Miata Mailing List: March 1993, Message #22



     


   From: (none)
Subject: Re:  Rear View Mirror, and video
   Date: (none)


Okay, thanks to the respondents who told me how to get my mirror working
again.  I had removed it to try and get a better shot thru the windscreen 
on the camcorder.  I removed it the "genteel way", I grabbed it and pulled.
This means I used the breakaway safety feature.  The solution was to unscrew
the two phillips in the windshield header, and reassemble the mirror. My
confusion stemmed from the fact I did not see the nice black plastic cover 
and was trying to finesse it back in as an assembly...

Next - video.  I bought a parcel bar to use for a mounting point for my 
camcorder. I got a nice clamp from a local camera shop, (Bogen "Super Clamp")
and popped the camera on there.  The resulting video was too low, and had
too much vibration.  I moved the clamp & camera to the windscreen header,
which resulted in a better video angle, but once again too shakey. I borrowed
an articulated arm from a friend in Multi-media, and went back to the parcel
bar mount, only up several inches from before. The entire field of view was 
now filled with rear view mirror, so I rmoved it (see above :-)  Also a great 
angle, but too shakey. There's a pattern here.

So, the question becomes - is my mounting not rigid enough, or does the
car just ride so rough video is difficult?  

Next step - borrow a camcorder w/ image stabilisation software. :-)

I'm open to advice and critiques....

Brad

P.S. - not having the rear view mirror was an interesting experience.  Good
things include better forward visibility and not being distracted by trucks
that tailgate. Down side was reduced rear scope, due to depending on RH mirror
for over half of rear vision.