Best vehicle for rooftop shooting?

[Michael Kadillak]

I have given this subject some consideration myself and have a couple of comments.

Getting on top of any vehicle IMHO has certain logistical and safety issues that need to be properly addressed.The first of these is obviously safety. You could really mess up a camera if it fell from roof level let alone you so having a wide platform with solid edge rails is a must. We all get under the dark cloth and we have an outerbody experience when it comes to image viewing that could be very harmful. Secondly is getting you and your equipment up there and down. Then think of how we move about the tripod to work with the camera. If you have never been up on a platform you should give it a try as it is a unique experience.

An alternative worth considering is an orchard tripod. Essentially, this is a long front section conventional ladder with a single front post that come in a wide range of lengths that are used to pick fruit from trees in orchards. These are several hundred dollars and come in various lengths. The ladder portion is much wider than a regular ladder for stability and a tripod mount can be affixed to the top. One can use a mark on drafting tape on the tripod head/head base as a shot reference point so that the camera can be rotated back to the camera user for adjustments and rotated back to the reference point to check focus and make the image. The beauty is that these are somewhat mobile and can get one up as high as one could be on top of an auto with a tripod.

The other alternative is to put a mechanical basket hoist on pull trailer and pull this behind your vehicle. When you get to location you can hand crank the basket to the height you want to work at and at the top is a safety basket to stand in to do your work. With levelers on the corners of the trailer and a basket at the top, I feel that this would exceed the safety issues with a tripod on top of an auto and get you to a higher shooting elevation. Just my $0.02.