Camera's on Trikes

[John Young]

Am wanting to build up a libary of pictures when I finally 1) Sell the house. 2) Move to Africa to be with our SA Family in Phalaborwa-Hot. 3) Buy a house. 4) Learn to fly and 5) Buy a Trike.

Howdy Uncle Spud,

Put 5) before 4).

I did and it was a good decision even for flying in (hot).

Regards
John ZU-sEXY

[Uncle Spud Murphy]

Am wanting to build up a libary of pictures when I finally 1) Sell the house. 2) Move to Africa to be with our SA Family in Phalaborwa-Hot. 3) Buy a house. 4) Learn to fly and 5) Buy a Trike.

Howdy Uncle Spud,

Put 5) before 4).

I did and it was a good decision even for flying in (hot).

Regards
John ZU-sEXY

Thank you John Young for pointing out a most serious error. Silly me . Now I am thinking of putting number 5 before 3 but softness would not be happy and my head would throb for long time

Ales van die beste

[Tumbleweed]

You okes are'nt good with numbers.

Put 5 before 3.

[Badger]

A friend told me about this camera and it is available from Cape Union Mart. Has any one got any experiance with it or know of some one who has. The price dont look too bad either, R1298-00.
http://www.oregonscientific.co.za/produ ... refto=4559

[neandertaler]

Hi!

Last weekend I attached my camcorder to the control bar of my trike. Sadly the video was totally blurry because of the fine vibrations which were tranferred from the engine.
Do you guy have the same problem and maybe even a solution?

I was also wondering how I could install the camera to the tip of the wing like on the pictures above without drilling any holes in the tube...

I am looking forward to your answers.


Cheers,

Oliver

[andreb]

I tried to mount my video camera to my trike in various positions but the vibrations seems to play havoc with the camera even when using vibration pads or rubber mounts
Best I could come up with was to buy one off those headcam jobbies at the bike shop and mounted it on top of my helmet or even on the wing
Picture is not as good but it does work
Best idea however is to take a pax with that can operate the camera and if it is your wife even better then she doesn't mind going with, just stick some tape over the mike to dampen the wind noice

[Cloud Warrior]

Strange - you shouldn't get vibrations if the camera is on the wing. Normally the vibration problem crops up when you mount things on the cart. As mentioned earlier, Damien Beresford has an excellent video on his site that gives you a lot of detail on how to set up a video system on your trike. If you want to mount anything to the trike then use RAM Mounts - you can make up nearly anything you need with all the components they have. I am finally getting off my butt and starting to install a video system on my trike after doing a lot of research and saving up to buy what I think is the most suitable kit for this application. I will start a photo log of what I am doing on the site and maybe you can get some guidance from that.

[Duck Rogers]

...... just stick some tape over the mike to dampen the wind noice

And I thought the tape was to shut the wife up....silly me!

[John Waterson]

Hi Guys

I am doing some homework on equipment to mount a video camcorder on my Savannah. My intention is to have a wing mounted system clamped to a tube running chordwise on the outboard left wing. Onto this I would like to mount a pan-tilt system from Skyeye in the states. See pic below. I have recently bought a small laptop (notepad) with a ±300 Gig HD onto which I want to download footage and use the notepad screen as a monitor.

The big question is. WHAT VIDEO CAMCORDER? Local suppliers tend to punt what they stock. And my knowledge of camera equipment is far too limited to make a choice with the enormous range out there. CAN ANYBODY HELP ME?

I have established that I need a reasonably compact 3CCV quality machine with a good wide angle ability, relatively close (2.0 m) depth of field and image stabilisation (Preferably gyroscopic). I also understand that the preferred medium of recording is the mini tape, although changing this in flight would not work.. Remote start/stop and zoom function, audio input and digital av ouput to the monitor would be a necessary feature. My total budget is around 20 K. The Beeeeg question. WHAT CAMCORDER???

John Waterson

[RV4ker (RIP)]

Why not go with lipstick type bullet cams and record straight onto HD rather than Mini DV then convert to Digital. Use the PC to control the camera(s)

[RV4ker (RIP)]

[DarkHelmet]

You do not want to record onto a Hard Disk unless it is SSD - the vibrations mess up the traditional hard disk.

[John Waterson]

Perhaps I am looking for too much in one camcorder. Not sure, but I don't think I will get the quality that I am looking for from the little lipstick chaps. The pan tilt system would be great to have esp when videoing an aircraft behind to get front end shots and also to direct the lense away from the bugs when not in use.

I fear the limited lense diameter might be problematic in low light on the little units. It would also be good to use the camcorder off the aircraft when on trips.

I understand also from some of the more experienced fellows that the mini tape is the prefered medium for recording from a quality perspective. The problem of course will be that when the mini tape runs out the camera will no doubt shut down.

Thanks for your input, keep the ideas rolling.

I think a top end compact consumer camcorder will fit the bill, but which one ???

We tried this panasonic in the photo, but the quality again was not great and it could not cope with image stabilisation above ± 3500 rpm. I think we might be able to deal with the vibration problem with some method of damping (bubble wrap, silicone, or rubber mountings)

[Hermanator]

On the bikes, we use a camera system which integrates into the comms system, which means you then get voice commentary directly to your video. We use a Sony P550 bullet camera which is the highest specification and is used in military and surveillance applications. The camera has the widest angle view of any available and, although short of human peripheral view, still very effectively puts the viewer into the picture.



This is connected to a mini DV recorder which records directly to an SD card. If set on low resolution (640x480), you get about 8 hours on a 4Gb card. The camera can, however, be set on high res which will give you DVD quality footage at about 1Gb/hour.



In England, I used a splitter which meant I could connect 6 camera's to the DVR. With the camera's mounted in different places on the bike, I was able to get front, rear, helmet (front/rear), belly-pan and tank mount footage. It was a simple case of switching between camera's on the splitter box to determine which camera would be used for recording.

[Hermanator]

A friend told me about this camera and it is available from Cape Union Mart. Has any one got any experiance with it or know of some one who has. The price dont look too bad either, R1298-00.
http://www.oregonscientific.co.za/produ ... refto=4559

We tried this camera system on the bikes. The quality can be compared to the grainy footage youfind on YouTube, or similar to what you would get off your cellphone.