DIY camera rig / matte box etc

[Roman]

Hey guys,

Given that I've got a limited budget for camera gear (who doesnt) to me it makes sense to pay $$$ for the things I cant make myself (like fancy lenses/glass) and not spend $$$ on things I can probably hobble together myself.

Had the day off work today, so thought I'd put together a basic camera rig to help with my otherwise parkinsons-esque shakeycam shots.

Consists of:

-Some wood and 12mm ali rod from the local hardware store as crossmembers/runners
-a plastic lunchbox for the base of a matte box (need to build shades yet)
-a smaller plastic box for a matte box for the liveview screen
-12mm rod with a ground down nut bashed into the end, + some hoseclamps that they wind onto as a basic follow focus
-Aluminium U section to attach to the tripod.
-A can of matte black paint

Apologies for the bad pics, lense was stuck on F1.8.









Will spray the whole thing matte black when more or less finished, so it passes the '10 meter rule' for not looking ghetto 

I cut and drilled about 6 of the wooden crossmembers, so if I think of other stuff that might be useful to add later its all modular.
I can take bits off and add bits on to make it a shoulder mounted rig, or on tripod, etc.
So still a few more bits to do before it'll be useful for much.

Even so, it's cost me about $40 worth of materials so far, vs an equivilent off the shelf rig that costs $450 or so here.

Need to practice focus pulls, it isnt easy!
I've got a good idea for making some stoppers for the focus 'arms' though, will see how that goes...

Anyone else here made anything DIY for a camera setup?

[BravoParanormal]

I will have to give this a try. Possibly use poly to make the blocks. Good looking setup!

[Pumpkinwaffle]

That seems like a pretty nice setup indeed! The good point of DIY is also that it is completely personalized to your needs like you said.

Personally I'm going to go for the frugal camera stabilizer(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZtlSVgG1h8&feature=plcp), my tripod is too cheap to hold something like this. So it'll be handheld for me. It's nice to see DIYs on the forum though ^^

[Roman]

Yeah plastic blocks etc would work really well... While at a 'prototype' sort of stage where I'm not sure what I'm going to prefer, having a material that's easy to work with is priority over absolute lightness or appearance.

So might be a few revisions yet, and a bit more work on the follow focus setup.

Once I've got a design I like I'll likely make the crossmember parts from U shaped aluminium extrusion, so the frame will be as light as is practical to do with reasonably cheap materials.

[Director]

Good Idea

[Roman]

I've been playing around with this a bit more.

Part of the reason for bodging something together myself, is the insane prices of locally sourced camera stuff.

However there were a few areas that needed improvement which I couldnt do with a drill press or bandsaw

Found some online stores which were a HEAP cheaper than locally, even including shipping:

Gadgetinfinity.com and dx.com

So bought the following:

-Battery grip, and 3 extra batteries (for a bit more recording time without swapping batteries)
-A ball head with quick release plate (smoother panning! so much better)
-Small lav mic (connected to secondary camera, to record cameraman voice for if I've got any notes to remember)
-Magnifying eyepiece (for better view in sunny day)
-wired remote trigger (Will mount this on the handle, to start/stop recording)
-In car charger for the 600D batteries (for when I'm on the run)

Some of the bits are yet to arrive, but the Ball head is freaken amazing.

My battery grip comes with either a tray for 2 Canon batteries, or a tray designed for fitting AAs... I'm going to convert this to run an RC car battery instead, you can get 7.2v 6000Mah batteries, so one of those will last for about the equivilent of 5 standard Canon batteries.

Will post some more pics up when the rest of the bits turn up.

Digital zoom + the kit 55-250mm lense is freaken awesome



Definitely needs to be on the tripod though!

The image stabliser is okay, but ends up with a bit of a wobble of it's own even if you're perfectly still (or, at least I think I am haha)

As I guess it's not designed with digital zoom in mind, would be a lot less noticable without it.

[Roman]

Alright so I went out for my first real test of taking some video and using my tripod setup.

There's a local race track here which had a Historic racing day on, so heaps of stupidly awesome old cars.

