Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

I've been experimenting with aerial photography and videos lately.

After breaking my more complex mount that needed half a roll of duct-tape to keep it in place on the keel, I've made up a more simple mount from old Battens, wall plugs, threaded rod, some nuts and a vario mount.

I discovered that the ball joint on my vario mount threads into the arm that connects to the vario with the same thread that is standard to screw cameras on to tripods ( 1/4-20 ? )

So, the very very simple version is to just screw the camera straight on to the ball joint of your vario mount.

I ultimately want to take photos from out on the wing, so I made an extension arm.

1. Take an old batten, and cut it fairly short. The exact length will depend on your glider's needs. I've got one that's about 7cm long which works good on the stinger, and one that's about 15 cm that I've not tried yet, but should work on at the leading edge/x-bar junction.
2. find a wall plug which was slightly bigger than the interior diameter of the batten. Hammer the wall plug into the batten. If you didn't need to hammer it, the plug was probably too small and likely won't hold so get a slightly bigger one. Some kind of adhesive that won't disolve the wall plug won't hurt at this stage either.
3. Get some 1/4-20 threaded rod (I got mine from Bunnings) and cut it to about an 4 cm long. It needs to go at least a few cm into the batten to hold well, and should only stick out far enough to thread a nut on to it, and then have about 1cm maximum exposed past the nut. Tip: Thread a hex nut on to the bar, then a wingnut with the wings away from the hex nut. Thread the hex nut to a few milimeters before your cut, then tighten the wingnut up against the hex nut. You can then clamp down on the nuts in your vice to keep the bar from rolling whilst you're cutting, and after you've made your cut, clean the end with a flat file if needed, then undo both nuts over the cut end to ensure that the thread wasn't screwed up by the hack-saw.
4. Thread two hex nuts on to the threaded bar near one end with just one thread showing past the two nuts, and tighten them together, then put your spanner on the nut nearest to the free end and screw the other end of the bar into the plug in the batten. The bar should cut it's own thread through the plug. You shoudl thread it as far in as you can so that one of the nuts is tight against the end of the batten.
5. Undo the outer nut, leaving about 1 cm of free thread. Carefully screw this free end into the base of your camera until the camera is tight and flush agains the nut. You should not encounter any resistance before the nut makes contact, if you do, you need to move the nut further out on the bar so that there is less free end. Attempting to tighten the bar right up into the base of your camera will damage your camera.
6. Hammer a plug into the other end of the batten, then screw the vario mount's ball joint onto this end.

Some points:

• The vario mount's elasticised velcro should be long enough to wrap around keel, basebar or leading edge tube, or sprog.
• The longer the extension, the more "wobbly" the camera is likely to be in flight.
• I've added some string to tie it to the glider as a back-up.
• Your vario mount's thread might be different, if so, you can't just screw it directly into your camera, but should still be able to build the extension piece.
• It's unlikely, but your camera may have a different thread in it's base. Take your camera with you when you buy the threaded bar and ensure you get one that fits cleanly.
• I use a Canon A590 IS which I got for $140 from JB HiFi. It's light weight, cheap enought to to worry too much about, and can be programmed to do interval shooting. See Here: http://www.nhgc.asn.au/fly/?q=node/125#comment-24. I also bought a 52mm wide angle lens and adaptor for this camera. You can either spend about three times as much as the camera costs to get genuine canon gear, or you can get them from ebay for about $30-$50.
• WARNING
  Do not mount this in such a way as to restrict your glider's ability to fly. When choosing a spot to mount your camera, consider the movement of the x-bar during turns, the likelyhood of the camera dis-locating a sprog or dive-stick, the weight of the camera, and whether it would need counter-balancing.
  If you're not sure about the safety of using this, then please either speak to your glider's manufacturer, an SO or just don't do it.