Vehicle camera mounts
 

I would like to know how the wild life film shooters in Africa use the vehicle-mounted cams from inside of the vehicles. On what they mount the fluid head receiver bowl, which is a very sturdy. I would like to make such kind of thing to my vehicle as it will be easier for me to use the vehicle as movable hide (Run & Shoot). It's more useful for birds as the vehicle doesn't scare them away. (I'm not interested in suction/vacuum cup grips)
Somebody has got catalogue or even photographs of such system kindly post it.

Ashok

Well hello there, Ashok...........
 

Long time, no speak.

Didn't see your post hiding down there.

Of the three vehicles I've seen used for shooting African wildlife, all had been seriously modified to make a mobile shooting platform.

Two had the passenger doors removed and an additional platform bolted/ welded to the side of the vehicle to make an outrigger platform.

The downside of this arrangement was that this platform stuck out quite some way from the vehicle, putting it's occupent is serious danger in the event of a collision with something solid like a tree.

The third, and seemingly both the safest and more user friendly, had a large circular hole cut in the roof, the rear seats removed to make a standing platform and a circular turret ring fitted to the roof around the full circumference of the hole, allowing both the operator and the camera mounted on a pan/tilt head to be swung through 360 degrees (like those plane mounted machine gun systems.

Very effective but eye wateringingly expensive to do.

And, of course, each of the vehicles in question were extremely large 4WD's with shed loads of room for manouvre.

Going to a standard saloon car, I take it removing doors is out, and I can't see the "hole in roof" thing going down a bundle either.

Doesn't give you a shed load of options, though you may be prepared to be a bit more ruthless than I would with my car.


CS

Thank you Chris,
 

I was really surprised how come you haven't responded, in-fact after a week stopped seeing this thread as no one responded to this. Can you give me the links wherein I can see the photos of the vehicles.
Ashok

Hi again..........
 

Missed you again, really think this section should be changed so it isn't so easy to "lose" posts.

Well, I've found this:

AAD SAFARI Landrover Special Vehicles and Safari Vehicles

but the photo's are useless.

Then there's:

Safari Vehicles Photos

and

Land Rover Safari Vehicles

and

our Safari vehicles, Landcruisers and Prados

None of them really give any detailed shots of the camera platforms per se, so guess you'll need to take it from here.


CS