General Advice

Motor Racing

Car Trackdays

Motorbikes

Motorbike Filming Guide

Motorbike filming has its own set of challenges that make it slightly different from car filming. It is worth reading the car guides for general hints and tips firstly. Many of our products in our shop are ideal for use on a bike, please get in touch with us for recommendations on what our customers and ourselves use.

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What will I need?

Tape – A Mini DV Camcorder. This will give pretty good picture quality, the downsides being the weight and bulk to carry around. It can seem a little wasteful to buy a camcorder just to use it as a recorder, but at least away from the bike you can use the camcorder for general filming or for filming from trackside. We personally prefer Sony, simply because you can use a LANC remote control (from our shop), that allows an easy one touch button to record and then switch off recording as you wish, saving battery and tape life, and saving you unpack all the equipment to stop and start recording.

Mini DVD – A DVD Camcorder. Generally not used for on bike video, all the disadvantages of a mini DV camcorder, plus a greater susceptibility to loss of picture through vibration and a higher purchase cost for the same features. Only real advantage they have is easy editing and being able to take the recorded dvd from the camcorder and putting it straight into your dvd player.

Hard Drive – Camcorder or Multimedia device. Hard Drive camcorders are starting to become more established but are totally unsuitable for motorbike recording. Picture quality will be good, as will convenience, however, they DO NOT LIKE ANY VIBRATION!
Multimedia devices that have a built in screen generally have loads of additional features i.e. MP3 player, can playback and record video etc. Biggest downside with all hard drive devices is errors and corruption caused by vibration. We have experienced a few set up problems initially when using bullet cameras, once past that then some people have had good results, whilst others have found the hard drive device virtually unusable on a bike or car. We only sell those devices with efficient anti shock to minimise problems.

Solid State – Camcorder or multimedia recorder i.e Chasecam PDR100, ATC3000.
This is the future for in car and on bike recorders, as they are small, light weight and without moving parts so not really affected by vibration. They record onto memory cards i.e Compact Flash, which come in various sizes and are getting very affordable now. Up until now we have had to choose between high cost and good quality or low cost and average recording quality. We are watching this area closely and are already stocking devices that strike a balance between the two. Quality will improve greatly over the next few years. Editing the footage and transferring it to a pc is quick and easy too. All of our on bike or in car recording systems are solid state based. They record on to a memory card and so have no moving parts to go wrong.

Camera Mount - A bike has less options for mounting a camera than a car, but with some creativity a variety of angles can be achieved. A wide angle lens is essential if you are filming yourself.

Suction mounts – Look for high strength suckers, ideally multiple small suckers so you can place on the screen, fairing, tank or tail section. When placing on the fairing you need to take care if you have decals attached, as these tend to cause the suckers to lose grip. Smooth sections of paintwork will be best. If you are reaching high speeds check the mount at regular intervals, especially if exposed to the full force of the wind i.e. on the fairing. Suction mount are rarely allowed on trackdays, so speak to the organisers first. Also be careful when positioning a mount on the tank, in the event of a fall you don’t want to be landing on a mount and camera!

Clamp mounts – We have used a number of clamp mounts on bikes, best locations are the pillion pegs or rear grab rail. On some bikes you can mount it to the front fork lowers (just take care of the cables near your wheel and discs!). The clamp mounts do work well and give stable results. Mirrors are generally a poor place to clamp to due to loads of vibration. On a ‘crosser you can fit some clamps (super clamp) to the haTank mounted - These bolt in place using two or three of the holes you have on your filler cap surround.

Helmet mount – Our helmet camera mounts (for bullet cameras only) has given us the best results overall, as your body damps out most vibration, giving a clear and stable riders eye view. Although only attached with Velcro we have reached speeds of 160mph with no problems.

The location of where to put the recording device is really down to these areas – panniers/top box/bag bungeed, rucksack/jacket, or under the seat. Really it will depend on what recording device you are using and how resistant to vibration it is. It is best to wrap it up in bubble wrap or use on of our Samsonite padded bags to protect from damage.
We would love to hear from you to share with others what has and hasn’t worked well for you.