37 replies to this topic

[Ajax]

I want the ability to mount a GoPro or similar action cam on my 5ktsb. My preferred location is on the backstay, so that the camera can see the entire length of the boat. I have an ordinary wire backstay. Has anyone done this? Got any ideas to keep the camera pointed forwards, so that it doesn't swivel left to right on the stay?

If I mount it on the cabin top, I'll lose about 1/2 of what's going on.

Thanks!

[Rhett]

It depends on how much work you want to put into it ( and how nice you want the mount to look). I'd say:

1. Duct tape
2. But the handlebar/seatpost mount. You'll have to find a way to make the backstay a larger diameter. You can just wrap a bunch of tape around it, or find some bore reducers/enlargers and mount those, and then clamp down. I'd just go with the tape method though.

[Timbo]

Is this the type of shot you are looking for?

http://www.youtube.c...40?feature=mhum

This is a rigid mount on the floor of the boat. If you have a push-pit you could mount there, be better than the backstay. There are gimbles availible to keep the horizon level..

[hyerstay]

I just got a GoPro HD that I will mount on the rudder post of my Viper this spring. For a larger boat, I would consider using a post mount on the stern pulpit area. Another option would be to get the tripod adaptor and rig up some sort of tripod setup in the back. I think the backstay might not be stable enough for what you want.

Cheers,

jason

[DDW]

It is quite light, so tape etc. will work. To keep it pointed forward you might have to tie a string on it pulling forward to something - depends on how stiff your backstay is. I mounted mine on the mizzen, easy but doesn't help you any.

[Goonda]

My first thought is to mount it on a horizontal bar, which is taped to the backstay. Then tie a light line forward from either end of the bar to the corresponding aft stanchion to keep it from turning on you.

Not sure how much of a boat you have, but the first time you release the backstay the camera could go for a fun ride.

[CazzaRanda]

I have used the gopro attached directly to the pushpit, and the lens is such a wide angle that you get to see most of the cockpit anyway.

If you want an higher point of view, buy a 1" PVC tube at home depot, attach the gopro to the top with the camera slightly tilted down, and tape the PVC tube to the pushpit. Use a safety lanyard in case something goes wrong...

http://www.ems.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4202763

Cazza


.

[Ajax]

Good ideas here guys, keep 'em coming. I do not have a pushpit, but I'm thinking of installing one. It'd be better than the backstay. Mine's fairly stiff, I don't have a bendy rig but the pushpit would still be better.

[mrgnstrn]

Ajax, keep me in the loop on this one.

I would love to do the same for BtS, but not sure which camera to get. I am partial to the cheap-ish "Flip" type cameras since if it goes overboard, I'm not out many hundreds of semolians.

-M

[Timbo]

GoPro No Float ??

[Total Slacker]

http://www.bhphotovi...Ball_Joint.html

Use this & clamp it to a rail. Used one last season & it worked great. Surprisingly corrosion resistant.

Slack On

[Left Hook]

http://www.bhphotovi...Ball_Joint.html

Use this & clamp it to a rail. Used one last season & it worked great. Surprisingly corrosion resistant.

Slack On

Look no further than this. Manfrotto manufactures almost every tripod and camera mount used in the Film industry and their quality and customer support are second to none. You pay a premium for this but it's entirely worth it.

I got a waterproof camera this holiday season and have been looking for a mount like this since then myself. Thanks for the heads up TS because I'll probably be picking one up now.

[Mr. Cunningham]

Is this the type of shot you are looking for?

http://www.youtube.com/user/TexasViper640?feature=mhum

This is a rigid mount on the floor of the boat. If you have a push-pit you could mount there, be better than the backstay. There are gimbles availible to keep the horizon level..

How did you mount the cam? any pictures?
*interested

thanx,

[dacapo]

all my cameras (GoPro and Olympus Tough) both mount to a 1" ss post which nicely fits in my flag post clamp on the stern rail. tighten the set screw, aim the camera and that's it.

[bruno]

Gus Miller and Andy Pimental make carbon camera brackets and mounts that are proven performers.

