Spiffyjiff

i have a new smarty mounted on my DAS roll bar with the standard roll bar mount that i see most guys using with smarty's. it's mounted on the middle of the cross bar that runs behind the seats and the arm is extended at full so as to have a view close to what i am seeing at eye level. first time using it was at the glen this weekend. the track is rough in places + i'm sure my tires werent as balanced as they could be + i have stiff suspension (600/800 springs on damptronics). most of my video is shaky as hell. so considering all this, am i expecting too much for a stable video? footage from my buddy's gopro mounted on his cayman tow hook was very smooth. do i need to buy the - what i am sure is overpriced - "stabilizing mount" for the smarty? or might i have it set up/mounting wrong? any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

LVDell

The mount you really want to use is the I/O Port mount. Drastic difference. LINK

utkinpol

here is how my is mounted - note there is a rubber layer between camera mount and bar.
so far i did not need anything else.
here is how video looks like. if yours is worse than that quality wise i would suggest to contact smartycam support folks, they are usually pretty good.

NJ-GT

This is the best Rollbar camera mount. It reduces vibrations drastically. My videos with other mounts attached to my rollbar used to come with lots of vibrations, my rollbar was bolted to the floor and the GT3 rear strut tops. This mount is affordable and robust.

This is the ioportracing.com


For other applications, I use the filmtools.com Gripper 115 and Gripper 115XL, I bought the XL due to the longer rod, but I found the longer rod unnecessary. The XL tolerates up to 70 lbs of weight, while the 115 just 50 lbs. My smartycam weighs a few ounces, so even at an impact of 50g, it would stay stuck to the glass.

TRAKCAR

I have that mount above with my Sony. Works fine.

facelvega

+1 on the IOPort.

Also, for piece of mind: I was chasing down a buzz in my car, and found that the originally installed Porsche rollbar had the floor bolt stripped. It looked normal, but was only loosely holding the rollbar, letting the rollbar vibrate and buzz. I would check the rollbar install (4 bolts) to assure that they are torqued correctly, and that the camera vibration is not an artifact of excessive rollbar vibration.

Spiffyjiff

thanks for all the tips, folks. yeah, i figured i needed something more of a damping mechanism than what the RAM mount came with. and yep, i checked the roll bar - all the bolts seem tight (but we all know that sometimes things can BE loose at track speeds, just not FEEL loose in the garage). as far as the cam/mount itself, i will try the cheap route one more time and see if i cant find some polyurethane or rubber bushings somewhere that i can stuff in between the connections and see if that doesnt help.

the more i think about it, the more i am also slightly concerned with the vibration of the car itself at high speeds. i did feel more...judder (?)...than i think should be there. yes, WG is a rough track in places, but i think at least the wheels need balancing and i should also check out the front end/suspension/hubs to make sure nothing else is amiss.