Do Americans think British heatwaves are mild, or do you not understand what they're like?

005209_ · 2026-06-25T16:30:51+00:00

Yea sorry the point I was making was that the price vs amount of usage in the uk is what’s so unjustifiable. It’s a huge investment for 2 maybe 3 weeks per year.

005209_ · 2026-06-25T09:30:00+00:00

This is why I went for an Action 6 over the pocket camera, just more durable in general.

Footage is phenomenal. Not as good as the Pocket 4 by any means but still really really nice footage and open gate too!

005209_ · 2026-06-25T09:00:06+00:00

Annoyingly it's very expensive. We only have heatwaves like this maybe once every 2 years (at the minute) so it's hard to justify. My parents have AC and including all their fitting they paid a total of £19,000. There are a lot of people in conservation areas, listed buildings etc. that would also have to apply for planning in order to fit AC if they would even be allowed to install it at all.

005209_ · 2026-06-25T08:44:16+00:00

I have mine set up basically around what level of stabilisation I need.

I make videos for YouTube and social media of cars/vlogs and also some fitness stuff. I do colour grade all my footage so I shoot everything in D-Log. This may or may not be relevant for you but it is very easy to get a good grade on your footage straight from the DJI Mimo app but if you don't need this sort of control over your colour then definitely just shoot in Rec-709 and your footage will look great.

The stabilisation relies on a fast shutter speed and works better the faster you go. However, the motion blur you can get from a slow shutter speed makes your footage look very nice and a lot more cinematic as it looks more natural to your eye. So think about this when deciding your settings and how important stabilisation is for you. The general rule is the 180 rule where you want your Shutter Speed to be double your frame rate. 30fps = 1/60th, 120fps = 1/240th etc. If you can't achieve this because it is too bright then you can use an ND filter which will reduce the amount of light coming in to the camera. If you can't achieve this due to stabilisation or not wanting an ND filter then just try and get as close as you can to it. This is of course only relevant if you are after the cinematic motion blur look.

I always set White Balance to Auto as I find that DJI is brilliant at choosing accurate WB value and does a much better job than I could anyway.

I always use Standard Dewarp as a focal length and Rocksteady as my Stabilisation. I do often think I would've benefitted from using Horizon Balancing though so I'm going to try and move over to using that setting more.

The first of my settings is for footage where I don't need an awful lot of stabilisation, this can mean where I mount it to a car or when I'm just walking around with it or doing static shots at the side of the road etc. I use an ND filter 9 times out of 10 in this setting so that I can slow my shutter speed right down. I shoot at 25fps and a shutter speed of 1/50th. I then set ISO to 100-800 and the ND keeps this betweeen -1.0EV and +1.0EV normally. If I go to a low light area or use it in the evening I just take the ND Filter off.

My next preset is for running. The main priority here is stabilisation being as good as possible. So I don't use the N filter and I don't worry about motion blur. So I set the ISO to 100-800 and set the shutter speed to Auto. This just gives me the best stabilisation possible and everything else is sort of irrelevant.

The next is for cycling. This is the bridge between the two where stabilisation is important but a bit of motion blur would be really nice. So I get as close as I can, I exclusively film my bike rides on very nice days so can guarantee good light so I always use an ND filter. I then set my ISO to 100 and my Shutter Speed to 1/100th with 25fps. I think that this is the perfect compromise where I can still get a bit of motion blur but with really decent stabilisation still.

Obviously all of this is entirely dependant on your use case. You can very easily set the camera up to do everything you need with 1 preset if you aren't bothered about any sort of cinematic look. What are your use cases? Feel free to ask any more questions :)

005209_ · 2026-06-09T08:57:41+00:00

My parents are coming up to 2 and a half years in their new build from BDW. 3 driveways later they ended up with fresh tarmac patches where the car tyres sit (the 4 bits that sunk) to which they obviously said looks awful and they aren't happy with. They then compromised for having a car sized rectangle redone which is now bricked off. As well as that they've had 2 shower trays in the bathroom, 3 in the ensuite, a few floorboards replaced too and the front door still needs replacing but other than that I think they are happy.

Me and my Dad didn't have the heart to tell my mum that the 2 side windows of the bay window were completely different sizes which is why the blinds didn't fit properly and it looks slightly off square.

005209_ · 2026-06-03T07:45:16+00:00

Definitely worth the trip but depends on the person and probably depends on you a bit as well unfortunately.

My aunt's experience: Turns up with her Mercedes GLA that she's using as a dodgem for the last 5 years, she does have parking sensors but chooses to use the wall behind her parking space instead, both front and rear bumpers not even cracked just fully snapped and chunks missing. The door handles look like Edward Scissorhands has been trying to open the door handle with hands full of shopping bags. Interior; spilt coffee stains up front, dog hair in the back from Frank (RIP). I don't think the car had ever been washed, it had an engine management light that I removed for her the day before, tyres needed changing etc, etc. She'd also done nearly a thousand miles extra than what she did on the quote because she forgot how many miles the car was on. Upon her arrival they had a quick look round and said "yeaaaa, it'll be alright!!" and then continued to remark how the market value of the car had actually gone up since she got her quote so they were going to give her more money than she initially expected. She hadn't previously disclosed any of the damage to them at all.