[Fretz]

Get the camera as high as possible and as far back from the transom as you can. the perspective is alot better. PVC works but it bounces so we put "stays" on the pole to make it stifffer.

[MattZ]

Is this the type of shot you are looking for?

http://www.youtube.c...40?feature=mhum

This is a rigid mount on the floor of the boat. If you have a push-pit you could mount there, be better than the backstay. There are gimbles availible to keep the horizon level..

Do you by any chance have a link to one of these gimbals, or a link to a video taken with one?

A camera on a gimbal would give a great perspective in a sailing video. It would be slick to see the boat heel instead of the horizon, but the only ones I've been able to find are expensive and large professional steadycams.

[Timbo]

Is this the type of shot you are looking for?

http://www.youtube.c...40?feature=mhum

This is a rigid mount on the floor of the boat. If you have a push-pit you could mount there, be better than the backstay. There are gimbles availible to keep the horizon level..

Do you by any chance have a link to one of these gimbals, or a link to a video taken with one?

A camera on a gimbal would give a great perspective in a sailing video. It would be slick to see the boat heel instead of the horizon, but the only ones I've been able to find are expensive and large professional steadycams.

This one is well regarded.... not cheap though

http://www.horizontrue.com/

[Rail Meat]

Is this the type of shot you are looking for?

http://www.youtube.c...40?feature=mhum

This is a rigid mount on the floor of the boat. If you have a push-pit you could mount there, be better than the backstay. There are gimbles availible to keep the horizon level..

Do you by any chance have a link to one of these gimbals, or a link to a video taken with one?

A camera on a gimbal would give a great perspective in a sailing video. It would be slick to see the boat heel instead of the horizon, but the only ones I've been able to find are expensive and large professional steadycams.

This one is well regarded.... not cheap though

http://www.horizontrue.com/

Great link. Thanks for that... just what I have been looking for.

[MattZ]

Is this the type of shot you are looking for?

http://www.youtube.c...40?feature=mhum

This is a rigid mount on the floor of the boat. If you have a push-pit you could mount there, be better than the backstay. There are gimbles availible to keep the horizon level..

Do you by any chance have a link to one of these gimbals, or a link to a video taken with one?

A camera on a gimbal would give a great perspective in a sailing video. It would be slick to see the boat heel instead of the horizon, but the only ones I've been able to find are expensive and large professional steadycams.

This one is well regarded.... not cheap though

http://www.horizontrue.com/

Thanks Timbo, you're certainly right about it not being cheap.

[jackdaw]

Hey Jax,

I've been using a Hero HD on my Bene's since the spring. I've found the coolest video comes from a BOOM mount. The suction cup on the vehicle mount holds to even curved surfaces like grim death. If you angle the camera off a bit, you get the entire boat when the camera is on the inboard side, and a neat waterline shot when outboard. It helps that the boom on Kestrel is 16 feet long and extends almost all the way to the transom. Other good mounts are:

Deck (looking aft)
Backsay (but this shakes the camera like crazy in a blow)
Strapped to the flag standard.

I've attached vids of all of these mounts here. I use a short leash attached to the mount to keep the camera on-board if the mounting fails.

Boom Inboard, close to beam reach:


Boom Outboard:


Companionway hatch looking aft. This is darker then it really was due to the sun angle messing with the automatic exposure.


Backstay. This is a good spot in light winds, but when the breeze kicks up the stay (at least on our 36.7 vibrates and blurs the video). Taped to the split backstay triangle plate.


Flag standard. This vid is from my smaller 235. The noise is the SS rings that hold the flag to the pole. You can barely hear those in real life, but on the camera its way loud.


Its also great for doing crazy things, like:


One other thing: use the open case-back unless it is going to get wet at the mounting location. The camera gets hot in the closed box and the lens cover fogs. You can see that in some of the 36.7 shots.

[bammiller]

What about sliding a piece of PVC over the backstay and mounting the camera to that? You could probably order the tripod mount with the 1/4" stud to bolt to the PVC.

