self made a little steadycam for sony hc3

[Marco Levi]

hi friends, i have buy a wonderfull video camcorder sony hdv hc3 model
fantastic quality :-)))))))) image very bad stabilation image, a little moviment of my body big moviment to image video :-((((((((

i would make a little steadycam for stabilation image.
you have a little plane for self made a steadycam ???????

thanks a lot for reply.

bye m.

sorry for my bad english

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Many of the self-built units use a pipe with the camera threaded to the top and a balancing weight on the bottom. I've seen some where the owner puts in a lever arm in the middle somewhere, using a pipe T-joint and another piece of pipe.

[Michael Y Wong]

Here you go,

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/

I built one myself and improved upon the design of that on the website, but nevertheless honestly tho it is a poor stablizer, but I guess good for the price. I do use it for the ultra low ground shots on short films but for obvious reasons my Merlin does a WAYYY better job.

[Charles Papert]

Yup. It amazes me how many people have followed that model, considering it has inherent flaws in the design that have nothing to do with cost.

[Peter Ferling]

Yes, but for 32 bucks I now have useable handheld/follow shots and without requiring EIS. I did it as a joke and was surprised by the results.

I have two days of soccer matches to shoot this weekend, and with little notice I have no time to pick up a better device. Even my monopole and three point shoulder rigs won't do, the image just falls apart if I have to move to follow the action. Don't let the cheap stuff fool you, it covers the basic need for counter balance. The rest is skill.

[Charles Papert]

What I was getting at was that without the rig costing any more, it could be far better designed. That right angle handle coming off the side inhibits the stability and should be eliminated. If the whole thing were made out of PVC with counterweights at the bottom (especially if in the shape of an inverted T, with weights at either end of the horizontal bar), it would be both lighter and more inert.

In other words--it would be just as easy to build a rig for the same cost that would be a more effective stabilizer. Yet this particular design has proliferated.

This all said, if you are happy with the results, all this is moot.

[Frank Hool]

There is one important update done to famous Johnny's $14 steadycam. Added one more weigth - to horizontal boom. It should reduce pan-style instability. Who uses it knows it well how it emerges.
For those who can't get it work well - it needs pretty good physical shape. You have to be able completely unbind Your forearms from body, that they can work as buffer. It's not easy but possible. And so does it very good job imo.

[Lee Kazimir]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

What I was getting at was that without the rig costing any more, it could be far better designed. That right angle handle coming off the side inhibits the stability and should be eliminated. If the whole thing were made out of PVC with counterweights at the bottom (especially if in the shape of an inverted T, with weights at either end of the horizontal bar), it would be both lighter and more inert.

In other words--it would be just as easy to build a rig for the same cost that would be a more effective stabilizer. Yet this particular design has proliferated.

This all said, if you are happy with the results, all this is moot.

I don't mean this sarcastically: have you considered designing something like this with your ideas and publishing it on a website? I'm sure many would love to follow your better design and you could surely find a way to use that attention to your own benefit.

[Charles Papert]

Umm--haven't thought about it, I have other projects out there that are more pressing (and lucrative, to be honest...I don't think Johnny has made much off his plans!)

This design is essentially the same as the Steadytracker, in any event. nothing new or radical about it.

The key to a handheld gimballed stabilizer is minimizing the weight of the system as much as possible to reduce operating fatigue. The next guideline is to distribute the weight as intelligently as possible. Use the principle of physics, which indicate that the further a mass is moved from a fulcrum, the more leverage it exerts. An assembly of steel pipes may weight 6 lbs, or the same assembly made of PVC may only weigh 1 lb, which allows 5 lbs of dead weight to be added as far from the camera as possible, which will present substantially more inertia than the steel version. Or you can perhaps add only 3 lbs of dead weight and realize the same inertia as the steel pipe version for 2/3" of the overall weight, which will allow you to shoot for longer.

The outrigger arm in the original design seemingly presents an opportunity for the other hand to be used to further stabilize the rig, but in reality it is introducing a whole new set of forces into the system. At that point you have simply expanded the footprint of the camera and made it heavier, both of which will increase inertia (that's how the Fig Rig works) but you are sacrificing the isolating effects of the Steadicam design that cantilevers from a single multi-axis fulcrum.

[Jerome Cloninger]

Originally Posted by Marco Levi

i would make a little steadycam for stabilation image.
you have a little plane for self made a steadycam ???????

I built one and used the forums at http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/ as a guide.

Parts I used:
1" Aluminum Box Channel
Tripod camera mount from old tripod
Handle from old monopod
1/2" balljoint from mini tripod (this serves as the "gimbal")
3/4" Nut
Teflon "T" washer from a toilet water supply hose (served as a relatively low friction socket for the balljoint.
1/8" sheet metal to use as a bracket on the bottom of the sled. Used poprivets to secure the sheet metal to the sled.
And a variety of nuts and bolts.

Use the pictures as a guide and the forums mentioned above... this thing flies really well and was used with one of my HC1s till I bought a glidecam 2000. The pipe systems and many other homebuilt jobs look like crap--so I built this one that works and looks much better.

BTW, position the middle and lower arm to control the vertical angle during balancing... and make sure you secure the tripod mount VERY WELL so the camera doesn't fall off. I used some aluminum angle channel and pop riveted the tripod mount to the angle metal, then cut a slot for the two screws to slide through it and secure with the nurled nuts.

Good luck.

[Lee Wilson]

Here is my homemade stabilizer, mainly made from old bicycle parts and scarp stuff I found around the place, the only thing I really paid out for was a 7" monitor (arounf £50).

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/1708/12ru4.jpg

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/2324/29cg.jpg

Lee