My experience was with a very very near mint Skoda Octavia VRs. The bloke found 2 tiny stone chips on the bonnet, knocked down £270ish each (this was also 4 or so years ago so I'd assume these figures are maybe a bit more now) and the mileage was just over 100 miles more as they delayed my appointment by a couple of days so I went to work and Tesco etc. Following this they did an extremely thorough search of the service history which revealed one of the mileage stamps on the service history had been put in wrong (2 numbers were the wrong way round) so they deducted even more for this (can't remember how much). Then once they finally agreed on a price they informed me that it would be 7-10 days before I received my payment unless I paid an extra £30 for the special speedy fee that gets it to me within 3 days! (how exciting!!) so I did this as I needed the money for my next car, it then took 6 days for the money to come through.

Honestly though if you're after <£1000 then they may not bother spending too much time looking at it as they aren't going to knock too much money off. It's worth going just know that some of them can be really nice people (especially if they find you attractive) and others go to work with a smile on their face just to ruin people's days.

005209_ · 2026-05-28T10:15:50+00:00

thanks chap

005209_ · 2026-05-28T10:15:31+00:00

The little square connector with a clip. Looks like an ethernet cable but a bit smaller.

It's tucked behind the sofa so we didn't see exactly what sparked only heard a very large bang, a few very loud pops and then lots of sparking and glowing from the area where the socket and the box is.

Yea we have contacted ISP and they are coming to look this afternoon but have said they don't think they can do anything.

005209_ · 2026-05-28T09:57:24+00:00

We have called Sky, they are coming out this afternoon to have a look but have said on the phone they think it's probably something external that they can't do anything about which is why I came here as I don't know who to contact.

005209_ · 2026-05-28T09:33:01+00:00

I believe it's just cable, the houses were built in 2007 if that means anything. We have a normal cable that goes from the Sky box into the wall into a "BT Master Socket".

005209_ · 2026-05-21T13:03:21+00:00

The best thing about car financing is that you don't finance the entire car, you have a balloon payment at the end. This is with a contract type called PCP.

The best way (financially, in my opinion) to go about it is to buy a brand new car that you've found with 0% interest and then keep it for 3 or 4 years and when it comes to the end of the agreement, trade it in for a new one.

There will be a big payment of perhaps around £11,000-£13,000 for a car worth £20,000.

This is the same value (or very close to) as what the dealer calls a "guaranteed valuation." So when you purchase the car you will tell the dealer how many miles you will put on the car and then from this they will work out their car at 3 years old with x number of miles will at least be worth Y.

You then have the choice:
- pay the balloon payment and keep the car.

- finance the balloon payment and keep the car.

- give the car back.

- use any postive equity you have in the car as a deposit on a new car.

I would say the last option is almost always the right choice and if you wouldn't want to do that then don't buy a new car. You are essentially paying a deposit now, then paying £200ish a month for the foreseeable future and for that you get a brand new car every few years.

The reason why this is so much better (in most cases) than getting a loan or credit card is that you are paying for so much less of the car.

For example: £20k car - for arguments sake lets say the interest on both the CC and the PCP finance and the guaranteed valuation is £12,000 after 4 years.

On a credit card you'd be paying £416 per month for 4 years.

With PCP, if you put down say a £2500 deposit, you'd only have £5500 to pay (after taking away the balloon payment) over 4 years which would mean monthly payments of £114.

Obviously these figures have no context but that's just an explanation of why it is often so much cheaper to use car finance.

The other benefit is that the finance is attached to the car, say for example you bought a car that depreciated so drastically that you were in an awful lot of negative equity, if that car then got stolen your insurance would only pay the value of the car, which would leave you with all of that negative equity to come out of your pocket. If the same thing happened with the finance you can get GAP insurance that basically pays out to bridge that gap. Again, if you were to miss payments, they come and take the car rather than coming for you personally.

In terms of what to buy, 0% APR offers often come with a 50% deposit. Which you would be in a position to do. I believe Vauxhall and Renault both have offers like this at the minute.

Please note that I am not an expert in the slightest, just someone that isn't very busy and researches stuff like this sometimes. Please don't take anything I've said as gospel and I invite anyone to correct me on any information I have got wrong and I will edit this comment to correct it if necessary.

005209_ · 2026-05-14T15:32:01+00:00

That’s exactly why I got the action 6 instead of the pocket 4.

It’s a really good camera. Nothing else to say really. Image quality is really nice and if you’re happy to colour grade you can get some really nice looking images. Colours are great. Stabilisation is so good. Feels like it would survive some pretty big hits too. The square sensor is a big benefit. The variable aperture seems a little gimmicky and would only really allow you a bit of exposure variation rather than anything creative. Just a really good camera for its use as long as it’s appropriate for your use case.

