Here are the components of my helmet camera setup. At the top left you can see the digital camcorder itself; a Canon Elura 50. It records to miniDV tapes, as the models that record directly to DVDs apparently have a problem with the high-frequency vibrations of a motorcycle. It's about the size of one hand, so it's very easy to use and doesn't take much space in my tankbag. It also acceps a variety of inputs: external mic and camera, LANC wired remote, and hardwired power are the important ones for my purposes.

Directly below is the bulletcam, or "lipstick camera" to readers with more delicate sensibilities. It records at 480 lines of resolution; not the highest out there, but certainly good enough for the highly-compressed videos I'm going to be making. As you can see, it's very small. It's housed in a relatively tough aluminum housing with a clear plastic front lens guard, so I have some concern as to its ability to sustain a road-debris impact. The housing is weatherproof, though, so barring a big pebble strike, it should be fairly durable. It also came with a small powered mic, which will probably hang out in the tank bag with the camera and give me some element of road noise; I can always edit it out in final production, but I'd like to have the option of having the engine sound (or whatever) make it onto the tape. I'm not yet positive where the camera's going to be mounted; options include:

• my helmet (nice view, but more loose wires aren't helping anyone),
• on the fairing or rear-view mirror stalks (lots of fairing vibration below 6,000 RPM on Bandits, which will probably mess up my image),
• low on the case quards or frame (nice view of front suspension, but less of a panorama),
• or somewhere else I haven't figured out yet.

At the top right is the LANC remote. This magic device is going to be Velcro'd to the outside of my tank bag within easy reach of my left hand. It runs to a port on the camcorder which allows me to remotely start and stop recording while leaving the camcorder safely in the bag. It also has an indicator LED which tells me whether the cam is in standby, is recording, is close to the end of the tape, etc etc.

Below, and still in its package, is a cheapie 12v DC-DC convertor which I'll use to get power to the camera. I found it at Target for $9.99. Since I intend to wire the camera directly into the electrical system, rather than through my one and only cigarette lighter socket, I'm going to have to tear this adaptor apart and re-wire the guts as needed. Shouldn't be hard, these are generally pretty simple inside.

The quarter in the center is in there for scale.