Shooting from the car

What do you use when shooting from the car? Does anyone use anything more sophisticated than a beanbag? What lens do you find best to work with? Personally I use the double bean bag from wildlife watching supplies upon which I nervously balance my Sigma 300-800. It's not nice, it's hard to manoeuvre within my car (Toyota Celica), and I'm in constant fear of dropping the thing.

Regards

John S

Hi John,

Not much help but I prefer the Beanbag method. I also have an Ergorest window mount but it is limited with what ballheads you can use and space is awkward. I dropped my beanbag into a reedbed recently so am currently without one. Using a large lens is always going to be a problem from witin a normal famiy car.

Rob

Hi John,

I have been using a Nikon 200-400mm vr lens which although is not as big as your sigma, is still quite a weight. Could you not use a Monopod which could sit on the seat to support the lens? Maybe resting the monopod up against the car door for extra support?.

Regards Chris
www.c-m-l.com

Some of the proprietory items can be expensive, so I made my own, I use a home made wooden window tray with a beanbag, and hook the camera strap over my head, i usually fix cammo netting over the window, the lens is perfectly stable on the wooden tray which basically slots over the wound down window and sits on the window sill of my car. My window tray will happily support a canon 500mm f4L IS lens.

works for me

another method is to set up a lens and tripod on the passenger seat and shoot through the passenger window, but this is quite cumbersome to set up and operate, the window tray is quick and easy.

more pics below

image 2

image 3

Hi John,

This is the set-up I use,by making the support to 'hug' the contours of the car door as closely as possible it is very solid.

Hi John,

Below I have tried to explain my set up using a vehicle as a hide. I do like your idea Larry, looks simple & effective

What I use is a simple plank 8"x 2.5" that runs from the back of the vehicle to front dashboard between the driver & passenger seat. Cushioned on the dashboard with a towel & fixed solid at the back allows me to clamp on two lenses, a 600mm AFS at the back & a 400mm AFS at the front. Using 2 centre columns off the tripods I attach to each the manfrotto 349 bench clamps with the manfrotto 393 tripod heads. This creates the ideal mobile gun turret, all in place & set up I just drive to any sites, the furthest I have drove is from Gloucester to the car par for Skomer. Also I can go off road to the Barn Owl sites I monitor, which shows how sturdy this method can be. Once there I simply wind the window down, turn the lens to face out of the passengers window & hey presto. For the lens in the back I need to get out & sit in the back of the vehicle. Mobile hide with double barrel shooting

What I don't like with the window clamps is the lens sticking out of the window, with the method I use the lens is kept internal & hidden.

If I want to turn the vehicle back to normal I just un-fix the plank & put the seats back into position.

I will sometime if this helps upload some photos to show what it looks like.

Vince

Hi I use the double bean bag from wildlife watching supplies filled with rice I find it much better than if it was filled with dried peas it is quite heavy though three kilos nearly.

Phillip.

Macdonald's drive-through must be a doddle for you guys

Good to see Graeme thinking outside the box

Rob

I use the new Double bean bag from WWS which is a extra 4 inches longer and holds more but its even more sturdy than the standard one, which is great if your driving around lanes with it on the window sill(No camera on it), it doesn`t fall off!, you won`t want to carry it too far though

Not sure if its on the website, but he does them. Tom`s idea I believe

Try looking at the Ergorest (Warehouse used to stock them) it was designed for the job. I also recall that either Jobu or Whimberley made a window mount. Saw one in Tanzania with a Whimberley Gimbal and a Canon 600mm on top.

The ballhead/gimbal is best with a fixed length lens as any zooming requires constant re-balancing of the centre of gravity at great risk to both car door and camera gear. That said, if you aren't zooming in and out all the time this combi is a delight to use.

A window mount with a "trigger" grip action tripod head would be worth looking at, but I've no experience of using this combi.

I use a double beanbag and a kirk/ballhead/gimbal depending on the lens.

A

My thanks to everyone for their interesting ideas, I hadn't thought at all of building a support platform.

Regards

John S

I use a Uniloc 1600M tripod (Benbo Mk.1) with a shortened centre column. It's adaptable enought to fit over the passenger seat, and stable enought to drive with a 300 or 500 mounted (seat belt worn of course ) As with Vinces suggestion, the lens remain inside the car, shooting out the passenger side.
It can also be wedged between the drivers door & seat.

I currently use a beanbag but I do like the idea of both Larry's and Justin's wooded platforms.

Vince have you thought of contacting the British Army and selling your design so that they could us it for mounting machine guns in their Land Rovers!

Gavin