Does anyone have any good examples of mounting your small FPV cam to align with your recording camera (when not one and the same)? We had an issue on a shoot last evening in which the FPV/downlink cam moved position and we were not seeing exactly what we were recording. We've got the FPV cam mounted under the horizontal boom, inline vertically with the recording camera, but this makes it suceptible to bumping on ground, grass, etc. Would love to hear/see your solutions! Many thanks- -Jon
If you can't run a video out from the camera (composite or HDMI) strap the FPV camera to the lens. Started doing that with my D800. So far so good. Got a lens on the FPV that is pretty close to the angle of view of the camera. Check it on the ground for alignment. I have also seen them mounted on the hot shoe socket and also a small bracket to the left or right side on the gimbal cross arm. Jeff has one mounted shooting through the normal viewfinder. Would be interested in photos/mounting suggestions to so that type of mounting which would give the most direct feedback other than HDMI/composite.
We've thought about mounting it to the viewfinder on the camera, but might be a challenging little engineering project. Here's how I set it up temporarily to get through our current job, with a little piece of rubber for grip. I still don't like this very much; it would be great if there were a wrap-around bracket that fit the gimbal cross-arm, and some type of quick-release for the mini-cam. Any better ideas??
I have a pretty clean solution for you using cinestar parts. I cut down a tilt bar and used a frame clamp to mount it on the boom next to the camera mount plate. With some little screws and lock nuts I mounted the fpv camera mount bracket that comes with the RMRC cameras to the tilt bar through the little slits in the tabs that stick out and make the cross on the tilt bar. As long as this frame clamp lines up with the frame clamps that hold the camera mount plate, you are straight. Double sided tape to hold the nick on the fpv camera. For the GH2 and 18-55 lense I have the camera directly over the boom. For folks with bigger cameras and longer lenses you could extend the boom past the tilt bars to make room. If you use the Epic tilt bar assembly side with the press nuts http://www.quadrocopter.com/Epic-Tilt-Bar_p_554.html and a frame clamp http://www.quadrocopter.com/Frame-Clamps_p_394.html you can also extend the fpv camera far in front of the boom so you wont see the camera or lense. I used a wet tile saw to cut my tilt bar short so it sits on top of the boom. I do not see the 18-55 on the GH2 Cheers, Tucker
Tucker, this is a great solution! Thanks so much for the good detailed information - this is just the kind of thing we were looking for. We are using the 14-42 lens, so shouldn't be a problem to place directly on top of the cross bar like you show. One question: you mentioned double-sided tape to hold the nick - did you pinch it between the bracket and camera and then tighen screws? Those screws are so weak, so I used a little adhesive to hold the nick (you can see it around the screws in my pic). Too bad the camera can't be soldered in place in the bracket, then just forget the screws! Thanks again!
I like to have the fpv-camera fixed in the nose direction, so I can see where I`m flying. If mounted to the gimbal, and the camera operator is shooting to the side or down, I cant really use that to fly after...
If the camera is to be used for framing with the GH2 my favorite option is to mount the camera to the eyepiece of the GH2 so you can see the actual frame the camera is shooting. I will try and find a picture. Tabb
Generally are you guys using these FPV cameras? I am asking the pilots not the cam ops Do these cameras help???!
Yes. I use a Smart OSD board (smart-electronics.eu) and it superimposes flight sensor information so that I can go to an altitude requested by the shooter, also see the magnetic heading of the C8 if it's some distance away and track line features like roads, rivers etc. In fact I'm thinking of putting two such cameras on board and using a video switch -- one looks forward from Boom #1 and the other will look straight down as often the shooter asks "can you hover over X" whatever X might be. The FPV cameras I use are 700 lines resolution and the dual video switch is this one. Andy.