Camera Mounting

[Pete Logan]

When I first got the video camera, I had to mount the supplied handlebar bracket out by the left grip to get around the instrument binnacle, which was in the way.

This is not ideal as it gives a misleading impression of where the bike is on the road, which makes it difficult to demonstrate riding lines.

It turns out that the handlebar stem from a bicycle makes a useful additional bracket to position the camera correctly in the middle of the bars.

This one is adjustable and needed no modification, but you could do it cheaper if you have welding skills and can form your own shape.

Just be careful not to catch your family assets on it as you fly over the bars :-D

You can see where the camera used to be on the left end of the bars - ugly white slodge :-D

 

[mortation]

I would recommend flattening the end of that bracket with a hack saw and a plastic cap. Accidents happen and I am getting some ugly images of what that spike could do

 

[Planecrazy]

I would recommend flattening the end of that bracket with a hack saw and a plastic cap. Accidents happen and I am getting some ugly images of what that spike could do

I agree ... you don't need to "fly over the bars" to hurt yourself pretty bad. All it would take is to drop the bike on its left side and land on the end of that bar ... OUCH!!

 

[Pete Logan]

With respect, if the shaped end will penetrate, so will a blunt one. And besides, it's pretty :-D

 

[Planecrazy]

I agree ... you don't need to "fly over the bars" to hurt yourself pretty bad. All it would take is to drop the bike on its left side and land on the end of that bar ... OUCH!!

With respect, if the shaped end will penetrate, so will a blunt one. And besides, it's pretty :-D

It IS pretty, Pete, but the way you have it set up, if you were to cutoff and cap the end and then fall on it you would also be landing on the camera (since the capped end would presumably be right where the camera mount is), so there'd be a much larger area of contact ... you'd get a nice bruise, but probably not a puncture!

In any case, I like the solution for centering/mounting the camera ... if I do the same I'll probably use it.

Regards,

 

[t3rmin]

Nonsense, I say sharpen it up and angle it back a bit. Just be sure to will me something good first.:twisted:

 

[tkent02]

You could flip it over so it is angled the other way, might not hurt so much on impact.

 

[Zooks]

I would recommend flattening the end of that bracket with a hack saw and a plastic cap. Accidents happen and I am getting some ugly images of what that spike could do

My thoughts exactly. Imagine it slipping under your helmet if you were to accidentally lay the bike down. Flatten the end and plug it!

 

[pntrdave]

Best advice ever..... just don't crash.:-D:-D:-D:-D

 

[Pete Logan]

Yeah - that is just where it was first fitted. I'll cut the end off and plug it. Though it's pretty much in line with the bars, so a body would hit the bars first. Prolly try some other angles, too.

 

[dpep]

Good idea. But now you need to work out some sort of pully setup that will point the camera in the opposite direction the handlebars are turning. Otherwise in the turns the camera will be pointing in the direction of the countersteer rather the direction the bike is going.

 

[Pete Logan]

Good idea. But now you need to work out some sort of pully setup that will point the camera in the opposite direction the handlebars are turning. Otherwise in the turns the camera will be pointing in the direction of the countersteer rather the direction the bike is going.

True, though the degree of turn is very slight. It is, however, the case that the camera doesn't show the road line very well because of this. In this sense, the helmet mount is better, but the drawback with that is that it doesn't pick up the engine sounds, just a lot of wind whistle.

I don't see a 'turning' mount being easy to do, although Citroen did have turning headlights on the SM, but I think the mechanism would be quite cumbersome on a bike :-D

At the moment I'm thinking that maybe angling the camera slightly upwards would give a better view of the road in turns, but I stripped one of the handlebar mounting threads so have to fix that before I can do some more experimenting. Never ends :-D

 

[Greg O.]

What do you do for sound? I would like to hear the sound of the engine. Do you mount a microphone near the engine out of the wind?

Greg O

 

[Pete Logan]

What do you do for sound? I would like to hear the sound of the engine. Do you mount a microphone near the engine out of the wind?

Greg O

It's something I'm still working on/thinking about. I use an ATC2K self-contained camera which has only a built-in microphone and no way to connect a remote mic.

If it's mounted on the bars it picks up sound reasonably well, but if it's on the helmet it gets nothing much at all except some wind noise, so up to now I've just put music over the top.

To get sound using a helmet mount I'd have to have a separate sound recorder, so I'm keeping a gentle eye out for something reasonably priced, but good enough quality.

I think synchronizing the sound and the visual may be a problem, though.

The better way to go would be a separate camcorder with a bullet camera and independent mic, but at least around here, that seems to be megabucks.

The sound you get from a bar mount is like in this 20 second clip - download it for best viewing (Save Target As).

http://195.206.105.25/incident22.wmv

 

[Planecrazy]

It's something I'm still working on/thinking about. I use an ATC2K self-contained camera which has only a built-in microphone and no way to connect a remote mic.

If it's mounted on the bars it picks up sound reasonably well, but if it's on the helmet it gets nothing much at all except some wind noise, so up to now I've just put music over the top.

To get sound using a helmet mount I'd have to have a separate sound recorder, so I'm keeping a gentle eye out for something reasonably priced, but good enough quality.

I think synchronizing the sound and the visual may be a problem, though.

The better way to go would be a separate camcorder with a bullet camera and independent mic, but at least around here, that seems to be megabucks.

The sound you get from a bar mount is like in this 20 second clip - download it for best viewing (Save Target As).

http://195.206.105.25/incident22.wmv

Pete, there's a low-tech way you can get the built-in mic to work better. Basically you want to mount a "fairing" to the front of the camera where the mic is, so that you direct the turbulent air around it (much like a Wes Cooley Fairing). depending on the size of your mic screen you might have some success with a ping pong ball cut in half and attached carefully to the camera.

Be sure that you only cover the mic and don't obstruct the "auto-focus" sensor ... Otherwise the camera won't focus properly. You won't get any directionality out of this setup, but since you're mainly concerned with picking up the engine noise this might actually help you get a better recording of that. You'll need to experiment with various materials to get the best quality without "echo," and you may want to try putting a sound absorbing material on the inside of the ping pong ball, like foam or rolled up tissue paper. Just make sure it doesn't touch the mic screening.

Good luck!

 

[Pete Logan]

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I did try taping a small piece of foam taken off a PC microphone over the mic, but it didn't seem to do much. I think it needs something a bit more rigid to positively displace the air.

 

[pntrdave]

I saw this frog video once.... you could video the run without sound and then get the guy that did the frog video to dub in the sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBD6wLRYqzk