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Old 27 Apr 2012, 08:19 (Ref:3066040)   #1
dtype38
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On-board Photography

I was wondering if anyone could give some advice please.

Background is that I now have quite a collection of quality still photographs of my race car from track side. Unless I've just changed the livery, or something special turns up I don't really feel the need for many more. I also have quite a lot of on-board footage from my ChaseCam. The quality is reasonable, but I'm getting a bit bored with the 'sameness' of watching lap after lap behind other cars, besides which it's 4:3 format and could do with an update to HD widescreen.

So, what I was wondering is if there are any cameras/video equipment which could take quality STILL photographs from onboard the car? That way I could mount it pointing in different directions and get some really interesting views of race circuits from a drivers-eye-view. I'm guessing that the main issue is going to be getting something that can deal with the vibration and focus and adapt to lighting changes quick enough. Any thoughts?
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Old 27 Apr 2012, 09:25 (Ref:3066060)   #2
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I love this idea!

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Old 27 Apr 2012, 09:59 (Ref:3066069)   #3
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The GoPro HD cameras take quality stills. Obviously you are not going to get DSLR quality unless you design a rig that can take a proper Canon/Nikon but the GoPro takes pretty good photos.

I use one to record video and keep thinking about switching it to take photos of my helmet whilst driving as I know quite a few people have used them to take photos.
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Old 27 Apr 2012, 10:01 (Ref:3066071)   #4
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http://gopro.com/photos/hd-hero-original/ There is a selection of photos on this link, taken on the original GoPro HD Hero.
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Old 27 Apr 2012, 11:45 (Ref:3066117)   #5
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i mess about with a canon standard compact camera wedged in the headrest on long journeys and to be honest the hit rate is pretty poor because of the autofocus. it tends to pick the windscreen... the best shots i get are in the dark, in tunnels etc like this. in daylight the mixture of movement and still often confuses cameras not built for onboard or sports footage.
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 06:37 (Ref:3066419)   #6
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I love the GoPro HD Hero shots, but its not quite what I'm after. The GoPro, like my video camera has a very wide angle lens. That's great for taking pics of youself from close range, or of the machine you're on, but not the sort of shot the longer lens of an SLR can take. Even my own little Olympus point and press is quite wide angle, but its more the sort of perspective I was after. I was thinking of a shot something like the Silverstone start gantry below, but from the middle of the track.

That's interesting Bella. Guess it's not such an original idea... although mine's an open car so whatever I use will probably have to be mounted externally, which may make dealing with the light a little easier. The shot below could even be done when lining up for the starting grid, which might be more stable. Problem with my little Olympus is it doesn't have a remote shutter.

Alternatively something with manual light and focus control might work better. Then it could be set up for specific shots before going on track.

Any more suggestions greatfully received
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 15:54 (Ref:3066579)   #7
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What about a Delkin Fat Gecko? What's that you might ask? Well it's a suction mount camera mount, available in single or double suction design. Designed especially for the sort of application you're looking for.

Delkin Fat Gecko

Mount it to any smooth surface, anywhere on your car and spin the camera through 360 degrees. Can hold up to a 3.6kg D-SLR and lens.
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 16:08 (Ref:3066586)   #8
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The problem with using a stills camera is you'll have too much camera shake. What about taking a screen shot (single frame) or whatever It's called from your videos?
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 17:51 (Ref:3066635)   #9
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I thought cameras had to have a mechanical mount that won't result in the camera coming loose and becoming a projectile - I doubt a suction mount would get past the scrutes.

Agreed on the shake though. It would need a complex damping mount for a decent dSLR.
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 20:41 (Ref:3066695)   #10
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I have a small Panasonic HD camcorder that I use for making various films and occasional weddings etc, although it can take good quality 12mp stills as per a normal digital camera the stills that you can edit off of the video side have to be seen to be believed.
Video imaging media goes on in leaps and bounds and no matter what you buy today you think that it can't be improved but it always is tomorrow
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 21:48 (Ref:3066715)   #11
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What about a Delkin Fat Gecko?
Sorry, but it has to be an MSA/FIA approved clamping system which will keep the camera attached in a high speed impact. These are readily available and not a real issue. Finding a camera which can be remotely triggered to take a decent picture is the question.

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The problem with using a stills camera is you'll have too much camera shake. What about taking a screen shot (single frame) or whatever It's called from your videos?
The quality is not very good - best effort attached below (recognise the view?).

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I have a small Panasonic HD camcorder that I use for making various films and occasional weddings etc, although it can take good quality 12mp stills as per a normal digital camera the stills that you can edit off of the video side have to be seen to be believed.
Any chance you could post an example of a still taken from a vid please?

.
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Old 28 Apr 2012, 23:38 (Ref:3066735)   #12
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The Silverstone Gantry shot looks like a relatively wide angle lens was used. The GoPro Hero 2 seems to offer 3 field of view settings down to 90 degrees although that is still pretty wide. However it may be close to what you would need for an 'approaching the gantry' shot.

The thing about the GoPros is that they have been designed to cope with jerky movement and vibration on fairly rigid mounts and I doubt many of the 'normal' cameras would deal well with such things.

I'm pretty sure that a dslr would be out. Ok for filming on the road but not really good for racing and expecially if located in an exposed location.

So you would be left with compacts (may be as well off with the GoPro Hero2) or something like the smaller interchangeable lens cameras now available, perhaps with a pancake 'standard' lens for smallness. However if fitted in an exposed location an underwater housing might be advisable for protection and suddenly the size bulks up - even assuming they are available.

The GoPro Hero 2 also offers time lapse shooting (according to the blurb) and that might be a good way to get the shots - thought slightly hit and miss depending on your ability to be in the right place at the right time!

