Has anyone experimented with mounting a video camera on the rear "package shelf" (the cargo area lid) behind the seats? I'm thinking of doing something like that for the dragon, but I'm concerned about the platform being resistant enough to vibration.

 

I got the triple suction cup mount that is about half way down this page:

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/speedprod15b.htm


I would think that the rear shelf would be a bit bouncy for a camera... it doesn't seem that rigid. This mount seems to have enough rigidity to hold the camera well while having a bit of give to keep a lot of the smaller vibrations down to a minimum... That, and it's fairly cheap!

 

and took it apart right away. No way is it a good place to mount a camera.

Matt

 

That looks pretty cool. Do you have the 3" extension? Are you bringing it to the Dragon? Could I give it a try if you do? :-)

 

Too much slop and/or vibration? :-(

I've seen people do that kind of mount in sedans with a rigid shelf, but rigidity is probably the operative adjective there.

 

on a fixed rear shelf, have at it!

Matt

 

FWIW, make a run to the local Home Despair or Lowes or Ace, etc. Pick up a 4' long boxed 3/4" steel tube, some U bolts and a bolt for a tripod head or directly for your camcorder. Also get some 7/8" round rubber end caps for tubing (for example, what you'd put at the end of a cane). Total cost for this safe DIY mounting kit was $15.

With this, you can either mount onto the rear seat headrests or if you drop the seats, onto the rear seat catch hooks. The later mount was used for a certain photo in this months photo contest. The head rests have a bit more play in them, but are much higher up and with a video camera it may not make as much as a difference as a still camera. I cut the 4' boxed tube to 41" so I could use it in either location. I then added the rubber caps to the ends of the bar so my interior wouldn't get messed up (still have a tear in a leather seat from a previous Home Despair run). Simply measure carefully the distance between the mount points you want to use and drill for the U bolts. I wrapped up the non threaded portion of the U bolts with a ton of electrical tape so it wouldn't tear up anything. Used locking nuts on each of the U bolts to hold it in place safely. I then used electrical tape around the tube adjacent to the hole drilled for the tripod mount so the ball head wouldn't spin or come loose (used a split washer on the other side too).

I hope this info helps; let me know if anything wasn't clear. I'll try and get a photo of this setup sometime soon and post it. I'll also post some night shots using this rig in the night shot photo thread.

Cheers!

 

The DIY idea above is good, but measure things out first to make sure your camcorder and tripod head will actually feet between the rear seat headrests and the roof of the car - mine doesn't.

 

Snid, can you put your rear seats down and use the clips that stick out to lock the seatbacks into when they are upright? This gives you a lot more headroom for a tall tripod head and big camera.

Also as another option, I managed to get the sandback hook of my tripod into the seatbelt buckle hole for the strap while it was buckled in. Took some effort, but was rock solid. This assumes you have a hook at the bottom of your tripod center post though, so YMMV

Cheers!

 

Great idea, speednut. Snid, I'm guessing you've got one of those '80s vintage camcorders roughly the size of a refrigerator? ;-)

A friend of mine has a VacuCam and a couple of MiniDV cameras, and we've been discussing mounting ideas. I actually started this thread thinking about how I could mount her non-VacuCam-compatible camera in my car. :-) Anyway, she was already on the case and found this CruiseCam mount; $45 and it clamps to a headrest. I think another club member has one and is happy with it. For the price, I don't see how you can go wrong, especially since most heads cost nearly that much on their own!

We also popped into a local camera store and looked for some kind of suction cup mount; agranger's looks good, but is about $80. I can't say we fared too well, however; nothing was in stock. There are a couple of alternatives, however. Bogen has a model 3289 suction cup mount. It sells for about $90-100. I'd like to see one in person; it apparently has a support that is supposed to go to the car floor to help support the camera. I think that agranger's might be more flexible because it *doesn't* have that. Wouldn't mind seeing the Bogen in person, however.

 

I recently bought this mount and it works well...

Check out Filmtools for car mounts http://store.yahoo.com/cinemasupplies/succupmoun.html

For a rear deck mount, I span the two rear seat anchor lugs (think rear strut brace) with a heavy aluminum extrusion that has a 3D head mounted on it. It works great. Rigid rigid rigid.