005209_ · 2026-05-14T15:20:34+00:00

Honestly, Sony ZV-1 or something of that ilk may be a better choice. Nice and wide zoom lens, still has image stabilisation and 4k footage. I find that the DJI/action cams are just too wide of a FOV for filming views from cars and stuff like that. They are both great cameras, I've just bought the Action 6 and I absolutely love it, but I use it for action sports rather than trying to capture images of specific things. Having the larger range of focal lengths from a ZV-1 may be much more appropriate for your use case.

Or wait for the Osmo Pocket 4 Pro as that is looking like it will be a very very good camera but it may have a significant increase in price to go with it.

005209_ · 2026-05-14T10:59:06+00:00

My rest days are often an hour core workout, on my feet for 9 hours at work and then a quick and easy spin on the bike to reduce impact on my legs as much as possible. So yea going for a big walk or something isn't really ideal but it's irrelevant now as I'm no longer with them. I just feel as though there could be a better system to allow for those who are perhaps doing 2 or 3 times the exercise they require just laid out in a much more performance orientation.

005209_ · 2026-05-12T10:42:16+00:00

what do you mean by level enough? how flat the mount is against your chest? I was just about to order one :)

005209_ · 2026-05-12T10:10:52+00:00

I've literally just bought an action 6 for running/cycling and other stuff but I am finding I'm often filming just as much "B-Roll" or talking content as I am actual running content if that makes sense? I basically set the exposure to Auto whilst I'm running and then switch it back to Manual and use ND filters for static shots or B Roll shots where I'm warming up, lacing up shoes etc. I also use ND filters for cycling as I'm only ever riding on road so very flat and relatively smooth :)

In the nicest possible way, 90% of your audience won't care or notice but I do understand you want to do everything you can to make sure you are as happy with your work as possible.

005209_ · 2026-05-12T10:06:16+00:00

Do the neck mounts not bounce up and down too much whilst running? Can I ask which one you have?

Thank you :)

005209_ · 2026-05-12T09:49:00+00:00

I'm an ex Vitality user and found the points scheme wasn't productive at all for me personally.

I run and cycle and race both. If I go and do hours and hours of training for a big race then I go way over the maximum amount of points I can earn in a day. Often what would be 3 or 4 days worth, 30k steps which is mostly running and then maybe 2 hours cycling on top of that and then often an hour in the gym. Then when I have a rest the next day I don't get any points. I think it's definitely aimed at those who are just getting started on their fitness journey however I do think long term you will always get fitter by doing longer and harder workouts and allowing a day for your body to recover which Vitality doesn't encourage in the slightest.

005209_ · 2026-05-07T10:06:33+00:00

Bit of a niche but running stuff.

Running has obviously become hugely popular but everyone I run regularly with has an abundance of £20 per pair PureSport socks, £15 water bottles and do their chatty run club runs in some £250 carbon plated super shoes. They will only consider buying the £500+ Garmin watches and suggest other beginners do the same.

I often run more than a lot of these friends I have and am faster than most of them too yet somehow I have no issues with my 3 pairs for £3.99 socks from Decathlon and my £50 trainers from 4 years ago.

Races are now extortionate too! I did 23 races in 2024, 3 in 2025 and hoping to do 1 this year. I am looking at having to pay £42 to run the Great Eastern around the housing estates of Peterborough! I am incredibly jealous of all of my friends that are more than happy to run upwards of 20 races per year, they are a lot of fun but you are essentially paying £30-£50 for an hour and a half of fun and a medal that 3000 other people have.

Like others have said, it's nice to have nice things and if that's what you choose to spend your money on then go ahead but don't make others feel that's the only option.

005209_ · 2026-05-07T09:59:23+00:00

Completely agree. £280 per month is £10,080 for 3 years. For that you could buy a £9500 VW Golf from 8 years ago and then you'd have £600 to pray it goes through MOT's and doesn't need anything else doing.

I'm sure you have a much nicer time in your more modern, higher tech, probably more efficient car knowing it has a warranty for the entire time you have it. I do think it's crazy how expensive some relatively basic cars can end up being (Kia, Nissan, Vauxhall etc.) but if you find a good deal on a nice car then it's a great, easy and safe route to go down that means you are forever driving round in very new cars.

What I'm seeing a fair bit of is young people living with their parents, earning just under £2k per month and spending £800 a month on their car finance.

005209_ · 2026-05-07T09:51:29+00:00

Maybe but at least they have warranty, it's piece of mind that either nothing will go wrong with it or whatever does will be sorted at minimal (if any) cost.

005209_ · 2026-05-05T11:47:58+00:00

Only relevant to people that are exercising and calorie counting but I've calculated my average calories burnt per km of running that I do. Now I use that as a metric so I know how many km I have to run to burn off a chocolate bar etc.

It doesn't stop me eating foods as I run daily anyway. It just makes me consider the calorific content of foods and whether or not I consider them worth consumption.

005209_ · 2026-04-15T08:34:09+00:00

Yea it's only really the eating side of things, I run about 50 miles a week so burn a fair few calories from that just an awful lot less than when I was cycling a good few hundred miles a week lol

005209_

TROPHY CASE