How-to: Mounting a 360 camera on a car

We’ve published a simple how-to guide for mounting a 360 camera on a car. It includes our recommended equipment and the steps needed. Please take a look and we are looking forward to your comments.

:tokyo_tower: Apparently, size matters. :face_with_hand_over_mouth: Just watch out, in some wealthy residential neighborhoods you are going to get arrested for this. :laughing:

Anyway, aside the giggle factor; in some countries you have to be extra careful because mountable objects and cargo protruding more than 1 m out the vehicle must have lights or a ribbon attached. :wink: Otherwise, have fun!

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Good call - we’re recommending a 0.7m stick which together with the suction cup mount and camera should be just about 1 meter :slight_smile:

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Thanks @boris. Another precaution you may also want to add to the guide is a reminder to go easy on the accelerator, brakes, and when turning because although the camera on the stick may be quite lightweight when stopped, the forces exerted on it increase exponentially with distance to most vehicle’s low center of gravity (the camera, like everything else in a vehicle, rotates around the vehicle’s center of gravity, not its own). Better be safe than sorry.

OMG.

I’m already afraid while driving with the camera directly installed on the tripod. Indeed, I was able to drive up to 110 km/h. Incidently, I recently saw some king of sport car with a tripod installed on the rear window with 1 m extender (but no cam on it). So, it should be safe. I will make some tests but not with such an extension. :sweat_smile:

I still have “camera falling off stress disorder” (CFOSD) from when my camera fell off my car even with a small mount at low speeds on the highway, so I would never NOT recommend having a backup safety rope attached to the mount just in case if it fails (because it might).

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Indeed, I was able to drive up to 110 km/h.

Usually, it is not the speed that is going to kill your camera in such a setup but acceleration and deceleration forces, unless you try going :racing_car: like 300 km/h.

I have not found any information on what mass the stick is rated for, only its own mass of 107 grams. The suction cup mount is rated for up to 5 kg, that is assuming you have not made the slightest mistake putting it on the body of the vehicle. The GoPro Max is 163 grams, so it would need to become about 30× more massive in an event to overcome the mount’s rating. 5 kg sounds enough, even for emergency breaking but may not be enough in an accident. :worried: But, I would be more worried about the stick holding up as well. The stick’s extending distance does not work in favor of the mount. So, I do not know. Better be careful before your camera goes flying off to hit a pedestrian.

Oh, and watch your added height or you will end up like

:rofl:

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Great tips all! I added “As a precautionary measure, we recommend avoiding rapid acceleration/braking and sharp turns during your drive.” to the guide. In general having the 3 suction cups should give much more security, but this feels like good common sense advice for driving in general :slight_smile:.

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For some time I use magnets to mount my gopro MAX. They are cheap and can be really strong.
For now I have produced three different mounts. Designed and 3D printed specially for different magnet types. I use them on sometimes very bumpy roads:

or sometimes it get hit by the low hanging branches :slight_smile:

Im driving 90kph on standard basis. Never had any problems with loosing the camera.
Great thing is it just takes few seconds to mount/dismount it in on the roof. And you dont need to worry about dirt on the roof or scratched paint that will kill suction cups.
Probably could design some kind of safety wire. Maybe not so safe in city where someone just could grab it when standing on a street light.

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Wow, very cool @masterofnoroad!

If others want to try it out, are you open to sharing your 3D print models and maybe a link to the magnets you have used?

@boris Now that the guide is done, I would be interested in reading about your experiences with your setup. Could you share some of your imagery here, please? I would be particularly interested in seeing how well does the GoPro Max hold up quality wise and how much of the image is covered by the car.

Can you also test the PANOX V2 with your mount?

Hi @GITNE - I don’t unfortunately myself use this setup frequently because I don’t own a car. However, this is the setup we’ve been recommending and sending to folks as part of the camera grant program. For example, here are some captures with this type of setup. You can see the quality and car coverage.

We have been using the GoPro MAX quite a bit and its held up quite well. I think the PANOX V2 will also work very well. It is also very light weight (200g vs 150g for the GoPro) and won’t require the tripod adapter.

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Below you can see details of my magnet setup. They are rather crude and fast designs but they work well for now. I make new and adapt each time I get my hands on new good magnet. Its not one type that I could put link here. Some of them are magnets used in wind turbine tower to mount cables and stuff as it is forbidden to drill any holes in the tower. But I also use whiteboard pin magnets :slight_smile: Just it needs to be strong enough. If its not strong I multiply them :slight_smile: but sometimes one is enough :slight_smile:



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Super cool! Thank you for sharing and the photos @masterofnoroad !

I recently bought a GoProx Max second hand, for the car attachment I bought the Smallrig 3 suction cups version (https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0CSPJ46LG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 / Triple Magnetic Suction Cup Mounting Support Kit for Action Cameras). It has 3 suction cups and magnets inside, it’s rated for 0,35 kg (0,8 lb) in a dynamic shooting scene (max 120 km/h or 74 mph). It’s very sturdy (metal frame and shock absorber in the legs) and because of the magnets this rig will not fall off when the suction is lost.

I only tested it in my hometown for a couple of minutes, I will make an long testrun when the weather will be better.

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The construction on the roof :slight_smile: It’s sturdy, the combination of magnets and suction cups is perfect. The only downside is that it’s very hard to remove :stuck_out_tongue: It’s on a selfie stick to raise it more, it’s on the lowest setting. I already drove 120 km and nothing happened.

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Right now, I’m using the mount provided by Mapillary/OSM_Be with the extender in folded position. It is 50 cm above the roof of the car… and 2,15 m above the road. One have to be careful when entering covered parking (upper part limited to 2,1 m: https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=378397610779587), going through some toll box (Mapillary ) and, even some car shortcut (Mapillary , indeed, I went through and didn’t crashed the camera). Fully extended extender would just be a nightmare.

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You know, you shouldn’t capture private parking spaces anyways. :wink:

What do you means by private?

Right now, I’m exploring a car park bellow a mall and trying to park as close as possible to my target in the mall. Although the mall itself is very active, car park exploration is something between urbex and backrooms exploration. Description in OSM is liminal. :scream:

Please note that you are not capturing for OpenStreetMap but for Mapillary. Hence, the Mapillary Terms of Use apply. Just because you would like to map a private establishment does not mean that you are entitled to or have the right to do anything you want there. You cannot assume that you are free to capture in and publish imagery from places you want to map. Note also that not every publicly accessible space is also a public space. Which means that you do not have the same rights in every publicly accessible space as in a public space. Usually, you should ask for capturing permission in a publicly accessible non-public space (unless it is a tourist attraction or something where taking pictures is common, allowed, or expected). There are good legal reasons why all mapping companies, like Google Maps or Bing who capture professionally, only capture public spaces, public roads, and so on. Nothing more and nothing less does Mapillary expect you to do in its Terms of Use.
Apart from that it is good courtesy to respect other people’s private property, even if it is the property of a corporate impersonal retail giant.