OT: Suction cups at 50mph

[akptc]

Howdy! This is quite off-topic but I am hoping that some members here may be knowledgeable about safely mounting camera equipment onto vehicles.

My predicament is that I need to mount a video camera (that's the OT part 🙂) onto a truck to film some roads. The truck would move at at most 50mph and some of the roads are a bit bumpy. The camera needs to stay mounted all day long and it must be mounted outside the cabin, pointing straight ahead.

I've used heavy-duty movie-style mounts before but they are much too heavy and cumbersome for frequent use and mounting/dismounting the hardware on the truck. Suction cups seem like a possibility but I am worried about them "letting go".

Does anyone know of a fairly lightweight but sturdy/reliable vehicle camera mount?

Thanks!

 

[pvdhaar]

I wouldn't go the suction cup route. The continuously changing speed and wind drag will cause air to work it's way into the cup and work it loose.

I'd say that strong magnets are the next best option to a movie style mount. The kind of magnets that you find in loudspeakers are very strong. With a sheet of rubber between them and the hood, they won't slide. Unlike the suction cups, if they get near the metal after one of them temporarily lost contact, they'll stick again all by themselves..

 

[JohnM]

Someone actually makes such a thing and it's pretty cheap.

You can see some at stickypod.com and chasecam.com. I've used the Chase Cam Triple Suction mount - it cost us about $50, but it held a videocam on a car and then a snowmobile without much trouble.

 

[akptc]

Peter, thank you, I haven't considered magnets but it sounds like it would work great. My only concern would be whether a strong magnet would have any effect on the recording quality of a digital video camera writing to an internal DVD or hard-drive.

 

[akptc]

John, thank you for the links, I will check them out. Btw, do you recall more-or-less how long you had the camera mounted with the suction cups?

 

[rxmd]

Manfrotto makes a camera mount called Superclamp for attaching cameras to rails. That's a lot sturdier than either suction cups or magnets. I guess you would find a place to mount it on on your truck. Do you have a roof rack?

Philipp

 

[drewbarb]

Bogen/Manfortto make pump actuated suction cups with vairous kinds of mounting hardware. Using one or more of these and some basic grip hardware one can put together a pretty reliable system for the conditions you describe. I have seen and worked with a few such systems with varous size cameras, and can report that it will work- but I always recommend keeping hold of a strap firmly attached to the camera (and the possibly the hardware) just in case.

 

[akptc]

Well, so far these two mounts look like a quick solution that might get me started.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/375297.jpg
http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/cinemasupplies_1924_81910556

Long-term, I am leaning towards assembling a 4-suction cup based mount for the front hood, athough that will take spending some hands-on time at the store. Unfortunately, nothing like that in AZ, that I know of.

 

[akptc]

After some research, I’ve decided to get this contraption to keep the camera vibration to a minimum.

But, they didn’t have it in stock, so I ended up with this suction-cup gizmo, to tie me over.

I also got two of these “Suction glass handler tool - dual cups”, they are cheap and should work well with a small cheeseplate:

In all, I found that these online sources had interesting choices of car camera mounts:

http://cinemasupplies.stores.yahoo.net/carmounts.html
http://www.b-hague.co.uk/Mounting Brackets.htm
http://chasecam.com/mounts-suction.htm
http://dvshop.ca/lighting/superclamp.html
http://www.stickypod.com/osc/index.php?cPath=21
http://www.psalmgear.co.uk/Camcordermount.htm
http://www.mytoolstore.com/woods/mounts.html

Thanks again for everyone's advice.

 

[amateriat]

Manfrotto makes a camera mount called Superclamp for attaching cameras to rails. That's a lot sturdier than either suction cups or magnets. I guess you would find a place to mount it on on your truck. Do you have a roof rack?

Philipp

Funny, I was thinking of the Super Clamp myself (I have one, but haven't used it in years). You'd need a roof rack or the like for a secure mount, but it would certainly hold fast.


- Barrett

 

[akptc]

Funny, I was thinking of the Super Clamp myself (I have one, but haven't used it in years). You'd need a roof rack or the like for a secure mount, but it would certainly hold fast.


- Barrett

I almost got the Super Clamps but the only vehicles I will now get to use (initially) are rack-less, unfortunately. Ultimately, I am thinking of using two Super Clamps to mount two sync'd cameras on the front top sides of the cabin. The clamp realy does look like it would not fail easily.