Camera mounts? Wakeye vs Ski-Doc Orbit mount

C5Quest

Hello,
Im looking to invest in a quality camera mount for this season to break down my crappy technique. Any help on pros/cons of the Wakeye (https://www.wakeye.com/collections/water-ski) or the Ski-Doc Orbital mount (http://www.theskidoc.com/ski-doc-camera-mount-orbit.htm) would be great. Also, iPhone vs GoPro use? I use both for different things. I like the idea of the Wakeye App and the auto on/off feature with speed. With Tech these days seems either is good option. Thank you....and my crappy technique with thank you later.

ScottScott

I have the ski doc orbit mount and it works good. No auto record based on speed but I just record the whole set, then download to computer when home and watch there. The orbit mount comes with cell phone holder if you want to use wake eye app. I don't have experience with other setups so can't really give a comparison.

Jmoski

My friend has the Wakeye, I have the ski-orbit. I think the ski-orbit is easier for changing rope lengths and is less intrusive in the boat. I often put my hand on top of the pylon as I turn while entering or exiting the driver seat, you can’t do that with the wakeye.

I run a gopro, note the ski-orbit doesn’t come with the gopro adapter.

I love the Wakeye iPhone app speed control, I logged a request with Gopro to add the same auto on/off based on speed to their mobile app.

ScottScott

The ski doc orbit doesn't come with go pro mount, but you just get the tripod adapter for go pro to easily mount into the orbit.

UWSkier

Go with a combo. Get the Orbit, then buy the Wakeye app. Been using that combo going on 3 years now with great success. Orbit is a great unit.

sodbuster88

I have the orbit, but like using the Olympus TG5. My go pro works beautiful but is too wide angle and I haven’t been able to get my iPhone image appropriately stabilized due to pylon vibration.

ozski

I love my Wakeye but its always breaking. They have amazing customer service but I'm thinking of getting an Orbit..

C5Quest

Thanks. Looks like I’ll start with the Orbital and experiment from there.

pmski

I have been using the wakeye for a couple of years with my iphone, the wakeye app is very easy to use just set your speed and no more viewing unwanted video, I had one issue with the arm after a year of use so I contacted them to buy a new arm, John from wakeye told me they had made an upgrade to the part and sent it to me at no charge, to say I'm impressed would be an understatement I ski an average of 5 days a week so it gets a lot of use and reviewing my skiing on my phone is an awesome trainer

UWSkier

More on the Wakeye app... if you use Google Photos, you can tell your phone to automagically sync video to the cloud over wifi. Google Photos has unlimited storage. My ski buddies and I area all part of a Google Group Album. Once our videos are uploaded to the cloud, we select and drop them into the group album for others to view as well.

Benefits of this:
You can watch on a computer or on your big screen, at High Def, in Slow-Mo as it uses the Youtube player.
Your buddies can help you spot stuff from afar. My friend in TX who's a way better skier than I can provide remote coaching
It helps feed your obsession... as if that needed help...

Ed_Johnson

For those using the Orbit. Does the Camera mounted on the side give a accurate view of the skier throughout the course, especially at short line ??
What about Vibration ???

I have a Wake-Eye, but the Plastic pivot mount that holds the Camera, completely came apart, sending a $1200 camera to the floor. Not impressed and looking for options.

C5Quest

I’m concerned about vibration as well. From all the sample video I have seen it looks like both the ski doc and the wakeye shake quite a bit when the skier begins the pull after the buoy. Maybe impossible to get rid of pylon shake?

ScottScott

I'm thinking its tough to get rid of the pylon shake, I see little on the go pro due to its stabilization. You are mostly going to be relying on the devices stabilization.....of course I'm not pulling on it as hard as a real shortliner would.....

vtmecheng

I have been thinking about the shake issue. Mechanical devices really aren't going to help much. If you make it soft enough to really dampen out the shock at the frequencies I'm guessing really matter then the material may be too soft, making the camera move too much all the time but the big shocks are not bad. Maybe the damper could be such that it only works in rotation about the vertical axis and not horizontal ones. I'm not sure that would work well either. The cameras internal stability is still the best.

