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Building an "Ansel Adams" Photography Platform

3K views 16 replies 4 participants last post by  Tenzen 
#1 ·
Hello All,

I'd like to build a platform on top of my 2008 Xterra to perform landscape photography from. Anyone familiar with Ansel Adams knows he built a platform on top of most of the vehicles he owned. Take a look at the Cadillac "Woodie" shown in the attachment - that's a good example of what he used and what I'd like to build. Not quite so large, though.

Have any members of Club Xterra ever built a roof platform similar to this one? I found the ladder and the cargo platform I could use for the base. The platform is more expensive than I wanted, but it needs to be well-built. Any loss of balance, slips, falls - any mistakes made on the roof means a header to the ground real quick.

After spending $600 repairing a lens because the area below my belt (yea, there) touched the "3rd wire" (aka, the electrified wire) on a ranch fence left me with the desire to avoid any more accidents involving camera equipment...

Any ideas or experience with building and the use of this type of platform would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Mark
 
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#2 ·
The main issues for that type of platform are typically the ingress/egress combined with sufficient rail height/walking surface, to discourage falls, yet low enough to get through tolls/bank lanes, parking garages, etc.....combined with added weight concerns.

So, fold down rails pivoting from an aluminum frame, mounted to distribute the weight across as wide an area as possible, is recommended.

Would you be driving around with this thing on the roof all the time, to be ready for whatever you see, or, mostly leaving it off unless heading out to take pics?
 
#3 · (Edited)
Did you forget the attachment?

I saw a guy around here put a rack on a Chevy HHR, that little compact 4-door wagon that looks like a PT cruiser.

He was in construction, and had put a rack ontop, and he had that thing fully loaded with heavy steel.. I mean it looked like a metric ton.. I couldn't believe it..

I was also thinking about putting a rack on my car at the time with a ramp i could put up to it so that I could drive a 4-wheel ATV ontop of the car and forego the need for a trailer.

But no matter what roofrack you buy, it doesn't hold but a hundred pounds. And the best that the shop could do is mount it directly to the roof which might give you 150 maybe even 200 pounds but isn't stong enough to really support walking around on by any means..

So when I saw this guy carrying the entire weight of his car pull into the gas station where I was, i had to ask him how he managed it..

He told me it took him an entire week to build the rack and mount it. He pulled out the entire inside of his car, headliner, seats, side panels, carpet and all. Then custom welded an entire new frame to the inside of the car with heavy steel bars spanning the top of the car where the rack mounted, down the sides of the car and across the floor..

Well no wonder.. He'd blow out his suspension or break an axel before his roof Rack would give in..

That rack could hold anything a custom rack mounted to the bed and front bumpers of a full-size work truck could..

That's the kind of platform you need up there if you're going to be walking around, if you don't want to damage your roof.

He said he'd do it for me for a couple thousand. But i ended up trading my car in for my X ..
 
#4 ·
The factory roof limit is low because the aluminum frame rails, and, COG issues that impact handling, come into play, etc.

When you evenly distribute the weight, across the entire roof, the roof itself can support a lot more weight than the factory limit...but, that doesn't change the COG aspects, merely the not collapsing/denting the roof issues.

Hence the question about if this was to be in place all the time, or just mounted for project specific applications, etc.

The X would NOT need a new frame welded in to support the weight, just a way to mount the platform that distributed the weight evenly.
 
#6 ·
What is COG?

And how much weight do you think it can support..

And how many mount points would be needed?

A person is a lot of weight in one spot, so if you had 4 mount points and stood on the corner, much more weight would be on that corner mount

COG = Center of Gravity

The higher the weight is carried, the easier to roll over, etc.


I'd say there are too many variables as to maximum weight, but off hand a few hundred lb should be OK if there was a floor for example.

4 points as support is too few though, plus, you'd want the weight not on points, but the points merely being anchors, not supporting points. IE: Positional anchoring, and, more than 4, probably 6-12 depending on the type of use and construction, etc.

There are already roof tents and so forth that can take 2 people, so, that's a precedent.

If the weight is on the roof, spread out, there is less force down on any one location, much as a large enough lilly pad can support a frog, etc.
 
#8 ·
I been doing photography for like 3 years, frequently climb onto my Yakima load warrior on my roof to grab shots. 2"BL, 3"SL. No ladder. Havent had an issue. If you want a platform you can always lay a piece of 3/4" plywood down onto it and drill holes to rig it up to the yakima rack to prevent movement. Peep it

www.justinandersdenmark.com

Like TJ said the rack distributes the weight. My buddy had 20 sheetrocks and 10 plys on there once, or some crazy amount like this.
 
#11 ·
We're also professionals who carry a lot of expensive gear, and need a good ladder.. To get up and down with.

Not just something to jump up and stand on, but something that's going to have a lot of expensive and heavy electronic equipment, several large lights and lightning tripods, various other tripods and gear, and a large removable hoist.. Itll need some low side rails, and have to be a perforated metal platform with removable rubber flooring..
 
#15 · (Edited)
That's awesome.. But way beyond the scope of anything we do..

We wouldn't be flying down the freeway and not anything that required remote control or inertial stabilization..

Mostly just as a means of gaining additional height and hi-lo range..

Its just the manually operated kind with the extended display that telescopes out etc

I just think a mobile platform would be a great thing to have..

If I was doing that kind of filming I'd use a flatbed with all custom filming platforms surrounding it..

But all of our videos are fine from the ground, on a wheeled hoist. Just think it'd be nice to have the roof platform for mobility and convenience and angle extension

It was the OP who wanted Ansel Adams photography..

But the same idea would work for my kind of videography and photography.

A higher pov is always nice to have for taking images from new angles

Large outdoor photographic flashes are something I use all the time in normal photography as well..

And constant lighting panels for film.. It'd be great if i could put them on a mobile roof rack as well
 
#17 ·
There's a Gobi roof rack I saw today on a sweet custom 2015 X that replaced the stock Rack and utilized most of the existing holes.. He said it holds 600 pounds and his rear ladder holds 250.. He climbed up the ladder and walked around on the roof without any problem at all, just to show me how stable it was. And he weighed like 230 or something..

It has a lower section in front and a higher section in the rear. The front can store gas and water cans..
 
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