Shooting from a moving truck in rough roads - camera stabilization rig?

T

tomperson

Active member
Guys,

Its a long time since I've been on the forum, so hi to everybody. For a couple of years I've been shooting equestrian sports in the countryside, Its kind of an amateur thing (little to no production budget), but I have thousands of followers in facebook and youtube, so delivering a "decent" quality product is one of my goals.

One of the main technical challenges is that I am shooting from a moving truck in rough roads, which means that the video is anything but stable. Sometimes it gets pretty wild, see video below:

http://youtu.be/aViae9CY71E

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aViae9CY71E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

As you can see, the footage jumps all over the place at moments, trying to stabilize that in post (at least in my limited experience) has been pretty much impossible.

Is there any camera stabilization rig that you could recommend that might help prevent video jumping like crazy? Hopefully budget-minded.

Key requirements:

  • No more than $500. Ideally around the $200 mark - don't know if that is possible at all, but one can ask.
  • Portable and easy to set up / balance. I'm shooting in the country side, and I don't have the luxury of spending hours to set up. This is a real time event.
  • Should be "good enough" for youtube quality video. I'm not shooting for the TV or a full blown production.
  • Note 90% of the time i don't pretend to be "flying" with the camera, but rather, i'm standing still on top of a moving truck, so what I want to do is to be able to somehow "absorb" the unevenness of the road with the stabilization rig. Does that make sense?
  • Should handle the weight of a GH2 camera with lens and maybe a small microphone (Rode VideoMic type).

Please help me on this. Your opinions will be highly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
I would not be doing that shoot like that. First of all get a car suction mount + wide lens, through editing you can have some great angles. Secondly put the camera on a tripod and a cushion mat under you to absorb some of the shock. Thirdly try riding sitting down in the car with your camera placed on a pillow, this will also help absorb the shocks. Film in 60p for some slow motion. These are just some ideas that would look a lot better imo than what you are currently doing.
 
And lose that annoying stupid STUPID orange "end of roll" flash you are using for a transition. We used to get that at the end of double 8 and 16mm film roll because we never knew when the heck we'd run out.

Anyone who cared about their reputation always trimmed that off and spliced to properly exposed film.
 
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