[section_title title=Performance and Testing]
Performance and Testing
Battery Life
The battery life is rated for 3 hours of continuous recording and while I did not get the stopwatch out, I did look at the amount of recorded footage that was left on the SD card after I left the camera running on its own for a while. When I finished tallying up all of the different footage there was just around 2 hours and 40minutes and this was from a few different files so I was also playing around with the camera during the testing time. I feel the battery on the HD30W is sufficient and given the circumstances it should live up to its 3 hour rating with no problems.
Video Testing
For the video testing done on the Kitvision Edge HD30W I tried to shoot a few situations that may not me of the norm for what people would do with action cams. Overall I was quite pleased with the performance, especially at 1080P. One thing I did notice, however, is that the Edge HD30W definitely performs a bit better when there is more natural light, which is really to be expected.
There are a few different video modes to shoot in such as 1080P @ 30FPS and 1080I @ 60FPS and there are also a few different visual angles that can be used, wide, medium, narrow and small. Combine this with the light meter and it may take a bit of time to make sure you are getting the best videos possible out of the HD30W.
When all is said and done the video recording performance is on point and the microphone does a decent job as well though in some scenarios you may need to turn it up using the editing program a bit but this really isn’t a big deal, just standard editing procedure really. I was quite impressed with both the 1080P and 1080I options and as you can see below during my testing there wasn’t much of a difference in overall quality, though you will notice that in the 1080I video the remote control car seems to move more fluidly. I would imagine though that the 1080I @ 60FPS will come in handy more for those recording faster paced events.
1080P (30FPS) Test while holding the Edge HD30W in hand and Mic test.
1080P (30FPS) Test outside in the snow at night.Â
1080P (30FPS) Test during the dayÂ
1080I (60FPS) Test during dayÂ
Photo Testing
For the photo test, I took a pair of photos at each resolution, one with a remote control car closer up and one with it a bit further back. Looking at the photos myself I can’t really see much of a difference myself. All of the different resolutions gave clear looking photos and the images below are uploaded straight from the camera and have had no editing or compression done to them for the sake of this review.
I have to say I was quite surprised with the outcome of the photos as I have an 8MP camera on my phone and the pictures it takes look horrid most of the time. The Edge HD30W will have a better sensor in it for photos and video than my phone and this is why it shines and takes great photos. For what the Edge HD30W is designed for, the photos it takes are more than sufficient and will allow users to capture those extra moments that may not need a video recording.
8MP (3200 x 2400)
5MP (2592 x 1944)
3MP (2048 x 1536)
