How To Use Your Motorcycle As A Tripod
One crucial piece of photography equipment that I miss on my rides is a tripod. A tripod is absolutely required to take gorgeous time lapse videos and sharp pictures of distant landscapes. The tripod I have is a pretty good one. But it is also quite large and heavy, making it cumbersome to strap to my motorcycle. There are some lightweight and compact tripods, but I couldn’t find one that wasn’t flimsy and was capable of holding a heavy DSLR camera.
When riding my motorcycle one morning thinking about this problem a light bulb suddenly lit up in my helmet. I realised that I was sitting on the solution to my problem – my motorcycle. It was tall and stable enough to hold my DSLR camera, my GoPro, my iPhone or just about any camera. All I needed was an easy way to mount my camera properly.
The solution I came up with consists of a RAM claw, a RAM arm and RAM adapters for the camera I wish to use. I connected them together and made the claw gently clasp the brake fluid reservoir on the handlebar. There was no place to directly clasp the handlebar because of the hand guards. Due to the ball and socket joint nature of the RAM mounting system, I can level the camera irrespective of the way the motorcycle is inclined or the terrain on which the motorcycle is parked.
I can set this up and remove it in a matter of seconds without needing any tools. I don’t even need to remove my riding gloves.
An added advantage of this system is I can now mount the GoPro just about anywhere on the motorcycle. For example, to record engine level footage I can clasp the claw to the engine guard. There is no need to buy a bunch of GoPro flat and curved mounts and stick them to different parts of the motorcycle. Then use a collection of adapters to level the GoPro properly.
Update
A reader recommended that instead of messing around with a RAM claw every time I wanted to use my motorcycle as a tripod, I could use the rear view mirror RAM ball mount. What a splendid idea. I had one of these lying around and somehow it didn’t strike me to use it.
Now I have the RAM claw free to do something else like record engine level footage.
