get the latest models (I bought my CX130 used, it was not made anymore)
So I guess the CX220 would be a very good choice, too.
The only thing missing is an optical viewfinder, looking at the LCD can be hard in the sun. You need to use a hat or a towel to put it in the shade. Not a big issue with the Soloshot, more an issue when the wife is using it.
You can see some vids I made with the Soloshot at:
Crappy waves, just for testing
Not enough zoom, I had to zoom x2 at editing
Good zoom, but centering calibration was a bit off (calibrating before the session can be tricky)
The soloshot is very nice, but I found out I do not use it a lot because of these reasons
- you must be at a mellow place where people wont steal it
- you must wait 10mn for the armband to lock on the GPS satellites, this and all the preparation are hard to wait for when empty waves are luring you in :-)
- as wil all rechargeable batteries, they discharge when not used, so you must be sure to charge the soloshot, armband & camcorder the day before a possible session
- it must not rain nor have too much wind
- you know where you are going to surf
As I often surf on outside reefs, or at fickle beach breaks where I can move hundreds of meters to chase peaks, and most of of good waves are in rainy conditions, I do not use it as much as I want. But it is definitely a great system, the times I used it are worth it.
