A few more thoughts on the ContourHD Windshield Mount

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the ContourHD Windshield Mount. All in all, I was generally happy with it; my only criticisms were more to do with the quality of the video from the ContourHD camera rather than the functionality of the mount.

This weekend I spent some more time with it, and at the same time was using the “standard” mount version of the Panavise Windshield Mount with a small Sony camcorder. This is exactly the same mount as the Contour version, but with a different connector for the ContourHD camera.

And while the Sony camcorder outperforms the ContourHD in terms of video quality by a country mile, I ran into a problem with the Sony; even though it’s a small camera, I couldn’t get it into the position I wanted. No matter what I did, it hit either the windshield or the mount. It just wasn’t small enough; and the Panavise arm itself can get in the way.

So even though I’d planned to use the camcorder, I ended up having to switch back to the ContourHD.

Another issue I noticed; connecting the Sony camcorder to the standard mount wasn’t particularly secure. No matter how I adjusted it, he camera wasn’t completely locked into place on the screw mount. It wasn’t really a problem during shooting; but then I was careful with it.

Finally, as I mentioned in the review, the ContourHD shoots a little wider than I’d like. But the Sony turned out to not be as wide as I'd like either! I could add a wide-angle lens adapter to the camera, but that would make it quite a bit heavier, and I already feel like it’s around the limit for what I’d want to hang off the mount.


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