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Snowmobile Rig Photography


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There are some days when Slomo just absolutely astonishes me. :wavey:

(actually, there are many days, but I don't want him to know that)

Praise from Caesar! :wavey:

Coincidentally, am doing research into building a power sliding rear window for the truck. To buy a complete unit (window, power accessories) runs $1K. Should be able to shave about $500 off of this by building something myself.(window and electrics)

For problem in thread, an externally outboard mounted frame, (watch out for trees) perhaps crafted from aluminum (Faceman might throw an idea in here as he built his own custom aluminum gas tank holder) could hold a camera on a swivelling device, on which an actuator could pan a camera around an arc.

This way, you could pan forward for a view down the trail or sideways toward the sled showing sled and driver - as if another sled was shooting the video.

The actuator switch could be mounted on the handlebars and a black and white monitor mounted on the dash would show the driver what's being shot. Not sure how difficult a handlebar remote start record/ stop, zoom/focus control would be to build, (Sled Junk?) but with any zoom magnifying unwanted jiggly movement of the motion of the sled, you'd probably want to stick with a wide angle lens which would give you a pretty good field of focus.

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There are some days when Slomo just absolutely astonishes me. :wavey:

(actually, there are many days, but I don't want him to know that)

Praise from Caesar! :wavey:

Coincidentally, am doing research into building a power sliding rear window for the truck. To buy a complete unit (window, power accessories) runs $1K. Should be able to shave about $500 off of this by building something myself.(window and electrics)

I love these mechanically adept people that can Macgiver things. I wish I could... everyone has their aptitudes and that is not mine. Have you looked at the mechanicals that it's either Toyota or Nissan have in their full size pickup. They have a power sliding rear window where the full sheat of glass lowers similar to what was on the tailgate of a station wagon many years ago.

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This is a really cool concept. How would vibration affect the shutter speed, assuming you are using a DSLR camera? What could you do to dampen that down?

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Toyota Tundra offers the sliding down rear window as an option. (Nissan quit building their full size truck the Titan)

Vibration? How about rubber dampers fill with 0 weight synthetic oil?

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Bracketry sources:

http://catalog.norgrenauto.com/tooling.html

http://www.creform.com/

The Creform stuff is a coated thinwall aluminum tubing. The Norgren stuff uses heavier duty tubing, but some of their componentry could be used to mount suction cups to the "rig" to attach it to the sled.

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Thanks for the ideas guys! A lot of the people that do this type of photography do it at very slow speeds, sometimes even by towing the car. I figure that if I have a steady enough rig, my lens' stabilizer should be able to handle the vibrations at low speed. If not, I'll tow it and photoshop the rope out! :P For the rig itself, I was thinking of mounting a tripod to the front of my sled, one leg with a suction cup, the other two clamped to the front bumper. It's probably going to take me a while to get this all together and then get it right, but I'll definitely let you all know how it's coming along.

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