First inflight video with tail mounted camera

jsnapp

jsnapp

Pre-Flight
Joined
Jan 9, 2012
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69
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Westminster, CO
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BJC-Cherokee
I picked up a GoPro hero 2 out at CES this year. I had always wanted to mount a camera on the tail of the plane. Over the weekend I mounted it to the tail beacon with a SS band clamp and the mount intended for a persons head. It seemed to work great. This was a short flight from KBJC (Rocky Mountain Metro) to KAPA (Centennial) I made on sunday just as they finished moving the 6' pile of snow away from in front of my hanger. The snow plow actually plowed a path in front of me so that I could get out of the hanger row.

This camera could become addictive..Here is the video.

http://youtu.be/LNm5NAb_Gy4

http://youtu.be/LNm5NAb_Gy4
 
Nice video can't you wire in the comm freq? I always like that better than music. Camera did a great job!
 
I love these GoPro videos. I really need to get one. I was just out your way in Colorado Springs and down to Raton NM this past summer. I knew that mountain range looked very familiar. I had clicked on your link before I read where you were flying. Thanks for posting the link.
 
AdamZ said:
Nice video can't you wire in the comm freq? I always like that better than music. Camera did a great job!
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The Go Pro cameras do not have a mic input . So anything has to be edited into after.
 
AdamZ said:
Nice video can't you wire in the comm freq? I always like that better than music. Camera did a great job!
Click to expand...
Gonna be tough to feed audio to a tail mounted camera but a separate recording could be dubbed in after the fact.
 
Nice! Gotta love blue skies after a record-setting snowstorm.

I really need to get off my duff and mount the cameras. Between all the co-owners we have four cameras and three mounts already and only hand-held videos to show for it. I did one video with a locked-down internal camera once and synched the digital audio recorder audio in post-production.

Learned with that flight that syncing the audio to the video in post-production isn't hard... Engine start works well.

You also did the thing I like... You went East of Downtown. The Bravo is lower over there but there's a bejillion golf courses.

West of I-25 and Downtown being the more "recommended" VFR route, puts you over impossible to land city for much longer stretches.
 
Nice video, how is it mounted? For audio I just drilled a hole in the case and taped an iPod earbud to it, then plugged that into the intercom with a 1/8-1/4 adapter. That way you get ambient and comm. Won't work up on the tail of course but handy for inside...

This is waaaaay back in my training...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxbYrIoFOHk
 
rfeydo said:
Here is a video my son and i made for a college project he did. We mounted his GOPRO on the footpeg of our PA28-180. It gets a little boring in the middle but the landing sequence is cool, its around 3:30 timeline.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXu3nEkU9zU
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Now that was awesome! I'm gonna try that one too. Nice editing work too, I like videos set to music that are the proper length.
 
dennyleeb said:
can you get some pics of the mount?
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Here are some pictures that I took of the mount. I used the GoPro Hero 2 camera with the head strap mount http://gopro.com/camera-mounts/head-strap-mount/ . I removed the strap and used a stainless steel band clamp to attach it to the Whelen tail strobe that I have. I used the head strap mount because it was the only mount that would allow the camera to be mounted off a vertical surface and keep the camera from sticking out very far.

Here are some pictures.
30lkjma.jpg

2872n0x.jpg

2zso1uo.jpg
 
Great way to mount it and I am amazed the prop blast does not cause the camera to shake even one little bit.... Super video..... my only question is in this day of killer electronics and video processing no one has figured out how to fix the "flicker' thing the prop creates .....

Ben.
 
N801BH said:
Great way to mount it and I am amazed the prop blast does not cause the camera to shake even one little bit.... Super video..... my only question is in this day of killer electronics and video processing no one has figured out how to fix the "flicker' thing the prop creates .....

Ben.
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That's an easy fix, just need a neutral density filter.

http://vimeo.com/22302989
 
Nice! I can see my old house in Lone Tree!

Did you need an STC for the camera? :D
 
N801BH said:
Great way to mount it and I am amazed the prop blast does not cause the camera to shake even one little bit.... Super video..... my only question is in this day of killer electronics and video processing no one has figured out how to fix the "flicker' thing the prop creates .....

Ben.
Click to expand...
It can be fixed with either of two methods. One is to increase the exposure time so the prop gets blurred to the point where you can't see individual blades. On a camera without an iris this requires a neutral density filter but stopping the lens down will do just as well if that's possible. On the "killer electronics side" there are imagers which have the ability to expose the entire image at the same time but they tend to be more expensive and/or have lower pixel densities so they normally don't show up in inexpensive cameras. Ironically, a mechanical sliding window shutter which was the ultimate for film cameras has the opposite problem, i.e. it's fine as slow speeds but creates "bent blade" issues when the shutter speed (exposure time) is high as it would be with a filter or stopped down iris.
 
Why we fly

On friday evening I decided to take a short flight and shoot some approaches. This flight turned a bad day at work into a great evening. This is why I love flying!!!

2u5t6cz.jpg
 
Dude, you taxi speeds are seriously fast!
 
One thing I don't get about the gopro cameras is that they all seem to have that fish-eye looking deal going with them. Is that by design, or can it be disabled?
 
SkyHog said:
One thing I don't get about the gopro cameras is that they all seem to have that fish-eye looking deal going with them. Is that by design, or can it be disabled?
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They are wide angle cameras, it is by design.
 
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