The Dangle Mount, an Unsuccessful Experiment

The first two times that I mounted a camera on my kite I strapped it to the kite's center strut. That's an easy mount to do, but it has two disadvantages: 1) it's far away from the kiteboarding action, especially given that the GoPro is a wide-angle camera, and 2) it's always tilted sideways at whatever angle the kite is tilted, with dizzying effects when you swoop or turn the kite.

I thought I could get around those problems by making a camera mount that would dangle from the line like a ski lift chair. That way the camera would always be level with the horizon. To get it closer to the action I would "rappel" it about halfway down one of the front lines of the kite.



I tried it yesterday on the ocean but it didn't work very well because it jiggled and rocked back and forth too much, and sometimes even spun 360s around the line. Even after image stablization in iMovie, the footage is pretty much unwatchable. It might be good for still shots, but I think that's about it.

Special Kite Mount from James Douglass on Vimeo.

I'll try again with extensions under the camera so it dangles lower, but I think that will just make the period of the rocking longer. The next thing to try will be a more fixed mount that spans across both the front lines. That will have the same tilting problem as mounting directly to the kite, but at least I will be able to get the camera closer.