Video camera mounting in aircraft

[ScottM]

I finally bought myself a small handheld video camera. It is a Cannon Vixia HF11 and is very small but takes great HD video. I want to put it in my plane to record some flights. How do you guys mount the camera? I was looking at some mounts from RAM as a possibility but I would like to be able to over the shoulder shot to get the instrument panel in the frame as well. Any hints or lesson learned are apreciated.

 

[Tom-D]

I made a little "L" bracket and closed it in the right door hinge area.

and shot these, and edited them with Windows movie maker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31HcxXbY62g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXfPy0L_lU

pretty simple, but it worked

 

[wanttaja]

I (temporarily) replaced the strobe....

...and clamped it on the axle for another set of flights.

Ron Wanttaja

 

[EdFred]

Gorilla Grip on the passenger seat.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The simplest works the best: Put it on a tripod, put one leg of the tripod in each of the front seats' seat back pockets, and the third leg down to the seats (or floor) behind. Easy in, easy out.

If you do get something that actually solidly mounts it to the plane, be sure to turn the image stabilization off on the camera, or the engine vibrations will cause the stabilizer to go nuts and actually make the image much worse.

 

[Dean]

Ram makes several different mounts for cameras, this is where mine is mounted. I have three different cameras I use, depending on what I am shooting.

 

[PittsDriver]

I personally like the notion of a helmet/hat cam. I've got one from VHoldr that is a completely self contained, light weight and very durable camcorder that takes reasonably good video. You get to see pretty much the same thing I see (panel, outside, etc). Here's a video I shot this past week while out practicing:

http://www.vholdr.com/node/33429

The VHoldr camera that I have is not the HD version which is now available. I've seem the standard version available online for $99. I have this camera attached to my hat with marine velcro and it stays put at 6Gz.

 

[Bob Bement]

I have a platform that I made from a few scrap boards. I use velcro to hold it on the dash and I use some more velcro to fasten the camera to the platform. I plug my intercom into the camera and I can get all of the radio traffic on the video.It comes out like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EPJkvyIt_E