Steadicam in cars and boats
 

Have you guys used Steadicams in running cars and boats?
(I have an EX1 and want to buy a SC Pilot).

Thanks in advance

You name it, someones done it. Endless variations. You'd need to be more specific in your application before anyone can make any recommendations.
Try searching the net for Garfield Mounts. That's a hard mount for the arm you bolt directly to a vehicle or some such.

Thanks, David. I will try to be more specific:

Car: low speed with camera in appr. 45° in relation to car direction, filming landscape. Tarmac or dirt road. I foresee difficulties with Pilot because of the long sled (?) makes it difficult to use in the car, also that ordinary cars do not allow standing up. You mention Garfield (the cartoon cat ??:-)mount, I will look for that.

Boat: smaller (5 - 6 m) boat in moderatly wavy conditions, filming seascape like from the car. Here it might be possible to stand up with the Pilot mounted on the body. The boat will move much more than a person running or a car on the road. I wonder if the Pilot should be on the body or attached to the boat?

Always hard mount when possible in a vehicle. Always safety rope everything you can in case you lose control. Momentum kills people everyday in unexpected ways :)

In both cases I'd rig a steel post somewhere and bolt one of these on it.

Optical Support Steadicam Sales & Hire

Use a large van with a sliding side door, and you'll have heaps of room. Just make it safe as possible by roping, so you can't fall out and the rig arm can't fly out of your control.

Same with the boat. Or hire these guys )

Steadicam Seadoo Water Rig

A few more bits.

Walter Klassen FX -- Vehicle Mount

Jerry Hill Steadicam Products

Fluidmotion Steadicam 6 Wheel ATV

Paul Kalbach @ ArtichokePro presents

I've shot using a merlin on a boat. Mostly my brother-in-law wakeboarding and the kids tubing. It looked great. The one thing I ran into was wind. If you go with a mount make sure you test how the wind affects things. There were places in the boat that worked better than others.

Thank you, guys, for the comments.

I will have some problems when not using my own car or boat ... :-)

Anyway, I hope to get a Pilot in June ... that will be thrilling.

Sverker,

Have someone hang on to you when shooting steadicam shots in moving vehicles or be safely strapped in as you can get injured in some circumstances. This is because both of your hands are busy operating and you can't hold on to anything.

We did notice the wind thing when videotaping a friend waterskiing. We also felt the need to zoom in some to get better shots. This made framing on a moving boat much harder.

More power to you for attempting...just be careful!

Tery
Indicam

can anyone share any pictures on such setups?

Hardmounted and using a a safety harness.

i have a steadicam flyer, new to it and currently mount video dslrs on it. will move up to red ff35 once it comes out.

i'm looking to build a light car mount, something on an easier side.
i'm thinking of getting something like this:
Walter Klassen FX -- Vehicle Mount

and somehow securing a mount or a pipe in an suv or a pickup to hold to that clamp or head mount.

anyone went through the same and can suggest an easy solution without building too much of a "special car" :) ?

something like the attached image i found, but for a lighter setup (no operator seat as complex as this, etc...)?

Better Late than Never
 

Saw your post asking about car/boat footage. Have you heard of Aerial Exposures ATM and LSG (2) mounting systems? Check them out at www.aerialexposures.net (maybe .com). very interesting.

The Holway/Hayball Steadicam book has good information on this subject.

You should have this book anyway. It has a wealth of information and should be "mandatory reading" IMO.

You should always be properly harnessed in a moving vehicle, and hard-mounting is preferred as others have noted.