32 Gig = How long of Video?

[DiscusLoverJeff]

I have been trying to find out who the "egg eater" is with one of my pairs and I want to shoot some video with my Nikon D3100. I have a fresh 32 gig card but the ratings for this are very wide. Some say 4 gigs per hour, some say 8 gigs. Does anyone have actual data?

Seems my one pair lay eggs during the week when I am at work; by the time I get home, eggs are gone. So I want to see if I can stop this from happening until I can confirm the pair.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Discus-n00b]

I guess it depends on what type of video format you are shooting in. I'd say your biggest enemy would be the automatic (10min?) shutoff or sleep of the camera due to inactivity. I'm sure theres a hack out there for it but I don't know how involved it is. For reference a GoPro with 32gb card shooting in full HD at 30fps will get roughly about 4hrs of video. 720 at 30fps will yield closer to 8hours.

I personally would use one of the lower settings, I think its 640 x 424 at 24fps on the D3100 and stretch it as far as I could. You should be able to distinguish which fish is which without full HD video. Again this all depending on if you can bypass the automatic 10min limit put in the camera.

[rickztahone]

One of the limitations you will run in to is that ALL cameras have a 30 minute 'Shut Off' (http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/05/18/WTO-looking-at-moves-to-remove-30-minute-limit-from-digital-cameras). Only actual HD recorder cameras can go above this 30 minute mark. I am not sure if they have this available for your camera, but for Sony, there are remotes that allow you to set intervals of when to start/stop. I assume you could bypass the cutoff in this manner, but again, it would have to be something you would have to research on the market.

[dbfzurowski]

Hi Jeff,

Best way would be to use a webcam. Turn off sleep/screen saver on your notebook and record away.
http://www.wikihow.com/Record-from-a-Webcam

[pcsb23]

Riccardo is correct the Nikons will only record for half an hour. Dominik's suggestion sounds the best bet to me :)

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Thanks for the input everyone. I will try using a webcam as suggested.

I was not able to find a fix for the auto-shutoff. Maybe I can just catch them in the act, lol.

[pcsb23]

There isn't a fix for the auto shut off and if there was I'd discourage you from using it! The sensor gets quite hot when doing video!

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Thanks Paul.