From the course: Video Gear

Gear overview

From the course: Video Gear

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Gear overview

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- Rich, among all the gear that we show when we're talking about mounting things to a vehicle, there was a lot of specialty items including suction cups. - One of the ones that was great from a budget point of view was Arkon. These are designed for consumer electronics. They make them for point-and-shoot cameras. They make them for GoPros, for iPhones, and the suction cup was good, it actually stuck and adhered nicely, particularly for things like the dash, if you want to put a dash camera in. So this gives you that flexibility to really get things, and you will find a wide range. - Yeah, Arkon makes a lot of different mounts for iPhones, and cupholder mounts, and all sorts of things. - Yeah, we even had one that was designed specifically for a dashboard, so there is an extensive website that you can explore, but I would encourage you to take a look at some of those. Wide range of products and flexibility, whether you're using it as a camera, or as a controlling device. - And the thing about this is that it doesn't break the bank. The products typically range from anywhere from about 12 to about 25 dollars. You can get a lot of various mounts without spending a ton of money. - I'd recommend it though for mounting inside the car. Now if you need to go outside the car, then you've got to step up to something a little more robust. - You're putting your expensive camera outside the vehicle, you're going 40, 50 miles an hour, you don't want that to fall off. And Filmtools provides a relatively affordable product, but again, this is going to be a more substantial, more expensive product. This suction cup, the Gripper 3025, is a powerful vacuum suction cup. I mean, this thing really sticks. - And all you need to make sure you pay attention to is that red line. When you start to see the red line becoming clear it's indicating that the suction is starting to lose. But these are very easy, they come with strong plates to actually mount a camera to. - What I loved about these guys is the adjustability. So if you need to rotate it, pan it and tilt it, you can do that, - And these hold up to about 6 and a half, 7 pounds or so. So even a relatively tricked-out camera, a small DSLR size camera or a mirrorless camera, that's going to work pretty well. - They do make different sizes, or if you have to step up, you can get a multi kit with multiple suction cups and arms and platforms, so it just depends on what you need. There's a wide range of tools available here. You see as you start to step up, you can get into multiple suction cups. It just depends on what your budget is and what you're trying to pull off, but more suction cups, bigger platform, more stability for those bigger cameras. Now one of the things that comes in handy as you're working is the ability to adjust things once they're attached. A lot of times you put these rigs in - There's a lock down - They're locked down, and so the camera's at a weird angle. So the Billie and the Bettie, which is just basically the difference between a male and a female mount– Billie's the guy. - This allows you to have the different mounting points depending upon how the device is threaded, so you can easily attach this to other things. And then they add some things here like the Collins Clamp which is good for going around a pipe or a door handle so that you can clamp things in. You can use these two together or separately just to give you that little flexibility to get the camera at the right angle. - This head pivots, which is nice, and a great thumbscrew for easily locking things off. What I like about these thumbscrews is that if they're in an inconvenient place, you just push them up, and you can turn them, and easily readjust it to get the torque you need. - And then of course, some other clamps that came in handy. We use Cardellini Clamps. This is just a rock solid pro clamp here. This is just a style of clamp and it makes it easy to attach to a flat surface: a bumper, the undercarriage of the car, a door handle. - And these are pretty substantial. They're metal, so they're obviously not going to potentially break like a plastic clamp might. And they work really simply. You just kind of twist the knob down there on the screw to get it tight and lock on to whatever you need. Just be sure not to go too hard on fragile things, if you're clamping to a bumper or something like that you definitely don't want to damage those fragile items. - You could toss some rubber pieces in there as well, or a thin rubber mat, one of the jar gripper type things, those work well. The things you'd get to open a tough mason jar, you could put one of those in. - And of course, any time you're using these clamps, I cannot suggest enough the need to have a lighting safety chain. Now these are available from tons of places, but it's just a solid chain designed to keep lights from falling on people's heads. - You know, stuff happens right? - Yeah. - Especially when you're driving around on a vehicle where you might have cameras mounted or lights mounted, and that kind of stuff. There's no worse feeling than driving down the road and going "what was that?" to realize it was the camera falling off the car. So having a little bit of extra safety with a cheap, 4, 5 dollar cable that lets you use a traditional carabiner, clip things around there, is worth the investment. - Yup, 5 bucks well spent.

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