With a fun new take on action camera videos, the ATC Chameleon
from Oregon Scientific lets you capture two angles in one shot. Using dual lenses that can be oriented in almost any direction, you can simultaneously shoot yourself and the action, all to be played out on a single screen for a unique perspective on your adventures.
Each lens on the ATC Chameleon offers a 170 degree field of vision with a max resolution of 1280 x 620p at 30 frames per second. You can choose to spilt the two videos either horizontally or vertically on the screen. If you choose horizontal, the resolution drops down to VGA quality.
One lens is situated at each end of the camera, with one oriented horizontally and the other vertically. Each lens can move 180 degrees in its particular line of orientation. A built in microphone captures all the audio to be overlayed on top of both videos.
The action camera takes Micro SD cards with support up to 32GB. I brought a 4GB card to Alaska and was able to capture a handful of videos without the card ever filling up. The rechargeable battery will last for around 2+ hours of continuous operation.
The Chameleon comes with a helmet mount and works with all the other Oregon Scientific ATC mounts like the ones for surf and bike. The action camera is not waterproof, but you can buy a separate housing to make it waterproof down to 60m. The camera seems pretty water resistant, however, as I mounted it on the front of my packraft in Alaska where it was splashed and rained on continuously with no problems.
I really like the simple one button operation, similar to the Contour action cameras. All you have to do is slide the top button forward to start recording. A series of beeps lets you know when the recording has started. Slide back to stop recording, with a similar series of beeps to let you know you have been successful. Two LED lights in front of the button indicate when you are recording correctly.
Dual video is a pretty cool concept but without some sort of LCD screen or connection to your phone for viewing, it is almost impossible to figure out what you are actually shooting. If you have the Chameleon mounted on a helmet, you could easily end up with a whole bunch of video of nothing but blue sky.
The action camera does not take still shots, just video. So if you are looking for something that can do both, the ATC Chameleon probably won't be your camera of choice.
A desktop app for Mac and PC offers some interesting editing options. You can choose to view the two videos side by side, just the front or the back, or have one video inset in the other. Below you can see an example of one of the dual shot videos I took in Alaska.
The Oregon Scientific ATC Chameleon action camera
retails for $199 and is available now.