I have the GoProHD and I use it all the time. Just wish they made an external battery charger, as opposed to having to remove the camera from the case and plug it into a USB cable charger. I also bought a 32GB memory card instead of messing around with 4 8GB. Just made life easier than trying to remember which card was empty to use next. Beware, it also makes huge files pretty damn fast. An external hard drive is a great way to store them.

Bam Miller

[Ajax]

Ajax, keep me in the loop on this one.

I would love to do the same for BtS, but not sure which camera to get. I am partial to the cheap-ish "Flip" type cameras since if it goes overboard, I'm not out many hundreds of semolians.

-M

You have the remnant of that old radar bracket on your backstay. The GoPro is so small, that it'd mount on that easily.

[Captain Gumby]

I played with a few locations going down to Hobart this year.

Pushpit mount on the rollbar GoPro mount. It gets most of the boat, but is a lower angle:



I put one on the cage/instrument mount just under the gooseneck. Very good angle back into the cockpit, but had a tendency to get bumped by the crew when we were doing sail changes etc.

Boom mounts are great if you can get them to stick - I was always worried about the boom taking a bit of a dip in the water and coming up without my camera!

Backstay tends to move a bit too much, especially in the heavier conditions.

End of the day - play around. The cameras are so easy to setup and move, just try a few different locations and see what works for you!

[akasideshow]

agree with whats stated above
backstay would be too wobbly
go pro has a pole mount for about $25 thats perfect for pushpits stanchions etc i bought one and it works great

panning is great for this kind of footage so boom or tiller mounts give footage thats a bit more interesting , height is your friend too

below is some footage from tiller-cam, apart from showing my arse off a bit too much the pan provides perspective and makes it really clear what the rudder angle is all the time
i will be making a 3ft pole to get it a bit higher, it should show off whats going on around us a bit better

have fun i love my toy!

http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

[jackdaw]

Wicked cool that Gumby used one on the way to Hobart, yes I agree the Bass Straight is a bit more of test of the mounting fixtures.

Also agree that mount location must factor in use; Entertainment (movie), or documentation/training. The pushpit mount is great for training, but if you want people to actully watch it, you gotta get camera movement in the picture, and lots of angle and cuts. The boom mount helps there. So does moving the camera from place to place. I carry a small canon pocket camera with me; it also shoots 16:9 HD vid, which is great for adding more cuts.

HD Help users also note, the new FW is out that supports flipped/inverted video. That would allow for an UNDER boom mount to catch both sides of the boat. Will have a got with that one next time.

[Captain Gumby]

Mounted just under the gooseneck on the 'cage' that the instruments are on.

This was a good angle to see what was happening during gybes and other manouveres. I'm yet to get all the footage we took during Hobart. I had one mounted on one of the side rails for the start, which had some good shots when I look at it briefly.

[Captain Gumby]

Wicked cool that Gumby used one on the way to Hobart, yes I agree the Bass Straight is a bit more of test of the mounting fixtures.

Heh.. 'used one on the way to Hobart'.. we had 2 GoPro's, a Cisco Flip, 2 other HD waterproof ones (don't recall brand) along with several other crew members who had normal cameras with decent video function. Everything from shoulder mounted cameras to holding one in my hand over the rail and dunking it in the water.

At last count, we took around 120gb of video footage going to Hobart

[layline]

I want the ability to mount a GoPro or similar action cam on my 5ktsb. My preferred location is on the backstay, so that the camera can see the entire length of the boat. I have an ordinary wire backstay. Has anyone done this? Got any ideas to keep the camera pointed forwards, so that it doesn't swivel left to right on the stay?

If I mount it on the cabin top, I'll lose about 1/2 of what's going on.

Thanks!

I just bought one from SailingProShop (yes I bought one from a competitor (we dont sell them) and in talking with them I was told there really isnt a mount for the back stay and to overcome your issue with duct tape etc, so we will try the stern pulpet and then above the electronics on the mast. We will put it up at KW and see how it goes.

[walterbshaffer]

This one is well regarded.... not cheap though

http://www.horizontrue.com/

I bought a Horizon True & mounted a Sony HDR-CX550V to it. The smoothness of the hydraulic dampening & gimballed action is very nice. The only thing I modified was the use of 99 cent home depot snap hooks on the ends of safety lines for the camera & mount instead of tying bowlines before & after each use. Even matched the color of the hooks to the color of the mount.

