» DIY Video Projects

Testing a DIY Steadycam on RollerBlades

Anthony — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:10:30 +0000

Here I am testing a steadycam that I built and designed to let me sling my camera low — between ankle and knee height over the ground. This is my first day out with it, so with a little more work things should get smoother. It is much easier to keep steady when walking, but I couldn’t resist taking it out on the roller blades. Its great for low angle shots. All footage was taken on the Canon HV30.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZTO9mtxGCg

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Testing my Small Version of the Poor Man’s Steadycam

Anthony — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:58:15 +0000

Testing out my small version of the Poor Man’s Steadycam as well as practicing with After Effects for titles and for the second time. The video is not jumpy on purpose, there was a problem with the rendering…but it kind of fits the music so I left it alone. Recorded on my friend’s HF100. HV30 from me coming soon. The music was done in FruityLoops.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaFr6wRQxH4

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DIY Steadi-Cams

Anthony — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:53:15 +0000

These were made using the Poor Man’s Steadycam tutorial created by Johnny Chung Lee. His design kicks ass in simplicity and functionality. A great solution for someone who cant afford a real Steadicam.

The tubes are all 1/2″ pipe purchased at home depot. The small one is for my HV30 mounted alone, and the large setup is for my heavier 35mm DOF adapter rig. There is a 2.5 pound weight at the bottom of the small steadycam, and a 5 pound weight at the bottom of the large one. I made some modifications to the tubing lengths used as follows… Small Steadycam: 10″ top and bottom tubes, and an 8″ side tube. Large Steadycam: 18″ bottom tube, and 10″ top and side tubes with a flange fitting and wooden mount for my inverted DOF adapter rig on top. Finally, I wrapped them both up in black hockey stick tap so I’d have a good gripping surface and so they looked cooler.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

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DIY Inverted Mount for HV30 and DOF Adapter

Anthony — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:19:16 +0000

After finishing my DOF Adapter project, I couldn’t even use the thing because I had nothing to mount it on. So, naturally I had to build a mount. It was cheaper than buying the shrigg rig I wanted, but not if you factor in all the time spent designing and constructing it! I enjoy building things that work though, and this thing works and provides solid support for my35mm DOF adapter. Its built with solid oak, a bunch of screws and threaded inserts, and carpenter’s glue. The mattebox is poplar. It is finished with minwax ebony stain followed by their vintage oil finish. If you have any questions about building your own, email me.

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Wiring for 35mm DOF Adapter

Anthony — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:16:24 +0000

Well, this was the part of the 35mm DOF adapter project that I was truly dreading – small delicate wiring stuff…but, I figured that if all those other schmucks could do it, it wouldn’t be impossible. It ended up working out! I followed Daniel Schweinert’s DOF adapter wiring diagram to get it all done (see last image).

Some notes: I used a telephone cable like a lot of people do, but it was a little confusing. Telephone wires have in them not two, but four wires. Crap…. For this project you really only need two wires to bring electricity from the battery box to the DOF adapter…so what to do? I just used put the four wires into 2 pairs and treated two wires together as one. This made soldering things together a bit easier. The light wires are really easy to damage, so the final step to make the wiring more bulletproof is to go nuts with a hot glue gun…neatly though. I added hot glue to both the DOF adapter and battery box side of the connections. This serves to make it so the wiring job cannot be disturbed and it also secures the phone line to the point that I can pick up the DOF adapter or batterybox by the line without pulling any wiring out.

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DIY 35mm DOF Adapter for Canon HV20/HV30/HV40

Anthony — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:48:17 +0000

Here we have my first build of a 35mm Depth of Field adapter for my Canon HV30. I used tutorials and some parts ordered from Daniel Schweinert at JetSetModels. I constructed the DOF adapter with Canon EOS tubes and purchased a Nikon adapter ring for my lenses. I plan on using my HV30 with Nikon SLR lenses, but figured it would be a good idea to make the DOF adapter compatible with both types.

When I first started researching DIY DOF adapters it seemed like rocket science to me, but after doing a lot of reading and asking poor Daniel a lot of questions I decided to go ahead with the build. Below are photos of the DOF adapter construction process, a parts list along with cost and where I found everything, and a list of the tutorials I used from Daniels website. I will follow up with the electrical wiring part later on. Hope this clarifies the process a bit for those that were on the fence about building their own Depth of Field Adapter. My parts list below should be very complete, let me know if I overlooked something. My next DIY will be a rod and rail support with an inverted mount to hold this monster!

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Parts List for DOF Adapter — Source — Cost with Shipping – In Order of Assembly

Nikon Mounting Ring – kawaphoto on ebay – $16

EOS Macro Tubes (2) – ninca-store on ebay – $18

55-60mm Step-up Ring – JetSetModels – $30

55mm Opteka Rotateable CPF – Amazon – $23

55mm Opteka HD2 10x Macro Lens – Amazon – $45

43mm-55mm Step up Ring – Amazon – $9

Other Parts:

Canon EEa Focusing Screen – Adorama – $45

Opteka 49mm MultiCoated glass filter – Opteka – $19

VH-57x Ver 2.0 Vibrating GG holder for DOF adapters- JetSetModels – $140

MR-50 Mini Rheostat – JetSetModels – $7

Switch – JetSetModels – $3

SU 55-60 Canon Step up ring – JetSetModels – $42

Battery Box – Batteryspace – $5

Glue, Super Glue, and Phone Wire

Total Cost for completed 35mm DOF Adapter: Around $402 USD – Probably could have saved some money if I found better sources, but I was too excited to be patient.

Notes:

I will get everything together in the next week or two and try to get some test footage up.

I used the following tutorials from Daniel’s website to figure everything out for my 35mm DOF build:

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/vh57x_tut.pdf

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/vh_57x_ver2.jpg

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/hv20.jpg

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/konzept2a_update.jpg

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/konzept2update.jpg

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/quickguide.pdf

http://www.jetsetmodels.info/pics/vibration.jpg

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