We started with a home-made mount made up from old components and a
welded bracket, fastened to the cage with muffler-type clamps. We used a
five year old video camera. Lots of shake, watchable if you were the
driver, car owner, or certified nut.
We thought the mount caused the shake, so we bought a mount from Pegasus
for about $100. No improvement in the shake despite shimming and much
fooling around. We have been told that the culprit is the tape
mechanism, which does not tolerate shake too well.
We also installed a 12-volt adapter permanently in the car because
invariably we ran out of battery right before some truly heroic
maneuver and had to take the driver's word for it.
The videos we have seen with the least shake (other than the very
expensive remote jobs) were made with cameras with the picture
stabilization feature. Our old camera died last year, so we're starting
the season with a new Sony with stabilization.
Quite honestly we have not been able to use the video much for driver
improvement (the fault of the video or the quality of the drivers?) and
we find that a shelf full of old tapes is used about as much as a shelf
of snapshot albums. Nevertheless, we intend to keep taping because it's
fun to see it one time.
By the way, SCCA carefully inspects camera mounts in cars in their
events and requires a safety strap or secondary fastener of some type,
to prevent the camera from becoming a missile in an accident. We should
all follow the same practice.
--
uncle jack
61 TR4 Racer -- fast car
71 TR6 Street Car -- fun car
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