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Wondering if anyone has set up cameras in race cars before (or moving cars).

I am looking to set us a D70s in a club spints race car, and looking for tips if anyone in here can share learnings? The intension is to take 1. driver portraits, and 2. second setup, from the drivers view.

I have a manfrotto superclamp which I intend to use to mount the camera bracket to the rollbar inside the vehicle. Connect it to a wireless trigger to fire the camera (not sure how to do this yet on a D70s or D200), using Bowens Pulsar Triggers.

I picture the camera will be vibrating madely, so shutters speeds will most likely need to be up around 1/1000ths. At this, ambient light inside a car may be very low, so will meter to set up.

The racing is not competition, but the driver must be focused on safety, and I think flash would be a danger. Your thoughts?

I plan to use a prime, to avoid loss of focus from zoom creep, perhaps a 50mm/1.8.

Looks like the nikon product MC-22 may be one step closer to connecting my bowens pulsar radio triggers, to the D200, to trigger the shutter.

is there a D70 solution?

I did this once with my benro c297f and ballhead http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/8936 ... 6dx4bv.jpg

Strapped down a little inside.

Sure it's bulky, but it didnt move one bit.

Does the car have a rollcage at all mate?

a roll cage really helps! i had a vid camera mounted once. used pipe clamps and "L' braceing steel to make a box like frame to mount the vid cam in. worked a treat. i found that padding the camera was worse, if solidly mounted the camera bounced around at the same rate as everything else in the car thus appearing stable, when viewing outside the car the vibrations looked minimal. if u dont have a cage i have no idea what u could do. i tried tying down a tripod on the backseat once as well but that was shit and it just wobbled around then came loose

Kyle wrote:I did this once with my benro c297f and ballhead http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/8936 ... 6dx4bv.jpg

Strapped down a little inside.

Sure it's bulky, but it didnt move one bit.

Does the car have a rollcage at all mate?

thanks. I have the mounting hardware, to clamp onto a roll cage, passenger side, to get shots of driver. What my main problem is, how to connect a radio slave (I have the bowens ones), to trigger the shutter (as I will be trackside, with the transmitter in hand).

The bowens has a Synch-output socket, but I need to get this to the D70s shutter... wondering throgh some electronics???

D200 I think I know to use a cable, but the D70s has a different connection...

Guess somehting like this will plug into the D200 from the Bowens Pulsar, but is there one for D70s?
http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Wizard-Nikon-Motor-804-503/dp/B00009XVMX/sr=1-3/qid=1169360606/ref=sr_1_3/105-9075064-5986830?ie=UTF8&s=electronics
I'll keep hunting...

guess I can get somehting like these, or cut the end of a MC-DC1?

Has anyone opened an MC-DC1? Wondering if inside is a simple mechanical multiple position switch?

http://michaelbass.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

If I could find the name of the plug on the MC-DC1, I could perhaps just buy a budget cable, and solder on a miniphone to synch to the bowens pulsar trigger...

getting closer.

I've done it in racing car with a d100 and pocket wizard.

redline wrote:I've done it in racing car with a d100 and pocket wizard.

ah, found you I remembered your thread, but couldnt find it.

Any tips on this? Exposure? What did you use between the PW and D100? (did you make a custom cable, or find one?)

In this shot, what was the full EXIF?

thanks heaps, and hope you can help
cheers
Oz

looks like a good track day out for us melb ppl

Oz_Beachside wrote:

redline wrote:I've done it in racing car with a d100 and pocket wizard.

ah, found you I remembered your thread, but couldnt find it.

Any tips on this? Exposure? What did you use between the PW and D100? (did you make a custom cable, or find one?)

In this shot, what was the full EXIF?

thanks heaps, and hope you can help
cheers
Oz

kit lenses
manual focus
manfrotto suction mount with 3d head
exposure: about f/8 (shutter speed = enough to give bg blur varies on how fast casr is going)
PW---PW Cable(you can find it at bhphoto)--D100

can't remember the full exif ,
just go out to your car and practice some shots