[Waterpilot]

I have a True Horizon mount and it works great. I also like GoPro though don't have one. I saw a cool possible solution of which I have no affiliation. Looxcie
It appears to be a wearable cam that can capture 5hrs of footage then port it over to laptop through micro usb. Your phone can act like a view finder

Could be cool for seeing crew maneuvers and start sequence. POV possibilities are numerous

What do you all think

[Rail Meat]

I received my Go Pro and my Horizon True mount this past week and got a chance to play with both of them.

• The Go Pro is the fricking bomb. Even with the additional preview screen strapped to the back, the thing has a tiny form factor. Very hard to believe how they crammed so much functionality into such a small and light box.
• The Horizon True mount is a thing of beauty. It is a light, well engineered and very functional piece of kit.

I highly recommend both. Now I just have to figure out the video editing bit of this.

[Tucky]

I received my Go Pro and my Horizon True mount this past week and got a chance to play with both of them.

• The Go Pro is the fricking bomb. Even with the additional preview screen strapped to the back, the thing has a tiny form factor. Very hard to believe how they crammed so much functionality into such a small and light box.
• The Horizon True mount is a thing of beauty. It is a light, well engineered and very functional piece of kit.
• I highly recommend both. Now I just have to figure out the video editing bit of this.

You are the first person I know that has seen the preview screen (probably just because I don't know that many people or follow too many threads- I assume it works just like it sounds and fits in the waterproof case with no issues? A screen would really make mounting and pointing better and easier.

[DDW]

I have seen the screen, though I haven't got one yet. It adds about 1/4 inch to the back, plugs into the dedicated port back there. It comes with another 2 backs for the case, a waterproof one and a slotted one for sound, both made to fit the camera with the screen. There is also just announced a backback battery that is the same size and goes in the same place, doubling your record time.

[Merit 25]

Anyone use the kodak playsport?

[Tommyboomer]

I want the ability to mount a GoPro or similar action cam on my 5ktsb. My preferred location is on the backstay, so that the camera can see the entire length of the boat. I have an ordinary wire backstay. Has anyone done this? Got any ideas to keep the camera pointed forwards, so that it doesn't swivel left to right on the stay?

If I mount it on the cabin top, I'll lose about 1/2 of what's going on.

Thanks!

I just bought one from SailingProShop (yes I bought one from a competitor (we dont sell them) and in talking with them I was told there really isnt a mount for the back stay and to overcome your issue with duct tape etc, so we will try the stern pulpet and then above the electronics on the mast. We will put it up at KW and see how it goes.

I've used both these locations with a Go Pro HD and got great results.

[Rail Meat]

I have seen the screen, though I haven't got one yet. It adds about 1/4 inch to the back, plugs into the dedicated port back there. It comes with another 2 backs for the case, a waterproof one and a slotted one for sound, both made to fit the camera with the screen. There is also just announced a backback battery that is the same size and goes in the same place, doubling your record time.

What DDW says... it fits in the case because they give you new doors for the case. Actually they give you two new doors for the mounted case, and then they also give you two new doors that work with the wrist case to deal with that possibility.

The screen is great. It basically covers the entire back of the camera, with its control button on the outside edge. The new door they give you has a water proof actuator button to allow you to manipulate the screen with the case closed. I have not tested its impact to battery life, but when you put the firmware up date on the camera you will have a new setting that allows you to have the screen on when ever the camera is on, and a setting that will allow you to have it shut down after X seconds of no use and then turn back on if the button is pushed. The latter setting will be key in helping limit its impact to battery life.

Unfortunately, I think you are going to be forced to choose between extended battery life and the screen, and there won't be any way to piggy back two peripherials on each other.

[Ballast Technician]

Surprised nobody has mentioned spreader mounted. We stick the suction cup mount to the bottom of the spreader close to the mast and angle the GoPro or Toshiba camera so that we get a full view of the cockpit. Great shots that way, but you need one camera for each tack.