RE: Tower Camera mount swivel - cheaper

Anyone have any idea where to get a tower mounted camera mount that can track the boarder? For cheaper than 750$? the only I've seen is at my pro shop and it runs 750$.... Can't be that expensive...right?

Thanks!

that or makeyoursself one:

Materials at home depot --250

estimated time needed to build project -- 8hrs

amount of fun expected -- PRICELESS


ps just kiddin dont have any idea how much or long it would take to biuild it, but i know that building is another option that my friends and myself have done with other projects when buying it was tooo costly ---- GOOD LUCK

I'm not a big fan of the video you get with those units. You need to zoom out a lot and it's always following the rider instead of leading which makes it hard to watch IMHO.

Im trying to build one, just for practice videos. For when theres only a couple of us on the boat. Ill let you know when i get it finished

Try going here. They have one for $150.00

http://www.tgoemall.com/shop/water_recreation/Wakeboard_-_Tracking_Systems.html

I've never seen one for $750, that's really expensive!

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/csskiequipment/boatvidcammo.html

http://www.bartswatersports.com/ just search for trakker

My buddy built one and it worked pretty well, we really just needed to make a couple of tweaks to the design and it would have been great. But I agree with Rich that the video you get from them isn't the best. It's fine for just reviewing your run but not good for making videos.

For $100, I'll come and and video tape...

I agree with Rich & Bill, it's much better having someone do it (depending on the person..)

Kung:

you're talking per hour I hope!

1 rider, 2 pulls.

second camera man on land is extra,
hot chick in bikini additional,
editing even more.

Jason, I use the Air Trakker Wakeboard model from http://www.waterskivideo.com/

I tested some changes late last year and I really like the improvement in the arm. If you go to http://www.wakepics.com/member/jjared you can see some of the videos and the test video I did from the new model. I made the unit too loose last year and got a lot of whipping around. It is much better now. We did it to watch ourselves afterwards not to make dvd's and sell. If you have people in the boat that are as bad as the people in my boat at taking video or just don't like the hassle check it out.

I recommend getting an LCD screen for inside the boat to use instead of the small one on the camera. Something else I am going to do this year is change focus to manual so that it doesn't focus on the rope and make the rider a little blurry.

I have a Trakker and the video sucks... you just can't count on rope tension with wakeboarding. We do have good success attaching it to a part of the tower as a stabalizer. It only works well on the straight part of a pass because any boat jaring gets recorded too. You are best to practice shooting by hand if you can. Your body is sooooooo much better at moving with the boat than any tripod type system in a rough moving situation like wakeboarding....

Compared to someone that can take good quality video the trakker will not compare. If you are lucky enough to have people that don't mind spending all day behind the camera and they do a good job then don't go with a mount. If you are in my shoes you get tired of watching the shoreline, sky, water with no rider, and occasionally the rider you'd want to go with a mount. I've used the Trakker for a year and specifically the Wakeboard edition and it's been great.

(Message edited by jjared on March 10, 2004)

Here's a quick video I put together and you can judge for yourself how well it works. http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php?medid=10147

I apologize for posting to this old thread, but I keep seeing traffic on our website (http://www.wakevideo.com) from this thread so thought I'd update it with some current info.

The video John Jared took is not bad for an old 2003 model AirTrakker, but we have made a lot of improvements since then, which you can tell from this clip a customer (thanks Steven Crew!) took earlier this summer. This was taken with an AirTrakker Pro that uses our new Inertia Wheel drive, which makes the panning a lot smoother and more accurate.

http://www.wakevideo.net/MF26.wmv

It does have a little bounce in the picture when landing a jump. The units we are shipping now have a lighter tracking arm and larger bearing to fix that, but don't have any clips from users to show that yet. BTW, we are sending out notices now to let users know if you got an AirTrakker Pro or TopMount before Aug 15, you can return it and we'll upgrade it with the new tracking arm, bearing and a heavier Inertia Wheel.