How to stabilize car mounted cameras?

[Bob Pl]

Has anyone come up with a "neat trick"?

For a windshield mounted smartphone type setup.

This would be IN ADDITION to optical or digital stabilization and/or processing stabilization.

Sort of a mini gimbal/shock absorber thingy.

[Q V]

Create a "tripod".

DIY version:
- If you remember Doug Kott (raced an MR-S years ago in CST): he got an extra bar or 2 w/ suction cups and tied them into his existing suction cup setup. Made it super stable while hanging on the side of the car. It was just bolted/suction cupped together.

Lazy version (what I did):
- go on eBay and get a different suction cup mount, one w/ multiple suction cups for maximum stability / adjustable mounts/legs so you can go over slightly curved surfaces. Cost me like $15 shipped or so only. The one I got was the "triple suction mount adapter" seen below. I'm sure you can find a similar one or easily adapt it for a smartphone.

Worked great w/ my little bullet cams. Not sure how well it would work once you adapt a smartphone to it.

There are also much better (and more expensive) ones on ebay w/ similar designs if you search for "dual suction camera mount" or "triple suction camera mount".

[Bob Pl]

Do you have a link to a video shot with that mount?

[Q V]

Do you have a link to a video shot with that mount?

Only ones I have w/ that mount are posted directly on friends' facebook pages (so can't link unless you're friends w/ them & I didn't save the videos). I can show you this weekend on my phone or you can borrow my mount for some runs to see if it works for you.

[Randy Gonzalez]

FWIW: I've never been able to get a decent autocross video on my iPhone 6 Plus.

My old iPhone 5 worked OK with a Ram Mount (http://amzn.to/2amlPaJ) and a relatively cheap app (Track Addict) for overlay of minimal data (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NF0ggG8XsQ....thank goodness my driving has improved since then). The videos are a bit shaky, but watchable.

My iPhone 6 is completely unwatchable. Even when the car is idling in line, something in the iPhone 6 image stabilization messes up and the entire video ends up with large wavy bands like you're watching it through a bowl of jiggling jello. I've tried lots of things, but I've basically given up on using a mounted iPhone 6. It seems to do OK handheld....but (as you hopefully already know) that's not allowed at our events. Anyway, if you've been trying to use an iPhone 6....I've never been able to get it to work well.

That all being said, the convenience of a smart phone is important in my world. We've shot lots of GoPro footage this year....and have yet to take the time to download and watch any of it. With the iPhone, we were able to trim/edit the videos down on the way home from the event, and post them to YouTube while having dinner. Easy. Maybe not the best quality, but convenient enough to not require any significant effort to post online.

[Bob Pl]

Thanks guys!

[Chad-1stGen]

FWIW: I've never been able to get a decent autocross video on my iPhone 6 Plus.

My old iPhone 5 worked OK with a Ram Mount (http://amzn.to/2amlPaJ) and a relatively cheap app (Track Addict) for overlay of minimal data (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NF0ggG8XsQ....thank goodness my driving has improved since then). The videos are a bit shaky, but watchable.

My iPhone 6 is completely unwatchable. Even when the car is idling in line, something in the iPhone 6 image stabilization messes up and the entire video ends up with large wavy bands like you're watching it through a bowl of jiggling jello. I've tried lots of things, but I've basically given up on using a mounted iPhone 6. It seems to do OK handheld....but (as you hopefully already know) that's not allowed at our events. Anyway, if you've been trying to use an iPhone 6....I've never been able to get it to work well.

That all being said, the convenience of a smart phone is important in my world. We've shot lots of GoPro footage this year....and have yet to take the time to download and watch any of it. With the iPhone, we were able to trim/edit the videos down on the way home from the event, and post them to YouTube while having dinner. Easy. Maybe not the best quality, but convenient enough to not require any significant effort to post online.

The Iphone4 was the last good Iphone for action sports/car videos. I have the same problems as you Randy. I did some testing with it and even harmonic vibration completely distorts the video. I've sat there with my car off in the pits and if a loud car is idling right in front of me I get the wavy distortions. Especially, if said car is a deep sounding car (e.g. V8). I still use my phone for data but take the video with my GoPro. Harry's Laptimer app can do it all including controlling the gopro and editing the video together.

[Pete Loney]

Find me this weekend guys, I have a windshield mount and use my iphone 6 for Harry's laptimer.

Maybe 4 cylinders is less vibration

Example....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIMO9ujN74