Auto

5 GoPro Mount Locations for Your Race Car Video

There are several locations on a race car that are ideal for a GoPro mount. These ads reveal the most racing action with the least amount of camera mount custom fabrication. This article looks at 5 possible mount points that will add to the quality of your racing videos right from the start with minimal testing.

Place 1: roll cage. With GoPro’s standard roll bar mounting kit, you can position the camera just above the driver’s shoulder on a vertical, diagonal, or horizontal bar. This location offers the best in-car view of the racing action, whether it’s on the racetrack, the road course or the oval. In addition to the front view of the track and racing competitors, a cage-mounted GoPro camera can be easily adjusted to capture the driver’s upper body, dashboard and gauges, sponsor logos inside the car and racing traffic on both sides of the car. Slight adjustments to camera angle and resolution will produce different effects. The anti-roll bars form stable platforms, so video is normally shake-free. Make sure to use the open back cover of the GoPro housing if you want to capture car sounds.

Place 2: Front Bumper This is one of the riskiest places, especially for stock cars, drifters, and road racers, due to the inevitable contact with competitors. However, mounting your GoPro to the front bumper has advantages for creating realistic and exciting videos. First of all, the low camera angle gives an incredible sense of speed. The track surface rushes under the car in the lower half of the footage, giving viewers a great sense of speed. Second, bring the action to a close with the competitors up front, the track, the crowd, etc. it is captured in a way that cannot be obtained otherwise due to the wide-angle lens. The driver always feels close to the action: to achieve this effect with a camera, he must mount it physically close to the action. Obviously the risk of the bumper mount is that you will lose the camera in an impact. This risk can be reduced, but not eliminated, by locating the bracket on top of the bumper toward the rear, or even within the grill area.

Point 3: Roof. The GoPro Car Mount Kit includes a sturdy suction cup mount that’s ideal for mounting the camera on the roof of a car. The benefit of a ceiling mount is the unrestricted view in any direction. Gives a “bird’s eye” view of the action from a high angle. This allows the camera to capture multiple cars, much of the track, and even interesting things like flying trees, the starting flag stand, fans in the crowd, and other sights. A roof mount is perfect for displaying sponsor logos on a car’s hood, roof or tailgate. The suction cup mount is sturdy and rarely comes off. The downside is that the thrill and impact of being in the driver’s seat doesn’t translate as well from up high. However, this is one of those locations that provides great additional footage for your racing videos.

Point 4: Outside over the driver’s shoulder. The drifting crowd has made this camera spot popular. The GoPro mounts with a simple adhesive mount or suction cup on the outside of the window, behind and above the driver. It has the advantage of capturing the driver’s head and hands during the race, which adds a great sense of action to the video sequences. When the camera is positioned higher up, it offers some of the bird’s-eye view of a ceiling mount effect. When mounted lower, it offers more driver action in the picture. Be careful not to mount it too low or you risk having your camera removed by a competitor! The outside window location is best for very wide angle views.

Point 5: Inside pointing at the driver. This option offers a ton of variety in terms of where the camera is mounted and what it focuses on. On the dashboard directly in front of the driver, aiming at his face, film his eyes and reactions during the race. This makes the video very realistic and conveys the interesting human element of racing. Moving the dash cam to the center or far corner gradually captures more of the driver’s side and what’s going on outside the car. These angles combine the action of the driver with the movements of technical control and the activity of external competitors. Pointing the dash-mounted GoPro directly to the rear is usually not best, as 75% of the view will be inside the car and very little racing action will be shown. There are many other points, such as the footwell, the opposite door, the steering wheel pointing backwards, etc. play with.

Mounting one or more GoPro cameras in any of these places on a race car will produce great footage for your next racing video. Feel free to experiment or use these locations as a starting point.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *