Building a Car Rig

[OdiN]

I'm thinking of building a DIY car rig to mount my camera on and stick it to a car to do motion shots. This sounds like a crapload of fun for me - it also sounds scary because my camera will be at the end of this rig which is attached to a moving car.

A friend of a friend is trying to get his Camero into some magazines and I'm going to take some photos of it. Regular ones also but wanted to try this rig. Of course I will put the 20D on the rig, not the 40D lol. I'm sure it will be fine - I can try to put some foam and stuff around it in case it falls off somehow. Much testing and weight loading will be done first though I imagine.

It will probably be a month or two before I have any sort of results though, but I'm thinking and thinking about stuff heh.

 

[corkyg]

Odin - this thread was fairly recent and might be of some use.

Mobile

A still camera with a fast shutter speed should be a lot simpler than video. The 20D and 40D both use the Canon extension cable switch. I have used that along with the long extension cable.

 

[OdiN]

I'm not doing video at all. All still shots. I'm not sure you know what I mean

The "rig" is a setup to mount the camera outside of the car - a decent distance away - 10-15 feet or so.

Slower shutter speed is ideal. The idea is to get a blurred background with the car in perfect (or close) focus. This is accomplished by taking a slow shutter speed photo while the car is moving.

Of course the parts of the rig in the photo has to be post processed out.

 

[OdiN]

http://www.automotiverigs.com/gallery.html

There is a retail kit (which no way I'm paying that much). You can get the idea of how it works there.

 

[corkyg]

Ah! Now I understand. You then get the same effect as if you were in a parallel car shooting the car next to you. Then you would not need to remove the boom in PP.

 

[DrPizza]

Just out of curiousity, why not just take the pictures from another car moving at an identical speed? Anyway, I agree - the price on that retail kit is insane.

I was going to suggest how to protect the camera. I've done something similar with eggs, (which allowed eggs to be placed in a cut in half 20 oz plastic bottle and hit with a baseball bat) so I'll describe that process: 1st, shrink wrap the egg (camera). Next, spray "Great Stuff" foam on one side of the shrink wrap (with a camera, I'd definitely make sure it wouldn't eat through the brand of shrink wrap I was using.) After that side dries, repeat on the other side. You end up with a foam case that almost perfectly fits the egg (camera) and is separable. I'd keep the "case" small enough that I could put it in an old motorcycle helmet (one with a big open face area). Mount the back of the case to the back of the helmet by again using some of that expanding foam sealant. If you play with this idea enough, it seems that the finished product would allow you to put the helmet over the camera after the camera is mounted, then insert and strap down a 2nd or 3rd piece of custom molded foam to safely and securely protect the camera from the guard rail you're not going to see until it's too late.

In place of the aluminum pipes that they use in that retail kit, I was thinking, what about 2 inch PVC? It's cheap enough, light, and fairly easy to work with. It may flex a little more, so you'll have to figure out how far out from the car to stick in a 45 degree elbow. (I wonder if they have elbows for smaller angles?) Plus, it won't gouge the paint as badly when something goes wrong. Regardless of what you use, it probably goes without saying that you should road test it with some weight on it (and not your camera).

Now that I've thought about it, I'll bet with the flexibility of a PVC system (I think you could get away with just pushing a vertical joint together and not using glue, thus you could have a variety of interchangeable lengths) you could get some excellent shots that would leave people wondering how on earth you did it - shots from angles that you couldn't get with a second vehicle.

 

[OdiN]

PCV will flex too much and blur the shot.

The main reason for a rig is that you can do angles you can't from another car - and you don't have to worry about the shadow created by the other car either.

You aren't moving fast - in the photos it looks like you're speeding - but in reality I doubt any of those shots you see like that are over 10MPH and most probably under.

 

[gsellis]

Or... just take pics in those action spots except the Interstate (Chinese Photo Drill)

You can then alpha the car out, blur the background and put the car back in (from alpha)

But building the rig might be more fun. Or a pole cam and shoot the car from the end of a stick, standing as it goes by. Pole cams have been used in surfing to get above water, in water shots.