How to isolate from motorcycle vibration?

[nyoung]

Move to the largest cubic inch/four stroke bike you can find.




Mike

I thought 74 was a lot of cubes.

Real cameras don't image pixels; real motorsicles don't use ethelyne glycol.

[Sirius Glass]

Real cameras don't image pixels; real motorsicles don't use ethelyne glycol.

Or mix oil with the gas.

Steve

[jeckyll]

I do a fair bit of riding with cameras. I found that the simply having good padding does the trick. On the 'rougher' trips I use film gear. When offroading, it lives in my backpack unless I'm on longer road trips, in which case I have 2 densities of foam in the saddlebags.

On the sportbike I used to just toss the FM2n & lenses on top of my cloths in my tail bag.

Dual sport setup:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_2RrwHCfRGNE/SL...0/CIMG3987.JPG
One saddlebag is full of gear with 1 layer of foam and one of bigger bubble wrap (digital on this trip and even that survived with no problems). Here crossing from Idaho into Montana, part of a 9 day trip. BTW, I highly recommend putting the photo gear on the _non_ exhaust side

Sportbike setup:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_2RrwHCfRGNE/SI...0/CIMG3677.JPG
FM2N with 3 lenses (28, 50 and 105) simply in amongst the cloths. Trick is to keep the film gear from banging / rubbing against other gear. I found that lenses in socks worked very well. Thicker tube athletic socks are best This was part of a 5 day trip.

I've not had issues carrying gear this way.

Best of luck.

Bjorn

[pentaxuser]

Depending on how far you intend to go such as long trip or even a short holiday on one then have a look at the Roger and Frances( as in Roger Hicks and Francis Schultz) website. Some of their modules are free and they do cover motorcycles and cameras as they have done a lot of touring on one but I can't say if their article on motorcycles and carrying photographic equipment is a free one.

The site is worth a look anyway and you'll soon discover if the article in question is free or not. The subscription to the complete site which is updated on a regular basis isn't that expensive as I recall.

pentaxuser

[OldBikerPete]

I tour with a BMW four-cylinder machine, so the vibes are higher frequency, lower amplitude than your hog. That said, I got a purpose-built tank bag and bought and trimmed a solid lump of medium density foam rubber to completely fill the bag then trimmed appropriate pockets out of that with a sharp knife. The camera and lenses were a neat fit in the pockets, so to allow the items to be removed and replaced easily I lines the pockets by gluing in some satin cloth.
That combo survived several years of use for a Canon 35mm manual-focus camera and accessories.

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning;

Uhh. I think that I may have cheated. I used to wrap the Minolta SR-1b in the clothes in the bag behind me on the back of the Schorsch-Meier Extra Wide Dual Seat on the Earles fork equipped BMW R-60/2. The camera did not vibrate loose, nor did I over a few hundred thousand miles.

[steve1871]

To transport a camera. if one has the room the best is a Pelican case or Hard case. If an accident was to occour that is the best protection. On the Back in a backPack NO WAY NOT A GOOD IDEA,, Even a small mishap could cause a back injury, if spinal loss of many different things could occour... If you have saddle bags, then make a pouch out of memory foam. Memory foam removes the most vibrations for it size that you can find. I use it to transport lenses, and bodies with great results. Dont forget to take the lens off the camera, and for me i have different bags for different lens and bodies... we did a vibration test and found the memory foam removes a lot of high feq. vibrations, and a good deal of the lower ones also.. I have made the bags with glue , and sewing them around the edge, then turning inside out.. They work

[mgb74]

One of the best insulators is the human body. Sooo.... Foam may work OK but I'm thinking(yeah, right) something along the lines of an isolating gel. You can find it on most online motorcycle shops or even bicycle shops in the form of seat pads. ...

And I thought you were recommending one of those amply framed ladies I see on the back of Harley's.

[Diapositivo]

I put my Minolta X-700 in a small photographic bag. The small photographic bag is put inside another bag (actually a tank-top motorbike bag) which is well padded with bubble plastic stuff that is used for shipping. Lots of it. The bag is closed checking that the camera doesn't shake inside. The entire package is put inside the plastic "suitcase" behind the motorbike. Under the bag I put things that are already there such as waterproof trousers covers, K-way, emergency jumper. I then close the suitcase belts over the bag, so that the bag doesn't bulk.

I also brought with me my Yashica T3 which really is a tank and I brought it around in the rear rigid case, but without so many precautions.

Never had a problem with the Yashica T3 and the Minolta X-700. The Bessa-L lost its frame-counter "glass" during its first trip.

I use a real motorbike with real suspensions, though

[John Koehrer]

And I thought you were recommending one of those amply framed ladies I see on the back of Harley's.

Now there's an idea. Where would you put the camera for best shock absorption?