Dialing in the Cam-Car

Growing up, I’ve always loved car chases in film. My interest started when my dad played Smokey and the Bandit all the time. I was infatuated the ‘77 Trans Am in the film and the awesome chase sequences.

The original idea was to gut the car completely and add a full cage in order to shoot cars on track. At the moment, this won’t be happening anytime soon. Besides getting the car properly setup, there’s a lot of legality with driving on a proper track for clients and events. It’s on my list to tackle at some point but for now, I’m open to shooting for anyone interested in some rolling shots for personal use.

Inside setup used to require manual tracking using an Xbox controller and HDMI wireless transceiver to see the image on a monitor mounted to the windshield. Now using the DJI Ronin app, you can not only target track the car but also control the camera remotely using a usb-c cable. So now, all I use is a single iPad and remote focusing wheel by PDmovie. I bought the PDmovie kit because the company boasts about their LIDAR automatic focusing system but neglects to stress that LIDAR does not work well, if at all, when using it outside in sunny or even overcast light. But since I’m not running my lenses completely wide open, it’s not that difficult to manually focus and drive.