Ronin/Car Mount Combo... Right text this time...

[Matt W.]

Copied and pasted wrong text in last thread. Anyhow:

I want to do some high speed/longer lens car work with a crash cam (C300/1DC type thing), not that we can afford to break the camera but with a SMALL camera. So it needs to be secure, whether on a follow car or the car itself. Also stable. And with a remote head.


What would our best option be for mounting a Ronin (with a 5D at smallest or C300 at largest) on a car mount. This is what I’m looking at currently:


http://www.filmtools.com/cameradept/movcamsupeq/carmounts/filmedweigca.html


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1046473-REG/dji_ronin_3_axix_gimbal_stabilizer.html


http://cinemilled.com/shop/dji-ronin-quick-plate/


How would this work? Any better options for car mount stuff? Thanks!


Any gas-powered remote control cars for low angle follow car stuff? That could hold the Ronin/camera.

 

[Clark Dunbar]

check this -> http://freeflysystems.com/products/tero/tero/

also for a low cost alternate - a GoPro 4K Hero (Black) on a gimbal system could work and you could mount it just about anywhere as they don't have much weight. And it it gets crushed - not much invested.

 

[Matt W.]

The Tero looks really cool!

I looked at the video you linked to via PM and it's not what we're going for, though it does look cool. We'll be using longer lenses, remote controlled pans/tilts/etc. and shooting anamorphic late at night. So the go pro is not an option. I'm wondering if the Ronin will stabilize the camera or just add weight... if a cheaper suction cup mount with one of the arms locking into the top hot shoe on the camera (as I've used before) might be more stable...

 

[Peter Majtan]

Cars are surprisingly bumpy and shaky, our heads auto-stabilize our view (think chicken-cam) and the brain does the rest. It is not until you hard-mount a camera to a car when you realize the reality. Fix-mounting camera to a car works well when you are filming things inside the car (like your actors), or parts of the car - like CU of a wheel turning. Not so good for filming the "rest of the world"...
Using the Ronin from a car works well - as long as you can isolate its motion from the car itself. The easiest way is to just hand-hold it - where your arm are the isolators. Another easy (and common) way is to use bungees, but you still need to hold the Ronin.
You can hard-mount the Ronin to the car - but you need to understand that the Ronin does not stabilize translation - it stabilizes the rotation (orientation) of the camera. So you will keep shooting in one direction, but your shots will shake together with the motion of the car, especially in up-and-down direction (read every bump on the road). The side-to-side motion of the car is reasonably isolated by the tires, the nature of the movement and the fact that you don't fight gravity sideways. So for best results you want to isolate the up-and-down movement of the car. There are several ways of doing this - most include some sort of steadicam-type arm (normally a matched pair), but there are other ways using other forms of elastic isolators. Basically you are looking at having to make your own mount until the likes of the "Black Arm" (from FlowCine) hit the market. This is especially important if you want to use longer lens lengths...
If nothing else - at least soften out your tires a bit - it helps with the small vibrations, but you will still face the longer frequency boat-like movements...

Test, test and then test some more...

:sifone: Peter

 

[Eric M Hurt]

If you're saying you want a crash cam inside the car during the crash then I wouldn't think you need the gimbal, just use rigging. Generally you don't use much footage from crash cams, just the crash The small film tools set http://www.filmtools.com/filmtools-teenie-weenie-4-cup-camera-mount.html is quite useful, and I'm sure would work well with smaller cameras.

 

[Matt W.]

No crash, camera mounted on the car or on a follow car. Just a small camera because I either want to use something like what you linked to above or the larger version and a Ronin so we can get many set ups.

In my experience, footage over 50mm is too shaky. Would a Ronin on the car make it steadier or less steady than just that rig alone?

 

[jake southard]

I'm doing the same thing on Wednesday, mounting a Hood Mount (Speedrail) on the hood of a Ford Raptor, and putting my Ronin upside down with my Dragon shooting in through the windshield. It's going to be an interview with the guy driving. Should be a fun setup.

Also the Terro is great, but its not quite wide enough... theres a couple people on the forums that custom build them and sell them, heres a picture of one that a fellow reduser builds and sells.
Looking to buy one from him sometime in the near future

 

[Matt W.]

I'm doing the same thing on Wednesday, mounting a Hood Mount (Speedrail) on the hood of a Ford Raptor, and putting my Ronin upside down with my Dragon shooting in through the windshield. It's going to be an interview with the guy driving. Should be a fun setup.

Also the Terro is great, but its not quite wide enough... theres a couple people on the forums that custom build them and sell them, heres a picture of one that a fellow reduser builds and sells.
Looking to buy one from him sometime in the near future

Intriguing...

Let me know how the shoot with the Ronin goes. The more I think about it the more I wonder if (with a smaller camera) a simple suction cup triangulation kit without a Ronin would stabilize better. The Ronin stabilizes in yaw/pitch/roll, whereas cars shake primarily in translation. Would the added weight simple bog things down? Would it be no better in this instance than a dumb remote head?