Last weekend I drove from Adelaide to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road. I headed off on Saturday night, stopped off just before the border near Nelson, and continued on Sunday, stopping at most of the main points of interest, such as the 12 Apostles.
The vibrations above 90kmph were easily manageable, with most of the massaging coming through the chair, rather than the steering wheel (although there is indeed some movement there). Despite the slightly buckled wheels that need to be replaced sometime soon, it was a very enjoyable ride. Hardly any traffic on the road, the hum of the exhaust, the sparse Australian landscape; Many things that I haven’t experienced for a long time.
Driving along the coorong at sunset was very relaxing, although I had to keep my wits up afterwards to stop the suicide bunnies from fulfilling their mission. I also saw a kangaroo and what looked like a deer-sized animal just off the road.
I also got to test out my new toy, a Manfrotto 241V camera suction mount, for attaching a camera to a car’s windows or body panels. As a test in Adelaide I mounted it on the passenger side window, and it seemed to keep stable, even when going over speed humps. Unfortunately at 100k’s the vibration was a bit too much for the door hinge, resulting in a very bumpy image, despite an additional mount attachment. I solved the vibration problem by mounting it on the passenger side of the windscreen, with the video camera in a portrait point of view. While this technique might work for recording in 1:1.33 for a well scripted splitscreen scene in post production, not having prepared a script for such a scene (even something as simple as a timelapse on the left hand side with the right hand side showing reversed timelapse footage looking toward the rear of the car [or even the same position] on a return route to Adelaide) rendered such a shot not so beneficial. Due to the aerodynamic angle of the windscreen, it is impossible to shoot 16:9 landscape from an upright position when mounted on the windscreen. The obvious solution was to shoot upside down. As my AE82 is right hand drive, I chose to have the default point of directed travel (where a straight road ahead meets the horizon) just left of centre, with a smidgen of bonnet showing for maximum reproduced kinaesthesia (the feeling of motion through a high field of view). I haven’t had a full screen review of the footage yet, but will post some once I get some free time 