OSUwaterskier

Has anyone tried attaching some kind of swivel mount to the underside of the bimini then attaching to the rope somehow? Would the shake be just as bad, if not worse, because of the wind?

DefectiveDave

Wire rope isolators work well. You just have to choose the right wire and length to damp out frequencies above 10 Hz or so. Camera stabilizers often assume any shake is at low frequencies, not those higher frequencies coming through a pylon, which is why they don't work well. So the wire rope isolators help mitigate that design limitation.

Cameras meant for drones are another option, given those have higher frequencies. However, the amplitude is often less than what comes through the pylons. Finally, many have had luck with JVC camcorders which use digital stabilization which works at higher frequencies.

DefectiveDave

Here's a previous thread:

https://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/comment/221741

vtmecheng

I have used wire rope isolators for shock isolation. The ones I've used are generally designed for vertical and horizontal shock inputs, not rotational. Also, I still think the design would be threading a needle between isolating the rope shock and not having the isolator hit a natural frequency that causes a constant camera shake. Could be done but would need some data to start with. Yeah, the camera has digital stabilization but they have limits and you may not want to push that to help another a little. All this said, I'd love to see the shock data from a rope versus the the vibration the rest of the time.

Maybe I'm off base here, my specialty is more on the high amplitude, short duration side.

Ed_Johnson

I was just about to order the Orbit, and I found on their Web-Site it will only hold a camera weight of 7 oz. If that's true, that's not much. The Canon Vixia G-40 I use weights 1.98lbs, and has excellent stabilization, plus a remote to play back fast or slow motion from your easy chair. So I guess it won't work, unless you have a really small camera.

AbR_Ski_Student

Or, you can build your own on the cheap*!



*P.S. I don't actually recommend doing this unless you have a mountain of time to burn on troubleshooting.

DaveD

@AbR_Ski_Student Nice work, but I wouldn't really call 80/20 cheap unless you have leftovers from another expensive project.

C5Quest

Wow that’s crazy lookin.

AbR_Ski_Student

@DaveD
Very true. I was fortunate to have leftovers from a different project.

braindamage

@AbR_Ski_Student that looks like a lot of sharp edges that can scrape. I’d suggest some rubber or foam padding.

The zipties are a nice touch though

tap

Big fan of the ski dock orbit. The ease of use with rope changes is pretty hard to beat. Also, it's a reasonably sturdy mount. With just a phone directly on the orbit it had a lot of vibration that made the videos pretty hard to watch. So, I made an isolation mount to filter out all of the higher frequency content. It works great and the orbit is rigid enough to the pylon to prevent excessive low frequency motion. I still get a bit of rope induced motion, but it's pretty minor.

Never used a wakeye mount, but their phone app is fantastic.

The top plate is supported by rubber tubbing that is very low stiffness for lateral motion but still reasonably stiff for vertical loads to support the weight of the top plate and attached phone. The orange foam is just a snubber incase someone decides to push on it, it's not in contact with the top plate.

C5Quest

I used my new ski-doc orbit mount with my iPhone this morning. Our club have a new MasterCraft. It mounted up no problem but the vibration basically made it unwatchable. Very frustrating. Anyone have good results out of the box or is it reality that you hAve to modify it. Enter luck with GoPro?

ScottScott

Go pro works very good. Wish there was optical zoom....but your phone doesn't have optical zoom either. The stabilization is good.

C5Quest

Thanks. I’ll try it

ScottScott

If youve been watching the masters web cast, there is a handheld camera in boat that shows them changing rope lengths. You'll notice there is a ski doc orbit mount on the pylon for the pylon camera.

blakeyates

I guess I’ll be buying the Orbit; so, I either need to modify it as did @tap or buy a GoPro to go with it? I have an iPhone 8 and I like the idea of the App to allow for minimizing unwanted video. I don’t believe I have that option with the GoPro. Any additional advice?

Gloersen

@blakeyates no mod needed Blake, it's just a typical 1/4" x 20 camera mount screw that holds the device on the Orbit base. The cellphone holder can attach directly (without @TAP harmonic damper).