Being literally my first attempt at video it was more of a learning experience than having produced a decent quality video!

I found out a few things:

-Panning around 180+ degrees without any camera wobble on a fairly zoomed in shot is bloody difficult!

-The battery grip was great, I didnt even go through 2 of my 4 batteries all day.

-Having the 'sticks' style follow focus / zoom is a life saver. Can instantly adjust precisely without having to take my eyes off anything, very handy. Impossible to do more than one thing at a time though, like panning while zoom/focus pull or anything.

-Apeture settings worked best way different to anything I'd used for pictures. F12-16-18 seemed to give the best results, it's impossible to maintain a smaller depth of field on fast moving object. I think buying a laser range finder to find the minimum and maximum distances, then adjusting the apeture to suit the ML distances on the focus screen will be the best way to get the minimum apeture that ensures everything necessary is in focus.

-ISO 25 pink issue... I think a custom picture style will be the perfect solution for this problem, I might try put one together. Wish me luck!
Otherwise I've got an ND filter on order that should help here, should be able to have the desired settings at ISO 100.

-FPS settings - 60fps was only good for slowed down footage, as otherwise it gives the funny 'wheel rotating backwards' type effect on the settings I had. 24fps looked a bit jumpy, 30fps seemed just right.

-shutter speed - Still experimenting with this, obviously 60fps 359 degree shutter speed records for more of the time than 30fps 180 degrees, even though each individual frame has the same exposure length. Between 90-180 degrees at 30fps seemed best, but need to experiement a bit more. Higher shutter length gave a great sensation of speed on the panning shots, but compromised detail on the car as you'd expect.

-Using DSLR depth of field to overcome onsite disadvantages - At the start of the clip, I'm actually shooting from behind a chain link fence. However since I could adjust the DOF to exclude distance that the fence was at, it just looks like a bit of a greyish blur rather than distracting too much from the cars etc.
Obviously it's not ideal shooting through a fence, but sometimes it needs to happen, so its great to have the option of minimising the disadvantage here!

-My tripod/rig setup still has a few wobbles in it, and a few screws slowly wound loose over the course of the day. So improvements are being made to make it a bit tighter, and using spring washers to avoid things coming loose again.

-Digital zoom - This is freaken sweet, so useful! Some shots I wanted to zoom in more without having to fluff around readjusting focus etc, especially so when my lense (kit 55-250) changes apeture with zoom, so you need to recalibrate a few things.
Being able to adjust between two zoom settings nearly instantly was fantastic. The 55-250 has been my least used and least favourite lense, but it worked great for this.

-Whitebalance - Was struggling with this a bit, in the bright conditions it was a bit hard to adjust the white balance to suit, and I think when I went to the higher apeture numbers it was affecting this also a bit. Need more practice, and some better shade for the viewfinder. It's definitely different when you're out trying to film something and do all of these things as quickly as you can, compared to practicing getting it all perfect with no time pressure.

-Audio
I was pretty focused on trying to practice some panning shots etc, so didnt want to muck around with the audio.
Unfortunately no audio was recorded on the day, but no bother as I learnt a lot regardless.
I felt I had my hands full regardless trying to fine tune everything else anyway, so didnt need the distraction.
As I get better, and start to dial in which settings give the best look I want, I can concentrate more on these other things later on.

-Practice practice practice!
My footage was pretty dissapointing, mainly because of wobblyness, struggling to keep a car in the frame, and whitebalance/brightness.

I think aiming to make a 720p video, and filming a combination of 720p 60fps footage with the camera 'still' for slow motion, and 1080p 30fps footage of panning is probably going to be a great way to go about it.
For the panning shots I can have a little extra forgiveness by keeping the zoom a bit wider then cropping the 1080p down to 720 and motion track the car in post to make it smoother.

However the functionality that ML gives, (even though I made a hash of it) is amazing.

I'm stoked to have a camera that is currently well beyond my skill levels, I've got so much more scope for improvement before my camera is the bottleneck, if ever.

