onboard camera advice

I know I have seen this post before but I cant find it now. I need advice on how best to record onboard. Camara, best way to mount,etc?

 

pack your camcorder in some foam or bubble wrap in a bookbag, grap a helmet cam from somewhere, tape to helmet, and whala!

 

Hey Brian, if you want to record trackdays or street riding, I suggest the tank mounted unit that Lockhart Phillips sells. I costs a little over 100 bucks, but it works very well. It's mounted to the fueltank with 3 suction cups, but you really need to use duct tape on it, since the suction cups suck in the wrong way.
But if you want to smuggle a camera for onboard racing footage, check out helmetcamera.com for some pretty neat cigar cams. You will need a camcorder with 'VTR' capabilities (i.e. if you can plug your camcorder into a TV and record a program onto your camra, then it will work)
I hear that remote control airplane guys use true remote cameras that are small and capture good quality footage. I'll be looking into that for this season as the helmetcamera that I have takes too much setup time when you're trying to concentrate on the race at hand. Ask MarkB. He has a ton of onboard from this season. Good luck!

 

Those cams are only good for a couple hundred feet up to maybe a quarter mile tops. Anything over that and you'll need an FCC liscense to get.

 

Not to mention they really need a clear line of sight to work. If you pay attention to motoGP/SBK etc, they'll sometimes not have on-board video available because they couldn't get the helicopter up (usually because of high winds and/or rain) that is used as a video relay station.

- Roach

 

I guess I was thinking that wera allowed you to record a race. My girlfriend got me a small camera that will record for two minutes only (enough for me to record 2 COMPLETE laps at roebling, Yeah Right) I want to record for longer and I was honestly thinking of putting a hole in the front of my upper and taping the camera there. I guess that could be a bad idea. Maybe a dumb question but when you use the small cigar cameras, does your video camera also have to be on the bike?

 

Unless it's sending the video wirelessly to a remote recording unit (what were talking about above), then yes.

The "lipstick" cameras require a recording unit that has an input for a remote camera.

- Roach

 

hence the camcorder in a backpack with foam or bubble wrap to prevent vibration and missed frames.

 

With my 'cigar camera'- yes. I have to remove the tailsection, plant the main camera, secure it, run the wiring to the cigar camera (wherever it's mounted on the bike), reinstall the tailsection, get my leathers/helmet/gloves on, tire warmers off, go out and straight dominate the entire field (especially those pesky AMA guys who like to show up), wake up in a padded room, because I've lost my mind, and pee in the corner.

 

Not to mention recording heads that need re-alignment.

- Roach

 

I guess Jessica knows you're only good for 2 minutes anyway!

 

does it record to compact flash if so what does the out put look like???.

 

Hey Stormin, you just keep to your "oh yea I want to, oh maybe we shoudnt,no, yes, no girls ok! Hey thanks for all the help fellow wera brothers and sisters

 

Well, the best points I can give are:

1) Get a helmetcamera.com 480 line model
2) Rig its power (the lipstick cam needs its own 12v power) to the bike's battery and instal a simple switch you can reach while sat on the bike.
3) Use foam and bungees in the under-tail compartment to store the camcorder
4) VERY IMPORTANT - use a remote cable routed to the headstock to control the camera. This lets you turn the camera on and off, and then to start and stop the recording. This alows you to set it all up and then forget about it. The camera then has to be started on the startline, and does not get in the way of remembering tire-warmers, boots gloves, gas etc etc. Forgotten the name of this cable switch, will look it up when I get back.

 

www.jonescam.tv/products.html

here is the wireless setup.

 

"200m to 1 mile range depending on antennas and amplification"

In other words, it only works for 200m unless you put a dish on the reciever, and point it towards the transmitter (kinda hard when the transmitter is a bike going 100+ mph), or else you can amplify the transmitter, which is only legal up to what, 2 watts? won't do much but add a couple more hundred meters to the range.....

 

Where do you live? If you are close to Louisville, you can come see mine. I get better footage than the on-board you see from the AMA races on Speedvision. Definately get the 480 line camera and get the remote (lanc, I think?). You do have to have a camera that is compatible with all of these gizmos. I bought everything on EBay much cheaper than it would be from helmetcamera.com.

STEVE

 

Steve - care to share some of your footage? Never hurts to have some on-board footage laying around.

 

What kind of camera did you use?