Camera Mount Test

[stephenperry]

First test of new camera mount this evening, comments on the driving please (i stay silent throughout - between me talking and my taste in music i think it's the lesser of two evils )

17/03/07 - Updated link to the video:

http://www.g5pry.co.uk/cameramounttest.wmv

[Luke]

Its very smooth, what type of camera will it mount?

Do you have any pics of the mount and how is it fitted?

What are you going to use it for (and don't say recording)

[TripleS]

Its very smooth, what type of camera will it mount?

Do you have any pics of the mount and how is it fitted?

What are you going to use it for (and don't say recording)

I suspect he's going to use it to record dubious antics by police drivers, in which case I understand the Manchester area should be a fruitful source. So there!

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[stephenperry]

Its very smooth, what type of camera will it mount?

still camera or camcorder up to 2kg in weight, i have a jvc mini-dv camcorder

Do you have any pics of the mount and how is it fitted?

here it is, i bought it from a company called Fast Films (www.fastfilms.co.uk) who were exhibiting at the show, the following description and pictures are taken from their site:

Pump cup with swivel and double ball tilt top head
150mm vacuum pump cup, with swivel and double ball tilt top. A bit of a mouthful, but basically a very strong vacuum mount with multiple joints to allow easy camera positioning in almost any angle, inside and out. The mount is held in place on a smooth, clean angle (ideally flat or very shallow angle) by a vacuum. This is created by you pumping a button on the base quickly until you see the red line on the button disappear. At this point the cup is rated as supporting upto 2kg in weight. When the redline re-appears you need to start pumping again!




i started off with it stuck on the inside of the rear window in case it fell off when im driving, haven't tried it on the bodywork while the cars moving

What are you going to use it for (and don't say recording)

i plan to use it for IAM drives, for trackdays, and for bmw car club events, and of course showing you lot how nice some of the roads are round here

[stephenperry]

I suspect he's going to use it to record dubious antics by police drivers

that too

[899cc]

But of course, sticking it on the outside of the car, or on the windscreen would be illegal wouldn't it

[TripleS]

But of course, sticking it on the outside of the car, or on the windscreen would be illegal wouldn't it

Looking at the pictures I wondered about that. There seems to be a lot of apparatus obscuring the driver's view, and this arrangement looks much more bulky than a screen mounted satellite navigation unit, and even those have sometimes been called into question for the same reason.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[stephenperry]

i'm led to believe that it isn't illegal to providing it doesn't obstruct your vision or, in the case of being mounted externally, injure a pedestrian (either through smacking them on the back of the legs as i drive along or the car being stationery and them being dozy and walking into it.... although their injuries wouldn't be caused by the mount it would probably be caused by me when i realise they've broken my camera )

[stephenperry]

got me thinking though... i suspect there would be no problem with obscuring the back window because lorries and some vans don't even have them and they manage alright using their side mirrors

[James]

Can't see a problem so long as visibilty is not obscured to the front window. You could get a £30 FPN for having anything blocking your view. In extreme cases some would argue it was driving without due care and attention.

How about winding down a side window and sticking it inside but so the camera is outside... is that possible? I tried to download but can't do it.

[stephenperry]

How about winding down a side window and sticking it inside but so the camera is outside... is that possible?

not with this mount, its reach isn't long enough to stick to say the inside of the rear passenger window and stick out of the open rear drivers window - i dismantled an old camera tripod and drilled some holes in it to make a headrest mount for my old car which stuck out of the passenger window; it worked quite well until it broke

I tried to download but can't do it.

Did you try earlier today? My computer was off so you wouldn't have been able to download it, give it a another try if you want

[James]

It downloads instantly and then does not know what program created it

[stephenperry]

in that case you need to install a "bittorrent" client to make sense of the "torrent" file, they're all free, i used to use bittornado but i quite like azureus now

you can download azureus from here (choose any of the "mirrors"), pm me if you have any problems with setting it up

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/azur ... e?download

when you've done that if you open my video file it will open azureus and start downloading

[James]

OK, how about the offence of "having a mascot likely to cause injury" with reagrd your camera. They may argue it's likeihood in relation to bikes and pedestrians.

[stephenperry]

what would the penalty be for that?