 

Here's a photo of my tripod head mount. Yes, it's as crude looking as I described, yet it's safe if something bad happens and things won't be flying around in the car. Took about an hour to make from scratch, only tool needed was a drill. I'm no DIY wizard, so this is simple enough for anyone to do. Oh, make sure you used boxed steel too. I originally made it out of 3/4" boxed AL, but it would still flex quite a bit with the weight of my DSLR and lens combo.

Snid, try mounting at the location shown here. Unless you're using an 80's style tube based over your shoulder camcorder with a 6" ball head, anything else I can imagine should fit without clearance issues.

Cheers!

 

My clearance issues were do to using a pretty tall tripod head. My mount worked fine between the front seats for track day videos.

 

Thanks for posting this speednut!!!! I went over to my Home Despair and picked up all the items mentioned above except for the U bolts as I felt the ones they had were too big and the 4' boxed tube (they wouldn't cut the 4' one down for me so I went with the 3' and am mounting it between to the headrests).

Instead of using the U bolts I am drilling holes for the headrest to slip right through the boxed tube into the seat. It looks like I may be having a little trouble aligning the holes so I'd like to ask- What size are the U bolts you used (in case my way doesn't work or is unstable)??!?!?

 

Alpha-6, cut to the correct length of 40"-41" with a hack saw. If you don't have one, pick one up as they are not too expensive and will be useful for future DIY projects.

The goal is to get as stable of a mount as possible. If you have a good drill press and lots of experience using it, your idea may work, but your headrest posts will probably get scratched up. If you don't get the holes lined up exactly right, it won't fit. To fix it, you drill some more putting some slop in the holes and run the risk of the mount wobbling around. Since all I have is a $5 table clamp vice and a hand drill motor and know my drilling sucks, the U-bolts allow me to get close enough without needing perfection. I don't have the OSH receipt with me, but I believe the U-bolt was a simple 1/4" size.

I also found that the head rests had some play in them which will affect the tripod mount bar's stability. May be fine for a video camera, but for a still camera and a long exposure I didn't think it was ideal.

Please let us know how it went for you and post the results!
Cheers!

 

Cool thanks for the reply - I'm going to see how it works my way due to the fact that I have limited time 'til the Dragon and seems like the Home Despair was out of the smaller U bolts- should be fine. In regards to the headrest I plan on using some electrical tape wrapped around the headrest bars in order to prevent scuffing from the boxed tube as you mentioned as well as provide a slightly tighter fit through the boxed tube in order to stabalize my camcorder.

 

I have been using my SONY cam corder for years on the back shelf...
It works great.
A screw up through the "mesh" with a washer and 1/4 of rubber, right into the mount screw on the camera. An additional spacer on the rear was needet to aim directly through the front windshield.

I have power at the cig lighter that I wired in the boot. With an inverter for FULL power.
I have used this mainly for VIDER but Stills are great as well.
and with the view finder flipper 180 deg I can see in the rearview where to zoom.

The remote works for ALL functions

 

This is what it ended up looking like!!!! I purchased a swivel monopod head from a local camera shop that cost me $22 because when I went to attach the Digital Video camera directly to the boxed tube the angle was all off (it had the clock in my '03 as the center point-NOT GOOD)!!! Looks great and is absolutely solid!!!!!!!! Can't wait to give it a good run on the Dragon!!!!!!

 

Nice alpha-6! Is it stable? If so, you're much better at drilling properlly than me.

bpago, sounds like you've really got the usability worked out. Will you be posting anything captured from yesterday's BSSP run?

Cheers!

 

Very very stable!!!! I couldn't even believe it!! To drill the holes for the headrest what I did was first I drilled through with a 3/16" bit then went in and used a Uni-bit to get the whole to where the headrest would fit right in-SUPER SNUG!!!!!!! I'm excited, thanks for the insipartion!!!

 

I have some great video ...a 180 spin at Thunderhill and more
Would love to put it on the computer (even edit)...
sorry just don't know how to do that.

I think I need some special cable

(I'll ask the kids )