External cameras - performance, mounting and legal issues

Or get a gopro 7 black and enable hypersmooth. From what I’ve seen there is no wobble and it looks nice on turns and turbulence

@TimR before you go buying new hardware or software perhaps you would like to try a few old tricks.
1) Get into your aircraft and decide where you would like to place the camera for the visuals require. IoIf there is what looks like a suitable support for a camera mount, test it to see if it moves in relation to the rest the aircraft. For instance plexiglass is not a good support if it flexes without moving the aircraft.
2) Start the engine and put your ear gently against the support, if that is not possible use a microphone gently placed on the support. You are listening for engine vibrations (a sort of brrrre as the support and mic come together) Try this at different engine settings.
3) The violence of the brrrr or brr brrrbrr the stronger the connection between mount and support will need to be. Most affordable off the shelf camera mounts are only useful on a certain type of support. Personally for a cheap mount I like to make my own with a slices of rubber, cable ties, bungies. The idea being camera, mount and support all move as one.After it is fixed you can retest to see how much brrrrr there is at the camera. There should be very little difference between the brrr of the camera and the brrr of the support. Of course you have to adapt the mount if you want to pan or tilt the camera during the flight, that requires a bit more thought and some kind of head between mount and camera.
4) Blurr. The more a camera shakes or vibrates the more blurred or out of focus an image will seem. It is a result of the same effect as you get with the eye, persistance of vision.Stop shaking your headr a camera violently an the image beomes clearer.
5) Unless you have a full glass canopy on the aircraft the inside of the cockpit is likely to be darker in some areas than others.The instrument panel is an example. If you want to film the instrument panel the iris on the camera will need to be opened to allow more light onto the recording medium. Auto exposure will do this for you and of course on modern digital cameras and smartphones this is done electronically. The result of the iris opening is a lessening of the depth of field/focus. This means that if for instance you are focussed on the instruments, a hand on the throttle quadrant might well be out of focus. With auto focus the camera might well chase the focus as the hand comes in and out of shot causing blurr as it tries to get it right. The auto exposure can also cause the same effect as the auto focus as the hand might be receiving more light than the panel and as the depth of field changes so will the focus. My advice would be, once you have set exposure and focus turn off the auto if possible.
6) When filming the exterior from the interior of an aircraft. First zoom fully in on what you are trying to film eg the ground, set the exposure and then open the iris just a little, then focus the camera. If you can lock focus and exposure in this postion and zoom out to the image you are looking for. This should both reduce the effect of haze and counteract many of the effects of cockpit glass.
I cannot guarantee that any of this will work with your camera/aircraft/mount but these stages have served me well in the past.

Thanks all for the advice – very insightful. I’m going to play around with some of these suggestions this week and see how I get on!

Hi,

Do EASA regulations say anything about mounting GoPro cameras outside and inside the plane? Is it allowed or do you need special permits? I only find rules in UK.

Thank you,
Martin

Peter wrote:

What would be more interesting is whether anyone anywhere has ever applied for an official modification

You don’t have to apply. Just have your Part-66 engineer check according to the Document linked in SC-403, take pictures and a description as addendum to the AFM and fill out form 123 for the maintenance file. Takes around one hour. I have done it on 5 aircraft by now.

From here

Peter wrote:

I have done many crossings of the Alps and got many great photos, as well as (more recently) videos with an external camera

What are your experiences with external cameras? Does any (CAA) official cares about it?

In our aeroclub, it is unfortunately forbidden to mount external cameras on the outside, after one guy has been prosecuted for it by the Luftaufsicht. I know also stories from Switzerland, where the local CAA fine pilots with external cameras on certified aircrafts. In this example, someone lost his cam upon landing. As a result, the Swiss authorities pointing out again that every camera needs an official approval.

As far as I know, this very restricted “external camera” regime is a EASA thing. With an N-reg, this is not an issue at all. And even in Germany, mountaing cameras on a UL is allowed. Why this hassle and differences? There are so many videos online from external cameras on EASA-reg aircrafts, even from aircraft manufactures, such as Diamond. Do they all have an official permission/certificate to mount an external camera? I guess nobody has…

Thanks for the hint @Peter, it seems to be quite easy. I will ask our maintenance company for more information.

Peter wrote:

There is a lot of these stories around but it is difficult to find actual reports of a prosecution.

Absolutely, and this is why I always stay sceptical against such claims and love to hear from others. The guy claimed to be prosecuted for it, shared the story with our aeroclub, from which the club made their decision to forbid any external mounted cameras. Since I’m a board member now, I’m searching for evidence that it can be (legally) done, to cancel the restriction.

To be honest, our local CAA department (Bezirksregierung Münster) is very liberal and relaxed to deal with. Quite the opposite what you might expect from stereotype German authorities and I don’t think they would prosecute someone for a mounted camera. They would only have a short small talk with the pilot, and thats it. I’ve lots more respect for the Swiss authorities. If they want to screw you, you’ll get screwed.

It is also not legal to record ATC in Germany for example, but no one has ever been provable prosecuted for it. Thanks to insider information, it seems that the DFS does not make any issue out of it, so how will complain? An angry Flugleiter perhaps? The local CAA already knows about our videos, and they never said a single word regarding the ATC. They simply don’t care as well.

Peter wrote:

I used special suction cups for mine, but I remove it immediately after landing.

Which suction cups did you use? Can you recommend some, which hold in 10.000 ft by 110 TAS?

Just got this video link from Mooneyspace:

In the comments section, the OP mentions that he had used GoPro Sticky Pads with homemade aluminium selfie stick to mount GoPro Max camera. You could see the setting in the video around 0:48 seconds onward. Could a camera be really mounted like this with enough certainty that it won’t fall off mid-flight?