Drift 1080 vs Drift Ghost
I am thinking of investing in my next camera. I am leaning more towards Drift camera. I have used GoPro in the past. What is the significant difference between Drift and the Ghost Drift other than the battery life? because the price difference is almost 200 dollars and I am debating if it is worth it to buy the Ghost.
Any suggestion will be very helpful
Regards,
Rizzy
Comments
Hi Rizzy,
I probably shouldn’t be commenting here as I don’t own a video camera. My intension is to buy a top of the line model though. Your post led me to look at and consider the “Drift” series of cameras. The only other one I have seen in use locally is the GoPro. I have been now comparing the Drift 720 and the Drift Ghost. In my opinion there is some nice features in the Ghost. Ones that the 720 does not have. A big one, in my opinion, is the variable lens angle. The 720 has only 130°. The Ghost has 90° / 127° / 170°. It has 10X zoom compared to 4X. It has video resolutions 1080p, 960p, 720p and WVGA compared to only 720p and Standard Definition Video. 2” LCD screen compared to 1.5”. And a bunch more. I’m reading these right off the website. The only thing I don’t care for about either camera is the short battery life. A new one only lasts 2.5 hours. That I’d have to tinker with. Build a big external pack or something. Someone will be cutting me down for mentioning that but it’s the way I’d probably handle it. I don’t care about the water tight feature anyway. I’m not planning on diving with it.
My two cents,
David
Thanks David,
For your two cents, now I would like to share my two cents of what I have found so far. I think a more apple to apple comparison (because of the output resolution) should be between Drift 1080p and Drift Ghost (the latest one) They are very similar in many ways. The only difference that I can point out is the battery life, Drift Ghost has the longest of any camera in this category (sports video cameras) and the tag feature which allows you to tag the favorite part and thus saves memory on your card so you are only recording the best parts of your video and I believe that Ghost external mic jack is a (industry) standard 3.5mm and Drift HD external jack is 2.5mm (not a big deal, one can buy cheap adapters from Walmart or online to combat that). Drift HD and Drift Ghost both come with remote control recording but with Drift HD it is one way communication, where you are sending the command whereas Drift Ghost is two way where the camera lets you know what it is doing (not a huge selling point for me), Drift Ghost is Wifi capable (personally, I don't care for that either and it is waterproof upto 20 feet or so and like you, I don't care of that much either for this feature because this camera will be used for flying)...Drift HD 1080p sells for about 200 bucks and Drift Ghost is 400 dollars. For me the winner seems to be Drift HD 1080. What do other trike friends think?
Looks to me like drift has 3 not two cameras to choose from. Each of them look to be feature rich, and a good competitor to gopro. I use Contour HD cameras, but havent' seen any new innovation coming out of them for a while. I really like what I see here in the drift lineup. Personally I think the idea of a smartphone remote and preview would be GREAT. I know a few people now running the gopro wifi, and they seem to like that functionality a lot.
Looks like I was wrong. The new contour DOES have remote capability. Check it out for yourselves peeps!
http://store.contour.com/ae/us/cameras/contour+-2/invt/1700/
I was going to start doing some camera shopping again myself Riz! I run 4 of the DRIFT HD170's and have a new DRIFT 1080.
The 1080 has thus far been less than adequate. Wild contrast swings renders the footage worthless. Also the necessity of an external battery supply makes it a PITA. I have contacted Drift Innovations and they recommended I upgrade the OS system via their website. It's an easy patch to do and to date have not had any opportunity to try out the new software.
My HD170's with the extended battery will get me through most flights - start to finish. But if you plan on two or more considerable flights in a day, you better have backup extended life bats for them cameras. I run 32 Gb cards so disk space is not an issue.
For me - the remote I do not use as I question its reliability. Nothing like having a great flight and the cameras were not on. The view screen is essential for getting the proper positioning of the camera. That's a big deal over gopro. Also I shoot everything in 720p for the wide angel effect. It's a great view - but at the cost of 1080p.
Overall, you've seen the results of my older DRIFTS. As for the new one - I guess it's still under review but so far I've not been impressed.
Ttabs, thank you. I was watching a video of GoPro2 vs Drift 1080 HD and you are right Drift seems to take a moment adjusting in different light conditions. One the other had it showed that Drift's colors were much more true to the real colors of the object filmed vs GoPro that was in some cases very pale of different shade of the color. On the plus for the GoPro they showed GoPro caputres more attention to the fine details than a Drift.
Ttabs, What would you get as your next camera?