suction cups & POV cameras

[Steve Kownacki]

Here’s the Manfroto with a 4″ vacuum mount. You have to go outside to view the LCD to set up your shot or use the video out to external monitor. Get a 12V power inverter to run the camera on AC if you don’t want to worry about battery life.

ND is a good idea to experiment with; I’ve never done it. Obviously I use an ancient Digi8 camera for the stuff I play with. The Vixia gets great reviews. On any camera I’d make sure of total manual control for iris, WB, and focus along with an mic in jack and get a JuicedLink cheapie mixer for XLR mics. Also, you can get a cheap zoom control on ebay for $29 that works with lanc control or that new multi-pin roundish connector. You can sit in the back seat with a video monitor, headphones and the zoom control. If you drive in one direction (controlling the sunlight direction), I’d opt for a fixed iris and let the bagkground does what it does. Also see if you can mount filters on the lens, some you can’t if you want to use a wide angle.

I’m looking into a new camera and will let you know what I come up with; probably going to be in the $7-800 range. I like the one Sony that puts GPS data on the still images it takes, won’t do it on video though. Also want it to shoot to SDHC cards and not just an internal hard drive. The face tracking does work amazingly well from what I’ve heard.

The earlier comment about cleaning the window is 2-fold: if the cam is outside you want a clean window; but also clean glass on the inside will make sure the mount doesn’t come off.

Steve

[Bill Meissner]

Check out the Drift HD camera. Has an LCD monitor built in.

I’ve used the panavise 809 suction mount with the GoPro on exteriors of race cars going 130 mph with no loss of cameras. Clean the surface and the cup and make sure the surface and cup are dry. Gaff tape over the cup as an added security.

Bill

Sony EX1
Final Cut Studio 2
MacBook Pro
2.4Ghz / 4Gb Ram
Matrox MX02 LE