Experimenting with Geometry on 360° On-Motorbike Photography

My 360 degree on-motorcycle photography experiment continues.  The process has evolved over time from handheld, manually shot photos to automatic, bike mounted shots.  I've tried half a dozen different cameras and mounts on locations all over the bike, most recently on the tail rack.

I've always wanted to be able to catch the front of the bike while in motion.  Mounted to the windscreen the Ricoh Theta doesn't quite reach.  This time I purchased a 1/4 inch threaded rod and cut it to size (about a foot long) and used it to extend the camera out front of the bike.  Double fastening the camera at one end and the tripod at the other with extra nuts meant I had no trouble with the rig moving.

The results speak for themselves...

Early shots are using the extension rig mounted on the upper windshield.  It clears the camera from the fairing and gives clear shots of the whole machine and rider while in motion.  The rig is stable and holds the camera for steady shots.  It never budged on a variety of roads at various speeds.

From the windshield I moved the camera rig to the right rearview mirror.  There was a bit of flex in the windshield with the rig attached, but none from the mirror.  The shots were once again very stable and steady at a variety of speeds on a variety of different road conditions.  This one is at about 80km.hr on a country back road.  This angle still shows the front of the bike, but gives more of a 3/4 view of the back of the machine.

The distance further off the fairing means a wider view of corners.  Even with energetic riding on the twisty bits the rig was problem free.

Further along I angled the rig up higher for a more top down view.  The tripod ball joint that lets you easily angle it.  If kept tight you can do this on the fly with ease.

One of the benefits of this on-bike camera rig is that it gives a good sense of speed and captures the intimacy of riding because the camera is doing everything the bike and rider are.  Here I'm up to triple digits on a highway.

   

For the last angle I put the camera as far up and out to the side as I could angle it off the rearview mirror.  This catches the whole side of the bike and rider well, as well as offering a good sight lines up and down the road.

 

 

 

That worked.  All images are screen captures in the Ricoh imaging software cleaned up in Adobe Lightroom.

Another round of 360 on-motorbike photography

With some second generation parts I've got the on-bike portrait down to a fine art.  The Lammcou durable flexible tripod is a solid, dependable thing compared to the cheap and terrible flexible tripod I used before that I had to keep glueing back together.

The light, inexpensive and easy to use Ricoh Theta is still my favourite go to camera.  I'd like to try the higher resolution ThetaV but they aren't cheap.

Here are the latest round of photos and video from the ThetaSC.  On the afternoon of the longest day of the year my wife and I went for a romantic ride over to where we got married almost twenty years ago.  The camera's wrapped around the rear view mirror on that one.  On a rainy Saturday I put the waterproof cover on the camera, put it on windscreen and tried to get rained on.  I didn't get wet, but I did see a ghost on the covered bridge in West Montrose.  That was a weird, atmospheric ride.


Solstice Romantic Ride:

Creepy, Atmospheric, Rainy Saturday Ride:

OK, so it's not a ghost.  A young old-school mennonite woman was walking across the bridge complete with bonnet and black dress.  This is the covered bridge they used in the Stephen King movie, IT.  Creepy, right?

Staying ahead of the end of the world.

Dark and sinister...