Anyone recommend an in-car video camera mount please? Wanted for track-time filming.
I’ve seen one that clamps over the side-window glass but not sure how vibration-free that would be in a Five.
Can you get any that will clamp to a Style Bar, or the windscreen header rail, or…?
Film through the windscreen, or over the top of it? Turn the microphone off?
The camera is a Panasonic SDR-S7.
Surely sticking a camera anywhere outside a car without some perspex shielding is asking for a broken camera. Might as well film through the screen.
Have you seen any the “Getaway in Stockholm” series? They break cameras in each one, normally near the start.
Looks like the window clamp can be set with the camera outside the car, or better, inside filming through the screen.
There seem to be quite a few variations of suction clamps that fit to the screen on the inside too.
No experience of this so looking to others for useful hints/tips/recomendations please. 
Doug, try a pm to one of the Team Merlot guys[martin, johnnyboy or roadster robbie] they use a mount on the roll bar------------
My company does quite a lot of covert surveillance kit, and one of the things that comes up fairly frequently is mounting cameras in cars. I think the easiest way is to use one that’ll take a standard tripod screw, put it on a small stand and gaffa tape it to the dash board. Make sure everything’s tight and well stuck down if you’re going to be throwing the car around though! I recently gaffa taped a camera to the side of my helmet when I went go-karting. Worked a treat, except I’d grabbed the wrong camera so the whole thing was in B&W… :-
These people http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk do a lot of vehicle and helmet mounted camera systems, we buy microphones and screens from them, and have found them to be generally pretty good. If you just want a bullet camera there are probably other places that’ll do them cheaply too, give me a shout if you want me to try to find the supplier we use. The cameras with Sony CCDs in them seem to be the best ones at the moment, and I say this despite avoiding anything Sony in most other areas!
I got a small G-clamp from jessop’s. It has a mounting thread for a camera / camcorder and is adjustable.
It opens to about 2.5’’ and will fit on my style bar.
Never tried it with camcorder in car so don’t know what vibrations will be like.
Maybe put some foam around the style bar before tightening it.
Ian[;)]
For in car camera on runs or track, shooting stills or vidio I’ve got to recomend this motorsports Hero outfit check it out at www.goprocamera.com I got one its brillient.
I cobbled one together from some aluminium checker plate for my iphone 4S, its a great camera for track days HD and also anti shake. Fits to my TR Lane harness bar in the middle with a couple of exhaust brackets. Couple of photos off the car here. Will post some with it on the car at my next track day if anyones interested.
http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/t503/Itsbirdietime/8f32decd.jpg
http://i1063.photobucket.com/albums/t503/Itsbirdietime/55a7bb65.jpg
One of the vids the iphone took here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVqmt4YIoBQ
We recently got the Gopro motorsport mount and it is simply superb.
Light, easy to remove, position, and in good quality, I would go for a proper Gopro mount even if you need to fit an adaptor for a standard tripod screw. They will hold up to 150mph on the outside of the car, apparently.
For the money, I’d suggest just buying a Gopro with motorsport kit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/GoPro-Motorsports-Hero-Action-Camera/dp/B005WY3TMA/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu6lc70uUKY&hd=1
This was through a rainy windscreen on a 1950s Jowett Javelin. Believe me an MX5 is significantly smoother.
Jack.
Guess it depends on your budget and as you say how your going to use it. Mine cost about £10 in bits. It’s also filmed top down and max speed about 90mph.
Just a word of warning but most track day companies WONT allow sucker mounts , generally you have to bolt your camera in . If you crash and its not secure it turns into a flying brick inside your car ouch !!
I used to make my own brackets also using exhaust clamps to the roll cage with my old big video camera .
But now i would also recomend the Gopro hero 2 all the way . It films in HD and has off the shelf roll bar mounts, sucker mounts etc. its also the size of a fag packet.
Ive posted this link before but its filmed witht the hero2 in HD. You can see ive used a sucker mount on the front wing and bonnet (not a track day) , the rest is filmed attached to the roll bar.
camera shake from the roll cage is surprisingly little
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O04IjjnyFQ
ps . the video won’t play on i pad or phones due to Youtube not broadcasting copyrighted music to them . pc’s are fine.
I have been using one of these in my MK2.5 for a while now - http://www.jassperformance.com/#_interior_2_3 . Replaces the passenger sunvisor, £25, and works a treat.
Example of some footage using this mount, with a GoPro Hero2. Please excuse the blatant showing off round the Melbourne Loop each lap 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUAe2OWQkpk
Martin.
Ive not seen one of those before, it does look good and a great position to film from . I think i’m going to make a purchase . thanks MJJ .
Oh is the gps a phone type app or propper stuff for the job ? Ive used the trackmaster app for sneaky lap times but thats about it .
No worries, glad it was helpful. The mounts are made in eastern europe somewhere, so it takes a week or two to get them shipped over, but great quality and customer service.
The GPS is a proper datalogger, a Starlane Stealth GPS-3. Excellent bit of kit, but not cheap. The unit that does GPS laptiming is £330, then I needed an extra module that wires into the car’s loom (that was another £250) that then gives G-forces, throttle position, RPM and gear selection.
If I only used it on my MK2.5, and with the benefit of hindsight, I think I would just get some sort of laptiming app that works on a smartphone, and then log other parameters through the car’s OBDII socket - something like Palmer Performance’s PCMScan software running on a cheap laptop. I also use my datalogging gear on a motorbike that does not have OBDII, hence the need for this datalogging stuff.
Martin.
