Helmet cams, shmelmet cams ...

[fisha]

People thought i was nuts to take an expensive SLR and good lens round my neck to get a few shots of the commute ( they were probably right ) whilst moving along.

Now, people are saying they want to see the commute in video form. I dont have helmet camera . . .

but i do have a DV camcorder ... but its rather large .... anyone got any good ideas on how to fix it to the bars?

those little ball-mount fixing things are not good enough to hold the weight of the camera.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

Don't know if they actually make a handlebar mount, but check out Manfrotto kit, they make excellent (=pricey) tripods and a very wide range of mounting brackets.

 

[fisha]

all joking aside . . . i hadn't thought of just strapping the tripod to the frame . . . . hmmm!

 

[col]

Just a daft idea,but what about cutting a block of polistyrene out to push it into,holding it with a strap,then what about cutting the underside to shape to sit on top of your helmet,or somewhere else suitable?

 

[fisha]

i was looking at how my visor moves in relation to me cycling and its awfully shaky . . . adding a heavy weight is only going to make things a whole lot worse.

more thought needed i think.

 

[magnatom]

Not really what you were asking, but do you realise that if you have a camcorder with the correct A/V input you can use it with one of the bullet cameras. See here http://www.actioncameras.co.uk/camcorder.html for details. That might make things cheaper if you were thinking of going down the helmet camera route.

 

[col]

Fixing it to your bike ,is going to be problematic,unless you have someway of damping the vibration from the road,i thought fixing it to your body or helmet in some way would be the cheapest easier way.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

Right, here's my idea, Heath Robinson I know but it's how everything gets invented.

Get yourself one of those handle bar space savers (hbss), you know, what you put lights n 'puters on to free space on your handle bars.

Set it up on your handlebars so video camera is sort of "balanced" over its tripod mounting boss (depends if tripod mounting boss is fore, aft or central).
When set up, mark the top of the hbss, drill either a 1/4" or (maybe) 3/8" hole through the hbss, and attach a "quick release" tripod head stand, or even just put a 1/4" whitworth bolt through (this is standard size tripod bolt size, but a few are bigger) straight into your vid cam, though I would put a piece of rubber /cushioning / padding between hbss and vid cam.
Also check depth of penetration (oooh errr!) in vid cam, you don't want to bottom out (I've never managed that though ! )

P.S. If you do this and it works and you start selling them, I WANT MY CUT !

 

[Arch]

Before I got the helmet cam, I took video with my digital camera, fixed to a tripod (well, acutually, the central part of a tripod, minus the legs - I found it cheap in a charity shop so was happy to take it to bits) zip-tied to my handlebars, and padded with a bit of foam to reduce rattle... I suppose a video camera might be a bit bigger though...

 

[fisha]

Elmer, thats a good idea . . . i'll look into it.