The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Cockpit cameras and mounting
We are in the process of trying to purchase a camera for the cockpit. Can anyone suggest a good camera that we can put in the car Obviously looking for something with a good depth of field so we can see both the driver and athe race track. Also if anyone has come up with a good mounting system we could build or copy that would be helpful too.
John
Bucklistracing
Since I don't want to have much more in the video setup than I have in the car, this is what I use:
Camera -
Aiptek A-HD+ (or similar), SD card based, can shoot 720p or 1080p QT files. This camera can be powered/charging while running with a simple mod to attach a 12V adapter to the supplied cable from the AC adapter. ~$100 Amazon.
A 32GB SD card will get you 17.6hrs at 720p/30fps, 9.4hrs at 1080p/30fps. So you don't have to mess with SD card changes during pit stops. The camera will automatically start a new file at the 4GB limit so you can literally set it and forget it for an all day run.
Mount -
Muffler clamp, crossbar drilled to accept a 3/8" bolt that has the head ground down to fit in the channel, clamped to a piece of innertube wrapped around the cage bar (to kill the vibrations). Manfrotto 482 micro ball head mount screws to the 3/8" bolt. ~$30 at a photo store + a muffler clamp. An enhancement to this would be to make a u-channel out of aluminum that clamps around the body of the camera and goes over the ball head stud to stiffen it up a bit (the camera itself flexes on the mount a bit).
If you want wide angle, there are wide angle lenses that will attach over the stock lens. I don't run these, because in order to see the driver, our camera would have to be back further than the main hoop.
Couple of examples shot from this camera setup -
If you want really cheap go with these. Total investment per camera is around $16.00 and the video they take is quite good.
You get 45 minutes per 4GB file and that's the biggest file it will write.
A bit picky about getting it turned on and the only indicator is an LED on top BUT we put them on the nose of the mark VIII and got good video and sound even in the wind.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mini-DV-Camcorder-D … 3cac677657
We are in the process of trying to purchase a camera for the cockpit. Can anyone suggest a good camera that we can put in the car Obviously looking for something with a good depth of field so we can see both the driver and athe race track. Also if anyone has come up with a good mounting system we could build or copy that would be helpful too.
I built my own mount at first and then didn't like the limited range of adjustment and wound up buying an IOPort camera mount. Works great, huge range of adjustment and very stable (and vibration-resistant) mount. Highly recommended.
I picked up a Sony DCR-SX63 (I think) at Sam's Club and threw a 32Gb SD card in the external memory slot. Did that for the same reasons as cited above: sick of messing with swapping digital files mid race. Recorded great! We stopped and re-started the video at every pit stop just to keep the files from getting too large (makes editing easier too) but I think we would have been fine without doing that too. The camera's more expensive than the Aiptek but I just didn't like that camera so much when I actually got my hands on it.
Good luck!
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Cockpit cameras and mounting