Bike mounts....

P

PDX_DVX

Veteran
I am going to be shooting alot of mountain biking for an up coming video I am making, and I really want to get some innovative camera angles of the riders. I know that I could probably buy some high end car rig and adapt it to a bike, but hey, this is the DIY forum and I want to save some $$$$! I was wondering if anyone has any suggestoins on devices that I could use to clamp mounting rods or pipes to square and round tubing, probably ranging from 1''-2.5'' in diameter? Does anyone have any experience with this? I basically want a connection that is strong enough to support the DVX while the rider is riding down slightly rough trails, but not anything too harsh. Any suggestions would be great!
 
I doubt there is any mount you could put on a bike that would give you usable shots. The best solution is to use a camera mounted to a full face helmet. For stablility, it is best to mount it on the side with a counter weight on the other side.


I have mounted a camera to a bike shooting some urban riding and the camera shook to much just from the knobbies on the tires.

A good moutain bike film to watch is "The Collective" There is a "making of" section that you will get a lot of good ideas from.


Here is a short peice that I just finished editing. (The color corrected version is not up yet.)

http://www.southerndiscomfort.net/videos/windrock.wmv
 
I know in some of the old kranked films they mounted cams to the bikes to get shots of the front suspension and such and it seemed pretty smooth, granted, they were on full suspensions with huge travel, but nevertheless they did manage to mount some 16mil cams to the bikes......
 
yes... I have done it with front wheel cargo racks, you know the old school ones you carry panniers on.. once you have that attatched, you can use somer maffer clamps and a ball head on a baby plate to point the camera where you need it. if you are aiming for front only shots, you can just drill a hole on the flat part of the rack and put a screw through it into your camera.

another cool thing to do is get one of those trailers that you put kids in, find a camera guy thats pretty small and put him in there so hes shooting really low forwards to the rider.. get going on some tight singletracks and it looks really friggin cool.
 
PDX,


I think the mass of the cameras helped in dampening the vibrations in the kranked films. That and the plush 8" forks they were using.

When I was mounting to the bike, it was using cheaper (lighter) DV cams and not the DVX.

My big mistake is rushing to say it could not be done. It just has not been been done successfully by me........yet.

Let's put some more thought into it. I would like to get those type of shots too.

dolby



Jarred......Thanks
 
Not sure if it would work for mountain biking, but you can always use 2 C-stand arms and some good clamps. My buddy Kevin rigged some stuff on a beach bike, you can check out a few shots we did for a music video over here : http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=32298
It was very very solid........... on the beach cruiser. But if you dont go down too ruff a terrain with the mountain bike, its way doable.
 
I have this shot envisioned, and I know it would hard to pull off, but what my dream shot would be is to have the cam at the same level as the rear axle, and maybe a foot or two away from the rear wheel and using a wide angle or fisheye just get a shot of the rider bombing the single track through the forrest, to really show the size of the trees overhead and just the grand scale of things. It would be difficult I know, but *maybe* possible. It might be something that I will experiment with. I was thinking that maybe it would be possible to use the types of clamps that they use to build construction scaffolding, and then find some thick walled aluminum pipe to make an arm off the back to somehow mount the camera to. This is all in my head tho, and I havent done much research into such clamps.....

Edit:

I did a quick google search and found this website with lots of pictures of various scaffolding clamps. I figure if they are strong enough to hold human weight they are strong enough to hold a camera.....

http://www.acmeforging.com/index.htm
 
for the DVX, i would put it on a bob trailer.. you dont want to bomb with it hanging 2 feet off the back of the bike that low because its just asking for trouble.
 
yea, i figured that, but I don't know how well a BOB would hold up either......i don't have first hand experience with them tho, what is the bike to trailer connection like?
 
bob trailers are pretty indestructable, and they have thier own suspension. te nice thing is they form almost a cage for the camera so even if you whip the back out into a tree your camera might be ok... alot more ok than on an arm.

It is gonna be a bumpy ride, from my shooting cycling experience nothing beats having having the camera on the rider, but stabilize software is pretty incredible now adays.
 
Whoa- those cymbal stands are getting some use, eh? It'd be great to see the bike lean over and raze the LCD, kinda like some would do with the plate holer :)
 
Jarred Land said:
bob trailers are pretty indestructable, and they have thier own suspension.
Click to expand...
I have an older unsuspended BOB trailer. It's crap for bumpy conditions but great for smooth. I haven't tried the newer suspended version. I would guess that you would need to add a bit of weight to the trailer along with the camera to help load the suspension. But it's a cool idea using one.

Another nice thing about these trailers is how they track the bike. It's very easy to ride narrow singletrack with one. The trailer will follow the same line as the bike.
 
Oh, just remembered this link:

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/18373

Check out the bike mount this guy has created. Some interesting ideas that might be workable for what you would like to do.

Oh, if you haven't tried it yet, get a steadicam device. In some of the slower single-track sections, walk or run after the rider. Or start running down a trail, filming backwards towards an oncoming rider. Pan as the rider passes and follow.

You can do variations of this. For example, get ahead of a rider down trail. Keep the camera aimed at the rider. Run across the trail at a 90' angle, passing just in front of the rider. Make sure to follow the rider with the camera the whole time.
 
Scrape!

Scrape!

Yikes! Trust me, there were some turns that I was freakin' on!

bikefilms said:
Whoa- those cymbal stands are getting some use, eh? It'd be great to see the bike lean over and raze the LCD, kinda like some would do with the plate holer :)
Click to expand...
 
I need to research those BOB trailers, how spendy are they?

EDIT: Just googled, looks like around 369 US. WAY cheaper than I thought.....Just might have to invest

It only says 70lbs carrying capacity tho, so I guess that rules out riding in the trailer with the cam.....
 
Take a look at doggiecam.com

Ive used their mounting system for a bolex attached to a Mountain bike, looking forward, just behind the pedal. Turned out great.

You can rent them, or use them for inspiration.

Also mounted them a motorcycle, in the same configuration, and to the handlbars looking backwards.

i have a clip online (with at least one of the shots) at:

http://emrl.com/j/film/avi/bikerscene1.avi

-j
 
DVXfilmmaker ~

I like your cymbal stand rig. but i can't see what you're using to mount the camera to the stand. Is it a "store bought" camera platform? I;m trying to build something on my own - not sure how to configure it. don't want the platform to spin around the post on the stand.

Thanks
 
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