| Page (1) of 5 - 10/26/04 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Videographers and Filmmakers of all ages! Mounting a camera on a car is the desire of anyone wanting to do a traveling shot, but cost and quality are always issues. Now entering the competition, two low cost solutions: The Gripper and The Sticky Pod. We put them in the arena and let them battle it out. Who?s gonna win? Step right up and you'll find out.
The Challenge
I?m very keen on shots from moving vehicles. Whether it be from the outside looking in, the inside looking out, or even outside looking out, these shots can really add drama to a production that requires action in a car. The problem is the more complex the mounting system (more grip arms, mounting cups, etc.), the greater the price.
For example, large car mount rigging systems from Mathews run around $3200 for a hood mount system, and $1800 for a hostess tray system. The hood mount is obviously for mounting your camera to the hood of a vehicle, while the hostess tray is for shooting from the side of the car looking in. To do a variety of shots for your production you would end up spending $5000 just for these mounts.
You will also come across rigging systems for medium and small cameras (Mini-DV and consumer) that range in price from less than $100 to more than $2000 depending on the manufacturer. The more weight the rigging system has to support, the more expensive it becomes.
To keep up the with the continuing shrinkage in camera size and weight, manufacturers have begun to move away from the traditional mounting rigs that required metal pipes to come in contact with the surface of the car, with only a rubber pad protecting the finish, to suction mounted rigs. While these types of mounts do protect the finish, the mounting surface has to be very clean and you need to keep a close eye on the grip to ensure that it doesn?t fly off when you are driving down the road.
Renting the rigging system is always an option, but for the extreme filmmaker, or those who want to mount a camera for the weekly ?pimp ride street racing? competition, owning a system is probably the better solution.
For this article, I wanted to find two low-cost products that allowed the user to quickly mount, shoot, reposition, and shoot again. With the small budgets found in many independent shoots, the price of the mounts was a key consideration. For this experiment the mounts had to cost less than $200. Finally, the mounts had to be manufactured by a real company, not some shlub tooling a system in his garage on the weekends where every unit is different and parts could be from anywhere and found nowhere.
The Contenders
The first contender for this competition was The Gripper (The Gripper 3028) from Film Tools (filmtools.com). This is a 6-inch suction cup with a twist. Instead of a regular suction cup, The Gripper uses Wood?s "Powr-Grip" vacuum pump technology. Instead of pushing the air out, you suck the air out via a pump. The unit sticks because the atmospheric pressure outside is greater than the vacuum inside the cup.
Rated to hold items up to 70lb., this unit had a good head start on the competition. This cup is the base cup found on many other camera car mounts offered by Film Tools. I was pleased that I could get a secure hold with this cup with only a few strokes of the pump. As a plus, the plunger has a red line that disappears when the vacuum is secure, and only when the line reappears do you have to worry.
I liked the cup?s ability to stay put. By attaching it to a side panel of my Jeep, it was so firmly attached that I could pull and tug The Gripper and rock the entire vehicle. In tests conducted indoors I mounted The Gripper to a metal bookcase and left it there for a better part of three hours without losing its hold. (I took it down because I got tired of seeing it hanging there.)
Even though The Gripper stays put, with a firm tug on the release mechanism The Gripper releases in seconds.
Attached to the vacuum cup is the Bogen Manfroto 3028 head. The head can rotate 360 degrees and the tilt angle of the head allows one to position the camera at nearly any angle. This kind of flexibility is an asset when trying to attach a camera at odd angles. The plate of the Manfroto head is a large 2 ¾" by 3 ¾" which gives plenty of stability to the camera connected to it. The head also has a rubber coating to minimize vibrations.
To tighten the head in place, the Manfroto 3028 has large lock down levers typical of many of those found on other Bogen Manfroto tripods. While I like this for being able to really tighten the head, I have seen these levers snap into pieces under excessive use.
With an MSRP of $129.95, the price for this item fell well within the challenge range.
The Gripper had clearly earned its name and its place in the Camera Car Mount Smack Down.
The second contender in this competition is The Sticky Pod Pro Pack, created by Tom Heibel (www.stickypod.com). At the heart of The Sticky Pod system are four industrial-strength suction cups made of heavy duty rubber. These suction cups also do an excellent job of staying where you place them. When you push the cups down they make a little squeaking, barking noise. I found when I heard this noise, the cups were securely in place. The one slight drawback to these cups is they are a bit more difficult to remove as they require you to get under the lip of the cup and roll it back to allow air in. If the cups are very secure you might find getting your fingernail under the lip a bit of a challenge. The good thing about this problem is you know you have a tight fit to your surface. Tom Heibel claims that the cups will hold 25 pounds for over an hour without falling off. While the cups do not hold as much as Wood?s Powr-Grip, there is more than enough hold for prosumer cameras.
Attached to the cups is a heavy duty aluminum base with a steel mounting spud attached. To this spud you can attach multiple accessories that then connect to your camera. At the most basic level, you connect a knuckle (mounting plate) that allows for 360 degrees of rotation and about 270 degrees of tilt. Your camera connects directly to the knuckle.
The problem I had with this mounting was in the small platform size. While the camera is securely attached to The Sticky Pod, I fear excessive rocking, vibration or motion could cause the connecting screw, or your camera thread to snap off. I did not have this happen in any of my tests (even when I took it up to 65 miles per hour), but it is a concern. Compared to the Bogen Manfroto mounting plate The Sticky Pod knuckle is puny. It would be better if The Sticky Pod came with some sort of mounting plate similar to the Manfroto head.
An advantage for The Sticky Pod is the extension arms that ship with the Pro package. These aluminum extensions allow you to move the camera away from the mounting place so you can position your camera exactly where you want it. For interior shots, or shots that require the camera to be at any angle other than horizontal, these attachments are very handy to have around. Because of the solid design, I did not notice any additional vibration other than what was already occurring.
Coupled with a second knuckle (also included in the Pro package), the ability to twist The Sticky Pod into any location was a breeze. Several television stations across the country are currently using The Sticky Pod as dash cam mounts for their news productions.
Interestingly, the price for The Sticky Pod is the same as The Gripper -- $129, making this an evenly-matched price point competition.
The problem with both of these mounts is each only has one point of contact with the camera ? at the very bottom. The means the camera is free to rock, sway, and move as vibrations warrant. The more points of contact the camera has with the vehicle, the more stable the shot. One solution is to have some other type of stabilizer/arm connected to the top of the camera via the hot shoe mount which is then mounted to the vehicle. While there are certainly mini grip systems that can be purchased to address this issue, they are not included as part of the standard package for the two systems reviewed here. These two mounts will be reviewed as-is.
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Hollywood Industry , Digital Video Editing , Audio Video Producer , Digital Post Production , DV Format , Film Imaging , Presentation Master , Oceania , CEN - Consumer Electronics Net , Final Cut Pro , Premiere , Vegas , CEN - Camcorders , BN - Acquistion , BN - Sony
Related Newsletter: DMN Newsletter , Timeline Newsletter , KNews Newsletter , Digital Media Net , DMNForums , Review Seeker
AV-HS450 16+ Input HD/SD Switcher w/ dual screen MultiViewer
Vegas Pro 8 + Free Vegas Seminar Series
