simsgw

I wouldn't give up a pretty day of driving to install a tripod. But if I can install a tripod and still have time to use that day for driving, well that's fine.

Comments would help because I have to adjust the tripod position and change the camera settings as well. I have some idea what I want to do but I'll wait until you've had a chance to comment before confessing my plans. They might change and odds are good we have much better photographers among us, who will think of solutions I'm not seeing.

The 991 Cab seems a little lower than my 997 Coupe was. That makes the exact position of the camera a little more difficult. I did a preliminary install and then ran two tests, trying for different road situations and lighting. Each was with the camera pointing level with the chassis. First with the camera raised slightly above the windscreen. I used this road:


This is a short video starting indoors and then traversing that ridge road:
YouTube stabilized that one for me and with a stable camera mount and a bouncy road, the effect was ... disturbing. Like the sky had St Vitus Dance. Not a visual treat, so YouTube is busily removing the effect right now. The video may not be available until around midnight PST, but I'll go ahead and post the link anyway.

Then with the top up and the camera necessarily lower, I used this road:


Here's the second video and it is available immediately. I knew better than to permit the stabilizing edit:

Observations?

Gary

rpilot

Video is not my forte and I have not done much still photography in a while, but here are my observations...

I am not sure if the tripod you refer to is a conventional tripod or some car mount. Car mounts are best. There are specialty outfits like RRS & Kirk that sell them. However for the price of those and for the intended use (youtube videos) and not ultra high res pro films, Go Pro cameras make the most sense circa 2013.

The first video while providing a good desert panorama, is very distracting because of the top of the windshield in the frame.

The second is a bit better in that in provides a complete view of the landscape, albeit through a keyhole (the windshield) and with completely blown out view. If you must use this perspective adjust the camera exposure manually for the road. The sunny f16 rule still applies if you do not want to meter.

If you do decide to get a gopro or a better mounting option, the best perspective if you want to provide just a panorama is on the dash in the center of the windshield.

An alternate perspective that shows the car with the panorama would be inside with the camera mounted either on the passenger seat somewhere or with suction cups on the passenger window and showing a panorama of the outside and the portion of the dash and steering wheel.

Final observation: If I lived with the kind of roads you have right at your doorstep, I would be buying the 7 spd manual shifter . Alas, for me driving on roads you drive on everyday would amount to a driving vacation...

chuckbdc

I much preferred the low position. The high position in your cab felt like I was peering over the frame of reading glasses. And my hair got messed up. Now if you can find a way to illuminate the tach and speedo ...

Hammer911

agreed on the low perspective being superior.

Detroit Shooter

Wow I wish I had roads like that near me. High or low great road.

zanwar

I preferred the high position. It's a more dramatic video.

For my track videos I mount an iPhone at the bottom right corner of the windscreen. You can see the front wing and the microphone works surprisingly well considering the windows are open. It's a good vantage point for my purposes, but I don't think it makes for a particularly entertaining video.

https://vimeo.com/51346913

The best in car footage I've seen recently is in the Chris Harris 458 video.

chuckbdc

zanwar,

The integration with the lap time software is entertaining and informative. Does it use the iPhone gps or is another unit needed?

zanwar

[quote=chuckbdc;10196485]The program is Harry's Lap Timer (lots of info here and other places on the web). It does everything, GPS tracking, timing, video overlay. It can function with the iPhone GPS but it's more reliable with an external GPS unit. I use this one:


It can also interface with external OBD units and overlay throttle position, engine rpm and the like but I haven't tried that yet.

chuckbdc

[quote=zanwar;10196511]Thanks

simsgw

And my remarks. Mostly because I need to think out loud -- so to speak -- but I encourage comments. Might as well document the solution process for the archives.
This is my test configuration:


Ignore the pipes in the background, tangled with the seat belt. Those are my canes. This is from the passenger side and looks like a cat's cradle, I know, but it lets me evaluate different camera positions before designing a custom rig if I decide to go that way. I used a fairly cheap tripod I grabbed at Staples and lashed it to the LATCH fittings intended for child seats. Then I ran some shock cords to a chain repair link hooked to the spring under each front seat. The lowest position is a little too high because the mirror occludes so much of the field of view, but that's part of what I needed to learn.

I agree about the camera. The 16 M pixel Kodak I've been using provides excellent saturation and color correctness, except when the image is blown out completely as it was in that second video for a good bit of the time. The difficulty is that it assumes normal human application. I tried using manual settings but as one example, it provides only f10.5. Doesn't stop down to f16. Also zooms amazingly. I could use that to deal with the auto iris being confused by the interior and the exterior being in the same view. Then I'd have a grand view of the control buttons on the rear view mirror. Probably not helpful.

