Anybody have a way?

I've been trying to get a decent video from inside the cab at night on a road thru some of the country around here. I'm not getting much trying to hold the camera and drive too. Anybody come up with a decent rig to hold the camera while trying to drive? I've been thinking about rigging some kind of perch to place the camera above the seat top and able to view out my small windshield. I have an area I could clamp to on a horizontal brace that is close to the top edge of the seat back but if I clamp it solid, I'm not sure if vibration would be bad there yet. I've been trying to hold it in hand but I'm all over the place the results will make you wanna hurl if you have a weak stomach. Everytime I tried tonight, I was either over the mic or bumping around all over. I also thought of one of those industrial suction cups and some kind of bracket off that to the mount on the bottom of the camera. Not sure if a suction cup would hold thru rough stuff. Anybody tired anything that worked fairly well? I've got a Nikon camera that shoots real good pix. I also have one of the 4Sight dash cams with all the rigging. None of that will attach to my regular cam and I'm not real impressed with the quality from the dash cam itself. Shoot me some ideas...if you have them.

All these reality shows use cameras stuck all over in cars, surely they must use suction cups or some kind of quick mount that doesn't mark plastic interiors...[S Camera shops must have something for these Go Pro cameras, guys mount them on helmets too, I see guys on motorcycles and mountain bikes with them all the time.

Yeah, the dash cam I have is set up with a two way directional mount using a suction cup. I've been studying it to get the right hook up for my Nikon. They aren't the same type of mounts but I can figure something out there I guess. The only place I could mount that and get the view I need would be the rear glass I think. If I center it on the front glass I have to contend with the lean of the windshield cause I ride with it cranked out all the time and the length of all this mechanism is about as long as my little strip of glass is high. In the center, my windshield is only 5" tall. I guess I shouldn't second guess the suction cup. I know they use them on all sorts of things. I shot 5 vids tonight in different places on my way home from Pool and I wouldn't waste the time to load them on photobucket....just poor! Shakin worse than a dog passin a pineapple...[ddd

What worked for me

smalls, does you camera have a threaded hole in the bottom for attaching to a tripod [S
i clamped a piece of angle to a piece behind the seat and screwed the camera on using that mount.
i'm going to try to attach a video to see if you think it will work for you, good luck
no luck on the video, i'll try again tomorrow if you think it will help [S

Thanks soltz! If you load it thru photobucket I could view it, for some reason my slow dial-up won't view a you tube video tho. Did you get fair results with that kind of rig? I was just hoping for something better than free hand. And yes, my Nikon is the single post mount for tri-pod set-ups...

Could you get Camera Tripod in the cab?

Put two legs on the floor boards and the third on the pass seat? Maybe simple attachment, like zip ties to the dash & seat? Use some foam to pad contact points?

I R , I'll have to look into that. I do have a good tri-pod. I'll have to see if there's a way to tie it in there.

Take somebody along with you and have them do the filming while you drive.
I can't believe that you haven't got your dog trained to do this yet smallfoot.[ddd
Torchie

Torchie said:

Take somebody along with you and have them do the filming while you drive.
I can't believe that you haven't got your dog trained to do this yet smallfoot.[ddd
Torchie

Click to expand...

Soon as he grows thumbs, he'll be chauferring me around...

I used a piece of 1"x1/8" flat strap in my '23 Dodge coupe. I attached one end to the windshield bracket and attached the camera to the other end. It worked great, and the camera got video from basically the driver's point of view.

You can see it through the left side of the steering wheel. It was easy to reach, too!

Thanks Animal! Did you get any vibration problems mounted like that? I mean was the video fairly clear? I just don't want to try to view something or rather spend the time it takes to transfer a video here that isn't anything but annoying trying to focus on what you're looking at. My ride is a little stiff even on a smooth road being about 2500 lbs with me in it. Add 85 year old suspension and steering technology up front and a Jeep rear parallel leaf set up. I'm comfortable enough but it ain't no Caddilac

It actually took really good video. I posted some here, even on a mountain road. The coupe had a Model A front axle and arear axle on bags, but the ride was pretty rough. The videos came out really well.

One of the first videos I made in the coupe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uua_K0E-TwA

The camera is a cheap little $80 camera, but takes great video.

Smallfoot, animals looks a little smoother than mine, i think the fuzzy is to many copy and paste to keep the quality [S the biggest irritant is the wind

I've been trying to get thumbs on my pup for some time with no luck [S

http://vid1054.photobucket.com/albums/s499/ssoltz/20120220140118_zps3j8vrqy6.mp4

I built a little mount into the bulkhead behind the seat on my old pilothouse that used the camera's tripod mount. Worked pretty well.

There's a few videos shot with it in this thread - http://ratrodsrule.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24744 - one in the first post and a couple on page 2, not too shaky I don't reckon?