hey guys,

new guy here, came over from kawiforums. thought i'd share my little homemade contraption with y'all...

i have a cheap digital camera capable of shooting 1.5 hours of continuous video with a 4gb SD card. my goal was to create a mount with a full unobstructed view as low to the ground as possible, and i don't really care if the cheap camera eventually gets smashed by a flying rock or whatever.

with that said, i chose to make a homemade camera mount to fit the front wheel reflector studs. i cut a stainless steel butterknife in half, bent at 90*, and drilled holes for the mount and camera. the camera mount came off my tripod and works great.

here's a 15 minute video i took down some old country roads just outside of town. a few of the roads are poor quality and the mount shakes a little when hitting bumps. on a smooth road it performs quite well...

VIDEO (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8667239625639881935&hl=en)(google video compressed it way too much, looks better on my computer)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8667239625639881935&hl=en

front view...
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5406.jpg

rear view...
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5410.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5412.jpg

how the knife looks mounted...
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5394.jpg

don't know exactly what size screw goes into the reflector stud, i had this one in my junk bin...
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5396.jpg

heres what the tripod shoe looks like, any tripod shoe should work..
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5402.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/stingray69420/1IMG_5403.jpg

very ingenious!

as was asked before, how close to the ground does that camera get if you lean the bike over a lot? it seems to me you would have lots of clearance at full lean? is that true?

very ingenious!

as was asked before, how close to the ground does that camera get if you lean the bike over a lot? it seems to me you would have lots of clearance at full lean? is that true?

yeah, forgot about that part. it's so high up on the wheel that you have plenty of clearance at full lean.

i went out to the garage to check by leaning the bike over, and you'd be well past the point of dragging your pegs before the camera would drag. at full lean, the camera is about 6-8" (maybe more, not less) above the ground, and the video would look awesome on a track.

by the time the camera started dragging, you'd already be sacrificing a pound of flesh to the asphalt gods. and you know you'd wanna catch that on video!

Thanks... I may have to steal one of the butter knives out of the silverware drawer. :D

gf- "you're gonna do what with the butter knife and my camera?!!" :mad:

Great idea! :thumbup:

Have you considered a cheap plastic cover? You could easily rig up a little lexan cover that would only be a couple bucks a replacement instead of having to do all this over again... just an idea. Awesome though. :)

Edit:

Like this

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc351/erinsalvino/cameraprotect.jpg

Thanks... I may have to steal one of the butter knives out of the silverware drawer. :D

gf- "you're gonna do what with the butter knife and my camera?!!" :mad:

be sure to use the cheapest butterknife you can find - they sell them at dollar stores and walmart for 4/$1. the cheap stainless knives tend to be flatter and the lower grade stainless steel bends better. i found that expensive stainless knives tend to snap in two instead of bending. heating the metal probably helps with making the bend.

i'm sure someone with metalworking experience can take this general idea and really make it look professional. in my case, i just wanted a quick and dirty camera mount using crap i had laying around the garage. honestly the whole project took 10-15 minutes once i decided to use a cut up knife as the base.

Have you considered a cheap plastic cover? You could easily rig up a little lexan cover that would only be a couple bucks a replacement instead of having to do all this over again... just an idea. Awesome though. :)

Edit:

Like this

http://i527.photobucket.com/albums/cc351/erinsalvino/cameraprotect.jpg

great idea! a cover would definitely protect the camera from bugs/rocks and also cut down on the wind noise from the microphone. i think i'll try your lexan idea soon, since it kinda sucks scraping bug guts off the camera after each ride.

Glad I could help! ^_^ Hopefully it works out well, and I get to see some rockin videos!

Nice work - now I just need to figure out where I could do that on a pre-gen.