Camera mounted to motorbike

[Gareth Blackstock]

Hello,

 

i have attached some images of a 16mm motorbike camera mount i am working on. i will be using a Bell & Howell 240 with a 20mm lens and a K3 with a Takumar 28mm. i have a project lined up, and getting some good riding footage will be a priority.

 

i designed the mount to universally fit more than one camera, has an adjustable tilt, and can be raised or lowered, depending on how much leaning there will be. The mount is attached to a standard motorcycle crash guard.

 

Over the next week i will be fine tuning it before running some film through it see how she comes out. I am curious how vibration might affect the image, and thats one reason why i am posting this is to see if others have developed mounts, and how they got around vibration.

 

i did a search around the net and saw no D.I.Y mounts, which I thought odd considering that many older camera operators often build what they cannot buy or steal.

 

Years ago I made a bonnet mount for a short, and while in use it jiggled abit, but curiously the footage showed no real jiggle. so I figured that vertical vibration may be absorbed by the film traveling vertically through the gate, whereas horizontal vibration would be easily spotted?

 

Hopefully I get some sweet footage!

 

And i won't be replicating the early helmet cam either, especially not with a K3

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by Gareth Blackstock

[Mark Dunn]

I can't help with vibration, except to say that I'd expect a car to be much smoother than a mtorbike, but FYI film isn't moving during exposure, it's stationary. Otherwise every frame would be blurred.

You can preview the effect of vibration by putting a stills camera in the rig and setting a shutter speed of 1/60.

BTW an Eyemo isn't much smaller than the K3,but McQueen was in a car, so he had some chance of head support.

[Phil Soheili]

Hi Gareth,

it's going to be "cozy warm" there.

Might this not actually damage the camera and film?

Maybe never letting the engine run in idle might do good.
Good luck!

Edited December 4, 2017 by Phil Soheili

[Mark Dunn]

I think if his leg can stand it, the film can.

[Gareth Blackstock]

G'day,

Thanks for the comments, food for thought. Regarding heat from the engine, I will be adding a plate of metal between the mount and engine, it is summer here at the moment with temperatures expecting be climb to around 35 to 40 degrees Centigrade this year.

 

I am adding rubber mounting and foam tape to help with vibration. I shall soon see though.

 

cheers, Gareth

[Gareth Blackstock]

Well I got the footage back, all scanned and I must say I am pretty happy with the results. The film used was expired Kodak 7293, which is tungsten stock, and i used it in daylight without any correction. The film was hand processed too. The samples I have uploaded are uncorrected entirely. I quickly edited them using the editor that comes with Win7, just so I could reduce the size of the file. The bike footage seems sped up, I was afterall doing around 120kmph. The B&H is best for the bike mount mostly due to having a full minute per wind, K3 only manages 27 seconds.

 

The Pentaflex footage I am pretty happy with, a few tweeks here and there and I will confidently start a project using this camera.

 

B&H 240

https://youtu.be/WtmHX84aqnQ

 

k3

https://youtu.be/zpkhTULIsek

 

Pentaflex 16

https://youtu.be/wC-C5XScJdo