If you are planning to trigger a snap manually ... well, that's another game although there are some compact style cameras that offer something like that sort of facility. (However I'm not sure that they would be suitable for action use on a number of counts). I would imigine you may have enough to do whilst on the track some form of automated triggering or, maybe, wireless external triggering would be better? Possible in theory but whether practical on track .... who knows? Not sure anyone has done it in a live race. (Other than as a snapshot form a video feed).
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Old 29 Apr 2012, 17:43 (Ref:3067041)   #13
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Some good points grantp. The Silverstone Gantry shot is just my little point and press Olympus, which tbh is a little too wide angle for my liking. Certainly more so than the Panasonic I used to have. Anyway, it's good for family photos and pics of stuff to sell on ebay, and that's what it mostly gets used for!

As for taking snaps while actually racing... well I manage to switch my video between front and rear camera's while racing (using a toggle switch by the gear shift) so some sort of press button in a similar position is what I was thinking. Providing the part of the track I want the shot of isn't where I'm changing gear then that's do-able

And yes, it is the very fact that this isn't an easy thing to do that has me interested. Anyone know if there is an HD video which can be triggered with a remote switch to take a still?
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Old 29 Apr 2012, 23:15 (Ref:3067197)   #14
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Something could be rigged I would guess. I wonder if voice recognition would work?
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Old 30 Apr 2012, 10:50 (Ref:3067370)   #15
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Not so sure about voice recognition unless it was using a helmet intercom system. My race car has no noise deadening (to save weight) and pretty much everything else is bolted together solidly (including metal bearings and bushes in the suspension) so it's pretty damned noisy. The mic for my video is in the passenger compartment and wrapped in 2" of foam!
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Old 30 Apr 2012, 12:49 (Ref:3067439)   #16
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That's interesting Bella. Guess it's not such an original idea... although mine's an open car so whatever I use will probably have to be mounted externally, which may make dealing with the light a little easier. The shot below could even be done when lining up for the starting grid, which might be more stable. Problem with my little Olympus is it doesn't have a remote shutter.

Alternatively something with manual light and focus control might work better. Then it could be set up for specific shots before going on track.
manual settings are ok, but you'd literally need to go to the exact point you'd want to take the photo, where the sun is at the same angle and there are the same number of clouds to get the right light meter readings and set it up accordingly. aperture and shutter priority modes would go some way to compensating for that but where you specify the aperture you'd run the risk of there not being an appropriate shutter speed to give the right amount of blur. and where you specify the shutter speed you may end up with the wrong bit in focus.

compacts are a bit hit and miss anyway - for some types of photo (the slow shutter speed timer shots for example) my old sony was much better. but for others, an iphone is better, and for even more, the canon i currently use is absolutely brilliant. it's really very difficult to pick one that has the compramises in the right place for the type of photos you want it to take.
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Old 30 Apr 2012, 20:54 (Ref:3067641)   #17
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I suppose I could start by mounting my own little point and press on top of my dashboard and giving the button a prod occasionally.
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Old 1 May 2012, 00:57 (Ref:3067702)   #18
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I was thinking helmet mic for voice recognition. It wouldn't really need a word as such, just a recognisable sound. Better than having to find a spare hand/finger and hit a button. That said you could probably find somewhere to fit an easy hit switch of some sort that would do the job.

It may be better to think in terms of a helmet mounted camera than a fixed car mount. At least that way you could have some control over the composition. However I think that would probably be quite a challenge on the approval front unless it was a small video style 'bullet' cam device.

Have you considered buying a Morgan 3 wheeler and carrying a passenger to take the shots?


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Old 1 May 2012, 12:44 (Ref:3067850)   #19
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Or a side-car outfit!
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Old 1 May 2012, 13:08 (Ref:3067863)   #20
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Or a side-car outfit!
If you can find a volunteer clingon with 4 arms.
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Old 1 May 2012, 17:02 (Ref:3067945)   #21
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No problemmo

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Old 11 May 2012, 13:12 (Ref:3072667)   #22
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You might want to look at this from one of the 360 threads
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Old 13 May 2012, 07:27 (Ref:3073470)   #23
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That's an improvement over mine. I don't know if I would get similar if I upped the sampling rate on my own camera to maximum - which is about twice the quality I'm using now. Only don't because my 4GB compact flash card can't take the data fast enough. I could buy a new card I guess, but last time I looked a fast enough one with big enough capacity was quite expensive. Too expensive just for a "lets see".

Oh, and I suspect he has quite soft suspension compared to mine ;-)




Edit.... just looked and prices have come down somewhat since I paid about £35 for a 4Gb 45X card!!

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Old 13 May 2012, 09:23 (Ref:3073522)   #24
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Any chance you could post an example of a still taken from a vid please?

.
Unfortunately I haven't any "on board" stills taken from a vid from my best camera (Panasonic HDC TM700) as I only use an old banger Sony for that purpose.
However the attached is from a wedding that I filmed last year with the above camera only using the HG 920 setting rather than the HD 1080 60p as I was taking the complete wedding from start to finish and would have used up too much memory for the 2X SD hc 8gb cards that I was using at the time.
Obviously this isn't taken from a car at race speed with rock hard suspension
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Old 13 May 2012, 10:25 (Ref:3073547)   #25
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Also I have a fair number of cars in for service/repairs that have the front/rear tiny vid cameras that mount on the screens, I assume they are for possible insurance claims etc and switch themselves on when you start the car, such as the Prestigio Roadrunner In Car Video Recorder (no thrashing on a road test then)
The quality seems pretty good on some of them (as shown on YouTube) but I don't know how good the stills would be ? but are cheap enough.

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