Show Us Your Video/Camera Mounts

My first videos were my cell phone held in my hand. Makes for some tricky driving sometimes. And if the trail was any kind of bumpy the picture was almost unwatchable.

Since I am a photography idiot, I tried to find the easiest system I could. I bought a GoPro Hero 4 Sessions. The sessions is a small cube of a camera with no view screen. If you want to see what the camera sees you have to connect it to a phone or tablet. I have found that using the wifi/Bluetooth connection seriously cuts into battery life so now I just mount it to the folded down windshield frame, top if it's up, and start the camera with the button on top of it rather than using the phone app.

I bought the gooseneck mount from GoPro and it pretty much will put the camera anywhere you want it. You can see the mount in this picture.



The camera does some stabilization, but there is still some jumping around. I've found that YouTube has a process that will steady out your video pretty well, but if you put any captions on the video before you upload it the when YouTube smotoths out the video, the captions jump around. To avoid this, sometimes I'll upload the video to YouTube, run the stabilization process and keep the video private, then download the stabilized video back to my computer, do my captions and titles, then reload it to YouTube and then delete the original. Kind of a pain, but not smart enough to figure something else out.

jpet didn't tell you what type of hi tech camera mount he uses. I got a picture of it in one of my videos. Here's a screen shot of it.  You can see what the picture looks like when my GoPro is mounted on the folded down windshield frame as shown in my picture above, AND you can see how Jeff gets those low angle shots from Bam Bam. Arm and sometimes head, hanging out, Iphone in hand.

.... also, the backwards shot that I posted is using the selfie camera.  That way I can see what I'm shooting.

I like Glen's head strap shots. More of an in-the-driver's-seat feel to the videos than the fixed camera mount. I even bought a head strap for mine after seeing Glen's, but have not used it yet. With the Sessions camera, the only way I know if it's on is a blinking red light that I can't see if the camera is on my head, and I often can't remember if I have it on or off.  Can't remember what I had for breakfast either. 

Here's a little video about the GoPro goose-neck mount. 

You guys trust your brakes a little more than I.

Ol'Unreliable, not sure what BTDT stands for but I'm sure it applies to the situation.

Some interesting stuff going on, like just holding your cell phone outside the cab while driving and filming from or rear views. I see that there are several mounts for holding a cell phone and think I’m more inclined to keep my hands on the wheel having never seen much less driven some of the trails you guys are on.

Red Willy wrote: Go Pro makes a remote that works well and the battery lasts all day

Glen,
I'm glad your remote works great. Before I bought mine I read a bunch of reviews and there were a few bad ones that I ignored. Sure enough, the first time I tried to use mine it quit. It didn't make it through one day. I should have sent it back, but I didn't so my only experience with it is bad.

If it worked right it would give one a lot more flexibility. You could mount your camera on the jeep ahead of you to film yourself, or set your camera up on the ground somewhere and turn it on as you roll by.