Most skilled filmmakers select get good quality DSLR steadicams and they indeed operate well. However, by far the most steadicams will price you various hundred dollars. So you could think about creating a single by yourself with $25 in hardware retailer parts.
I also obtain a fantastic article. I'll share it with my site visitors.
To begin with, we ought to prepare enough supplies:
1. four computer aluminum (or other) tubing having a matching diameter Drill bit. On my rig, the brief rails are 8 1/2" and the long rails are 22 1/2" but you can adjust this to finest fit your need.
two.1 Ikea Boholmen plastic cutting board or related
three. two bicycle hand grips
4. Various tiny screws or nuts and bolts with drill bit (and tap if desired) to match
five. A compact piece of foam for the shoulder pad, if desired
The initial rig was intended to be metric and use the normal 15mm x 60mm rod configuration, sadly 15mm supplies may well not be easy to uncover. For those who fail to find the necessary rods, it is possible to transform them all to 5/8". Essentially, the move shows my operate with 5/8" tubes as I failed to find 15mm tubes.
The Handles
To create the handles cut out the two smaller hockey stick shaped pieces in the diagram. These pieces have two 60mm apart 15mm holes so that they would fit more than the outer two rods on every side of the mount. The handles are just wide enough so that the bicycle grips would fit on them very snugly. If this is too snugly for the grips, sand the hockey sticks a bit.
The Frame
The very first element to be cut would be the two lengthy pieces for the 4-hole frames. (Essentially my 1st go was a 3 hole frame, but this didn't set the camera far sufficient more than to the left to line up the Z-finder with my eye. In the video you could see me operating on the three hole version in areas...)
With the extended pieces cut out, (be sure to create them wide enough that there's a very good quantity of plastic remaining about the holes) come across the center line of every single with the two frame pieces and mark the center points in the 4 holes as accurately as possible. These two frames must line up exactly so that the tubes fit and stay great and parallel.
In case you tend not to possess a calipers, it is possible to drill the two frame pieces at the same time stacked a single on top of the other. You could even make them longer than necessary and screw them with each other so that you know the holes are dead-on accurate. Then when the holes are drilled you may unscrew the pieces and trim away the screw holes.See the image beneath for far more particulars
Cut out all the remaining frame pieces with a compact band-saw. Chances are you'll be left with actually rough edges. Lightly sand each piece to ensure that anything would possess a clean and smooth skilled appear.
The moment I you've the 2 4-hole frame pieces completed you'll be able to assemble the brief rods and longer rods with each other inside the frame to test the alignment.
The holes I drilled with my 5/8" paddle bit were an precise match to the 5/8" tubing which produced the frame fit very snugly without any screws. (The image beneath has the plate and shoulder pieces on, but if must offer you a fantastic concept on how the rods and frame interact.
The Shoulder Piece
Next you should tackle the shoulder piece.
I wanted something that mounted to the rods via two holes like the rest on the frame, so I came up together with the s-shape notion which ended up operating truly properly.
Cut out the 14" extended piece of plastic and drill two holes having a 60mm spacing at 1 finish.
Then bent this piece into the final shape by heating it quite slowly over a gas stove. You might have to complete this Very slowly or else you'll melt or burn the plastic. It took some minutes of slow heating, but by heating just a little, then bending a little bit, then heating somewhat far more, and bending a little bit additional and so on. you can ultimately got the desired S shape.
If you have the correct bend, ran the plastic below the faucet to cool it down and set the curve. This mate take some time and fiddling to obtain right. Among the list of perks of creating the curve suitable, is due to the fact the shoulder piece is mounted with no any screws, it is actually adjustable.
The Mounting Plate
Basically, the plate is just a modest rectangle piece with the cutting board which you need to screw towards the two shorter rods. It is possible to do that with 4 little screws. Each from the 4 holes is countersunk to ensure that the screw heads are flush together with the surface with the plastic mounting plate. You may tap the holes in the tubing too in order that the screws would thread in to the rods. For those who use a large sufficient screw you *may* be able to skip the threading method, or you could drill each of the way through the tubes and place a washer and nut on the underside. (Nonetheless, taping supplied the cleaner and much more expert look, so I did the extra work of threading the holes)
Using the mounting plate securely in place, use a piece of paper and a pencil to trace the hole pattern from the bottom of one's camera and transfer that towards the mounting plate.
Subsequent drill two 1/4" holes inside the plate. There is certainly some logic towards the spot of generating those holes on the plate.
You want to ensure that that when your camera is screwed to the rig which you can nonetheless access the battery through the space in between 2 rods. Take the time to make careful measurements so the holes on the plastic piece usually do not align the battery door within a position where you can not eliminate the battery.
As for creating two holes right here is my observation: I also noticed that if I only mounted the camera with 1 screw in the center hole that it could rotate a little bit even when the screw was tightened as tight as you possibly can. Considering that my Zacuto base-plate has 4 mounting screw holes, I added a second mounting screw to keep the camera great and straight. If you only have the center hole, a small piece of black rubber or entertaining foam glued to the top from the mounting plate could be adequate to get a secure grip and prevent any rotation.
Immediately after you finish all of this, you can possess a diy DSLR shoulder rig, why not possess a try?
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