One of the most common mistakes made with a sports action camera is the mounting position. How many point of view videos have you watched on YouTube or Vimeo where the video has been shot from a car bonnet, boat’s deck or a bike’s handlebars without any fixed objects in the shot. The resulting footage is just dull and boring and looks like a camera floating through space.

This is because the camera has been mounted without any objects in the foreground to act as a reference point for the viewer. A great example I will use for this post is a race boat. Too many times, I have seen race boats firing down the river or around the circuit with a GoPro camera planted right on the nose of the boat, pointing forward. The recorded footage just shows the water whizzing past and gives you little to no feel of the intensity of the sport.

Some awesome perspectives from onboard a DR125 shifter kart. Karting like you have never seen before. 125cc engine with a 6 speed sequential gearbox. Awesome power to weight ratio and super fast.

This is the first in our series of ‘Mounting How-To Articles’ with recommendations and ideas for mounting your action sports camera to maximize the impact of your action videos.

GoPro, Contour & VIO cameras are usually referred to as point of view (POV) cameras. This may be one of their primary uses, but with the massive range of mounting solutions available the sky, or should I say in this case, the ground is the limit.

Point of View, or helmet mounting may be quick, easy and convenient. Yet in a lot of cases this is not the ideal mounting solution to gain the full effect of the sport or activity you are videoing. We have experimented with many different sports and many different mounting positions, be it standard, extreme and just plain weird mounting concepts. Some positions work quite well, some don’t. You need patience and creativity to get the perfect angle for capturing the action of your sporting endeavours.

Play'n with Fire, the SMOC LAB with a Mercury 250XS powering down the river - Highlights from their run in Veterans at the 2010 Hawkesbury 120 Ski Race. The event us held on the Hawkesbury River ever year and runs from Sackville Ski Gardens to Governor Phillip Park in Windsor. The veterans race along with other water ski racing classes are held on the same day as a leadup to the main event on the Sunday, which is a 120km long river race, from Windsor to Wisemans Ferry and back.

The cameras used were supplied by Earth Wind and Water. The boys used a ContourHD Full High Defiinition 1080p camera, VIO-POV 1.5 Standard Definition Camera and a GoPro HD HERO 1080p camera. The footage has been downsampled to Standard Definition to suit the POV 1.5 resolution. Wait till next time we get up to the Hawkesbury with a full suite of Full HiDef cameras. Without a doubt we will be able to bring you some serious quality footage then.

Blown Cash racing in Open Mens at the first point score of the 2010 season at Lake Charm, Victoria. Some great angles of the action were taken with 2 - ContourHD cameras and 1 - GoPro HD HERO. All video was shot in 1080p at 30 frames per second, but we downsampled the editted version to 720p specifically for YouTube.

A combination of mounting solutions were used. The GoPro was mounted with the standard Suction Mount as supplied with the GoPro Motorsport HERO. The ContourHD cameras were mounted using RAM suction mounts giving a much steadier shot.

Contour’s latest Full HD sports camera is the Contour ROAM, which has been on the shelves for quite a while now and has not really had the impact we expected. This little camera offers some great design innovations, including Contour’s signature design form factor, a rotating lens, Full HD and HD video modes, laser alignment etc. But there is one awesome feature that is often overlooked when camera buffs and users alike, are comparing the ContourROAM to other cameras, such as the GoPro HD HERO and GoPro HD HERO2.

Not so long ago we wrote a blog, ContourROAM vs. GoPro, reviewing the great new features Contour included in their new Full HD camera, which nicely matched and in a lot of features excelled over the GoPro HD HERO. The release of the ContourROAM set up a nice little match in the Sports Action Camera title fight between Contour and GoPro.

Well, what a battle it has ignited. GoPro’s release of the HD HERO2 was a massive counter punch and has blown its competitors clean out of the water. The new features have not only taken on the ContourROAM and similar cameras, but they have taken on revolutionary features included in higher end cameras, such as Contour’s bluetooth connectivity.

Only a few weeks ago Contour released their latest full HD sports action video camera, the Contour ROAM. It was a top secret product release of their great new camera with many additional features giving them the edge of the GoPro HD HERO. Although Contour already had some higher end cameras, being the ContourGPS and Contour+, this still left us wondering, what would GoPro come up with to counter Contour’s release.

The GoPro HD HERO has been on the market for quite some time and has become the household name in sports action cameras. Although there are plenty of other brands competing in this space, Contour is the only name brand that has even come close to taking some of their slice of the pie.

GoPro released their counter punch this week, with their release of the GoPro HD HERO2, along with the announcement of their pending release of the GoPro Wi-Fi BacPac. Two revolutionary new products with awesome features, smashing the GoPro competitors out of the ball park, well for now anyway.

Note: this blog was written prior to the release of the GoPro HD HERO2 - Please feel free to read this post regarding the great features of the ContourROAM. You can also read the latest post about the GoPro HD HERO2 - GoPro HD HERO2 vs Contour

The team from Contour have recently released their next generation in sports action cameras. The ContourROAM is the much anticipated replacement for the ContourHD camera, offering many improvements and refinements over its predecessor.

Not only have Contour lifted the bar on their entry level camera. They have also done a very good job of developing a camera that could quite easily pinch the top spot, when it comes to the most popular sports action camera. The ContourROAM is going to give the GoPro HD HERO a run for its money, not just in affordability, but in functionality too.

The GoPro HD HERO is a proven work horse and is by far the most popular and well recognised sports action camera on the market. This has not deterred the team at Contour whatsoever. They have proved this by introducing new innovative cameras with awesome ground breaking features that seem to be going unnoticed. The ContourROAM, could be the camera to bring Contour to the forefront of the sports action camera market.

The Contour team have done it once again. They are the kings of revolutionising sports action cameras. The ContourGPS was the first full high definition camera to include GPS tracking, now the upcoming release of the new Contour+, heralds a new era in capturing the action.

A full high definition camera aimed to impress the professional videographer or even the sports video enthusiasts, building on the proven Contour platform. Who would have thought that Contour could pack even more punch into that little package. Check it out, a robust aluminium water resitant housing, now in a stylish brushed aluminium finish, Contour's 270° rotating lens system, plus Video, GPS, Bluetooth, Live streaming, what can they come up with next?