So I went to my local enabler... uh, I mean hot rod shop, who is a GoPro dealer. Picked up GoPro3 Black and some accessories. He builds drag rods (simple stuff, 1000 to 1350 hp and ET's of eight seconds or so.) and mounts cameras a lot. He recommended putting a mount on the windbreaker rail. The part that is still open when the windbreaker retracts. I'll fool with it and see if I can do that without damaging the windbreaker in operation. That would provide a limited position and only through the windshield, but more comments on that below.

Yes. The bar cut right across the interesting part of the road right in front of the car. One biker coming at me was almost completely invisible in that video. Today's run used a higher mounting position for the camera with it pointing down so that top of the field of view should be above the "road near horizon" perspective line. That puts the bottom of the field of view around the bottom of the steering wheel I suspect. (Haven't processed the video yet.)

As others noted, the view is less claustrophobic from above, like that Chris Harris video, and I believe it provides two important benefits:

• a better sense of speed to have the front of the car in the view;
• a sense of the driver's actions to have the steering wheel and shift in view.

It may be because of all my years on tracks, but just the view of the track approaching a hidden car is seriously boring. I get no sense of what the car and driver are doing to accomplish that motion. For example, with that viewpoint, I am able to conclude that this guy Chris Harris is an untrained driver or a very highly trained drifter suppressing his wilder instincts. One or the other...

I hope to create training videos for my students, so I want an angle that conveys the sense of driving a lap.
Tried that. Good idea. Will check results when I process the videos tomorrow. Will I need that expedient with a GP3B I wonder?

The keyhole effect is a real pain with this camera position, but moving the camera forward to the dashboard (or a window mount) loses that perspective on the driver that I consider desirable. Something like this may be essential though. That high position only works on public roads. At the track, running under club rules, I have to keep the top up.

Some people like that as others have said, but I prefer the "over the driver's shoulder" for better involvement. Just finding it tough to make it happen without professional equipment. My provider's suggestion of putting a GoPro mount on the windbreaker rail is interesting. If I remember the extension sequence correctly, I could put one mount that would work in either position -- if someone makes a mount with say 110 degrees of tilt permitted -- or I could put two small mounts on the forward and top face of the rail. Somewhat unsightly, but small and I'll think of it as a badge of utility.

Suction cups are difficult. I've played with a Contour HD that way, but those mounts don't pass scrutineering for track work. Not that I doubt my own ability to mount a camera that way and have it stay put at 118 mph, but it's all those other bozos whose cameras would ruin my paint job after they shattered on the track and my Cabrio ate the debris.

And here's me retired, so all I have to fill my days is rolling around those hills. And writing about it... Seriously, those are fun, but pretty bland examples. The second one is a road commuters use and Aunt Sadie goes over to get to the supermarket. The first one isn't heavily traveled, but it is close to built-up areas so novice bikers go there and you have to watch for them placing their bike on the 'apex' of the centerline while forgetting that their lean actually puts them into the lane of oncoming traffic -- viz me.

We have our serious fun on those forest service roads I mentioned. The bikers on them are more experienced and we just wave at each other. Absent a forest fire, we rarely see heavy equipment on them and we deal with that risk by putting a sacrificial 914 out front. A point man, so to speak, but we won't tell him I said so unless we have to award him a posthumous medal for bravery.

Gary

simsgw

[quote=zanwar;10196511]Anyone know of a GPS and a software package designed for the world of Microsoft? In my experience, products that seem fine in their 'own' world become clumsy and awkward to use when taken to the other world. I'd really like to integrate speed and position data with the videos, but it's not worth the trouble of using the wrong 'gender' of software.

Come to think of it, someone also mentioned a software package that processes the data sets collected by the Sport Chrono. I can't remember what they said. Anyone remember that software?

Gary

Nicoli35

wow..cool stuff I'm a day behind, I had a root canal done yesterday and its just a blur. Anyway..good morning.

simsgw

Coincidence! I had three root canals done just before picking up this 991, and yesterday I had the first of the crown preps done. Wearing a temporary now, so I had medical reasons to buy the GoPro Black: had to avoid the teeth clenchiing that results from frustration.

Gary

Nicoli35

hehe! YES. (just get the car mount as well, its super-strength and well engineered i think you'd appreciate it)

simsgw

The Black comes with an underwater case that includes two kinds of back door [?], a couple of double-sided-tape-mountable units that provide vertical tilt but no lateral positioning, and I grabbed a package that says "misc mounts" or some such thing. I declined the suction-cup version, though Brandt endorsed it and certainly quarter-milers put a heavier strain on such devices than we track drivers. The problem is the club regulations about not using suction cup mounts, and since I'm a club officer it's probably not a good idea to evade them.

Which car mount are you talking about, Nico? One of those or something else?

Incidentally, those are serious car guys at that NHRA-related store. Besides all Gary's own trophies, one of his customers stopped to admire the 991 and noticed my tripod test. "Is that gyro stabilized?" "Uh... no." "My son bought one of the gyro-stabilized units for me. Very good results."

Yikes.

Gary