Of all the useless things that you could think of making, surely a big suction cap thingy that lets you stick your camera to smooth surfaces is one to beat 'em all? I mean, why the hell would you want that?
Well, let me tell you!
The first and foremost use is to allow you take some really creative automotive shots, like the ones shown here. Mixed with a long shutter speed, fancy lighting and some car movement, you can take some simply fantastic photographs. Or a compact video camera? Sure! For example, you can stick the camera to the bodywork near to a wheel or tyre, mount it on the roof looking down over the bonnet - or even place it on the leading edge of the bonnet looking back at you.
Don't like that idea? Well, you can also use it to temporarily mount the camera when doing studio close-ups, or even when you want to include yourself in a self-timer pic. Cos you see this mount is ultra-grippy - in many situations it holds the camera much more securely than even a tripod. And in sometimes it will keep the camera hanging on where a tripod would have given up yonks ago.
So what exactly is this thing? It comprises two commercially available bits of gear, held together with a selection of nuts and bolts and a purpose-cut piece of alloy plate. With the right bits bought, and an electric jigsaw or large diameter holesaw and an electric drill available, it shouldn't take long than half an hour to put together.
The Parts
We won't be specific with parts numbers and prices - there's probably a range of different bits available around the world that can be persuaded to perform the same function.
The first requirement is the most important. You'll need a large suction-cap mount designed to hold more than just light duty objects. The one we selected is the Swivel/Suction Mount available from marine stores. It's sold to hold handheld spotlights in place, making them a semi-permanent fixture. As such it comes with a threaded fitting suitable for most spotlights (but not the same thread as a tripod mount for a camera!) and an adjustable pan and tilt head.
The beasty has a suction cap diameter of 120mm, and furthermore comes with a lock-down lever that increases the applied suction when it's operated. On flat glass you'd break the glass before you pulled the suction cap off - it's very secure indeed.
Unfortunately, though, the plastic pan and tilt head isn't so strong. And when you consider that you are going to have a camera attached to it, you want something that's pretty solid... More on strengthening it in a moment.
The other major part that you'll need is a tripod head. You could go for a full pan and tilt camera head, or do what we did, and select a small ball-and-socket head. The latter has the advantage that it is more compact, so placing less mass on the end of the mount and also keeping the camera closer to the mount. However, a full tripod head will give more versatility to the movement available to the camera - for example, with a larger head, the camera can be positioned horizontally when the suction cap is on a vertical surface. With the small ball and socket head, a vertical mounting surface gives a more or less vertical camera orientation.
The ball and socket head that we used is available from camera stores.
And the aluminium plate? We used an offcut of plate about 3mm thick. Scrap alloy sheet like this is available from non-ferrous scrap metal dealers, who often have bins full of the stuff. Add to that some high-tensile nuts and bolts (don't be temped to buy cheap hardware store fasteners - go to an automotive supplier or a nuts and bolts shops to get high tensile fasteners. They're a lot more expensive - and just as much stronger...)
Assembly
The first step with the pictured assembly was to unscrew all of the self-tapping screws that hold the sections together. By then removing a circlip and wriggling the parts, you'll end up with a (separated) pan and tilt head, a ring of plastic, the lower thick plastic mount, the rubber suction cap, and an oddly-shaped shaft. Here just the base and suction cap are shown.
Cut the alloy plate so that it fits on the top of the strong base, then drill out the three self-tapping screw plastic bosses, making holes that line up with these through the plate. We then drilled another three holes through the base and plate, so that the alloy adaptor plate could be held to the base by no less than six bolts, backed by flat washers and nuts. Note that the fancy Torx fasteners used here are available only because they were picked up in a bulk-buy from a scrap dealer... not because they add any further functionality.
With a hole drilled through the centre of the plate (and a larger hole made earlier beneath it in the plastic to give clearance for the head of the large bolt) a high tensile bolt can be inserted through the strengthening plate and into the threaded base of the ball and socket head.
And that's it!
Using It
Obviously, use the mount with care until you've established that it works in the situations that you envisage. A long cable release (or electronic equivalent) will let you trigger the camera more easily - if you don't have one, use the camera's self-timer. Auto focus cameras which have the facility to return their focusing to manual should probably have the manual control imposed, and don't forget to cover the viewfinder if the camera suffers from erratic lightmeter readings with the viewfinder exposed.
Many of the shots shown here were taken with very long shutter speeds - up to 1 second. If you want less blur, use faster shutter speeds.
Smaller and lighter cameras are the preferred option if you're going to be placing the camera in a dangerous situation - don't put a mega-expensive camera on the mount and then write to us, complaining when the mount falls off and the camera bounces itself to pieces on the road... That said, if the suction mount is placed carefully on a smooth and airtight surface that has little curvature, it should be very secure - but it's you who is taking the risk!
A low-ish cost camera with cable release, auto wind-on and a built-in flash is an ideal experimental camera if you intend sticking the mount to the side of a car and photographing tyre distortion while cornering at 150 km/h!
|