Steady cam idea

freestyledork

freestyledork

Member
Thinking about building a steady cam for my vx2100. Not having much experience with this subject I'm more or less looking for critiques on my idea. If you feel it will not work don't just flame post a reason why you feel it wont work. This is a steady cam for primarily follow shots.

Starting off with finding the thread for the mount I would buy a bolt and have it mounted to a frame surrounding the camera. From there I would build some sort of handle to hold the camera more steady. To connect the two I was thinking of using some kind of R/C car struts. I still don't know for sure what to use but I originally planned on using a spring of some sort. Just using the spring brought up the problem once the camera started to bounce it wouldn't stop very easily. So with a strut I assume it would take the shocks from the skier and then slowly move down as to prepare for another shock.

Any comments on how you think this would work are encouraged, also if you disagree just let me know why and move on.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

PS: ill try and rig something up in photoshop if my description wasn't good enough
 
Kinda a less then half ass example im not really good with sketching up photoshop stuff

steadycamroughidea.jpg

 
The whole idea of the frame is to keep the camera protected to a degree if you wipe hard on a landing. I just came up with this idea at work so I haven't had much time to research parts if anyone knows of some kind of struts to use for this please share.
 
Yeah I'm sure anyone can agree that you would be pissed if some kid cut across on you and you had no choice but to eat it... and then you crack the case on your new hvx...

But ive been looking for some kind of strut to use for the camera. I keep finding lift struts for like back glass windows of cars and such. I feel the camcorders weight is to low for the strut to be beneficial.

If anyone has any advice on where or what kind of strut i could use. let me know, thanks
 
if you're lookin at makin a steadicam, theres tons of diys out there.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=diy steadicam

although i do like the whole rollcage idea,. it would be a good idea to use struts or something of that nature to "suspend" the camera in the frame, rather than connect the struts to the handle. thats just my 2 cents
 
Yeah I've looked at some of the DIY. and I feel like there all just glorified handles not something that will actually dampen the vibration. Nothing against the people who wrote those up.

The best thing I found for a strut to use so far is a ball bearing drawer slide with a hydraulic piston to "soft close the drawer" at $10 a pair its not to bad of a price either.

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A friend actually found me some R/C car struts that I can buy at a local hobby store. here are what they look like...

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Should be interesting to see what this project turns into. Im still interested to hear any advice or input and will keep you guys updated
 
The struts would have to be heavily dampened and you'd have to hang some weight on the bottom of the cage. In theory it sounds like it may work, but it's going to be heavy as hell unless you can rig up some sort of vest to support some of the weight. Build it though, see what you can come up with.
 
IMO mechanical shock absorption is the wrong idea. I think you should make some sort of circular handle to help with holding the camera with both hands as support. Then using your body to absorb impacts while keeping the cam steady against you.

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they are R/C car struts and weight basicly nothing. The frame it self I'm not entirely sure what it will be un till i goto home depot and look around. The camcorder itself only weighting a little over 3 pounds I don't see the rig weighting very much over 10lbs at the most.
 
he is saying you have to have the weights for the shocks to stretch out the springs and struts so that when the camera bumps they have room to move up or down. If it is to light, it will just sit pulled up against the handle and then they wont be effective
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I've thought of doing this sort of thing, but after much effort, the conclusion i came to is that it's not worth hauling that crap around the hill. What i did was I took a floor shank with 1/4 screw hole for the camera mount, then used various pieces of galvanized steel pipe (which screw directly into the floor shank) to make a steadicam setup that can be changed depending on the situation and the camera rig that i'm using at the time. It was the best $30 i ever spent. I just shot a feature film, and i'd say about 1/4 to 1/3 of the movie was shot using this cheapo steadicam. It makes it look like you spent hours setting up tracks, or that you have a real steadicam, however it's total run and gun. I recommend it.
 
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