Anyway, a pretty hastily edited vid of my wobblycam footage is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf_0e4oTjaE&feature=g-upl

[scrax]

The image stabliser is okay, but ends up with a bit of a wobble of it's own even if you're perfectly still (or, at least I think I am haha)

As I guess it's not designed with digital zoom in mind, would be a lot less noticable without it.

If you use tripod image stabilizer has to be off in the lens because stabilizer tends to stabilize something that is already still from what i know giving you wobble.
I use that as a "rule":
on tripod = stabilizer off.
It will also save some battery 

I really like this post (since I've no video experience too), I will like to see how you will converte the AA battery holder, I've also bought a battery grip for my 600D and more battery and having another more durable battery would be great.

[Roman]

Thanks, I'm just going to see how I go with the battery grip and 4x EP8s for the moment...

I filmed about 30gigs worth of footage without getting through two batteries, so less than half of my current capacity. I dont think I'm ever likely to film too much more than that in a day, especially if I'm trying to race (and probably fix) a car at the same time!

With the image stabiliser, I found it did work great for panning shots etc where there was a lot of movement, but yes I agree it seems to cause as many problems as it solves when it is used for a very still shot.

However in saying this, if you are really zoomed in you're likely to get some sort of wobble regardless of what you do... Having the 'smoothed out' type of wobble caused by the stabiliser would be easier to fix afterwards than short sharp interferences 'smearing' a few frames instead. Especially if you are aiming for a 720p video so you have a bit of leeway by cropping down a 1080p picture if necessary.

I'm definitely looking forward to getting back out there and trying it again with a few improvements, and things in mind to do/dont do More things will become second nature as I practice.

[kihlbahkt]

Hey Roman,
Thanks for sharing details of your custom rig and results. Very appreciated!

[isthistaken]

Hey there, I would love to see some more details about your rig.  How is the follow focus implemented (what kind of hose clamps are they?).

Thanks,
Stephen

[Roman]

Hi Stephen, sorry for late reply.

I'm not sure what kind of hoseclamps they are, presumably automotive ones since I pinched them from some intercooler piping, haha.

The main idea though is to get one that tightens by having a nut that runs along a thread that sticks out, so you can wind on the sticks which have threaded inserts. (a ground down nut bashed into the end)

I can take some more pictures later of it in seperate parts if that doesnt make sense.

[Roman]

I've been analysing some of my footage a bit more, to try and find out why it looked a bit 'soft' at times.

I didnt realise that beyond a certain point, an Fstop number of like say F18-F20 actually softens the image again, because of the diffraction of the light passing through the tiny hole.

Pretty happy to now know that, as it was annoying me a bit that I couldnt quite put my finger on what wasnt right!

I think I'll be having a rethink of my whole rig setup based on what I got today...

While down country, my Dad came across this sweet Velbon tripod in a second hand store, $45 later its mine!

It's a beast



Not sure how old it is, but the panning etc on it is freaken sweet, and its rediculously stable compared to my other one.
Looking forward to shooting some more video soon with a reciculously more stable setup!

[hoganmw]

I was making my rig for two months. It is nice and I would like to show some photos guys but I don't know how to upload them. "Insert Image" doesn't work or maybe I don't know what to do

[ilguercio]

Use imageshack.

[hoganmw]

THANKS

[ilguercio]

That looks very nice to me, how about painting it black?

[Roman]

I'm back to square one with this a bit, after a bit of a rethink about how I use my camera.

The thing is, I find that with a shoulder setup it's unacceptably wobbly with any lense much narrower than my 8mm fisheye if you're walking around or whatever...

And if you're just reasonably stationary then carrying and setting up a tripod isnt much more cumbersome.

Things that I've found useful:

-Focus/zoom sticks:
These are great when you are concentrating on the viewfinder or the LCD screen, you know exactly where to go to adjust either of these things without looking or fumbling around. Gives great fine control too, works great. I find myself sticking these on when taking pics too, quite handy.

I've found the following things not so useful:

-Mattebox:
Currently it's cumbersome compared to just a lense hood for seemingly minimal gains.
Also I've got the problem where my lenses rotate the front section which also moves forward to zoom, so it's difficult to acheive a worthwhile seal to the matte box.
Later on I may remake a matte box to fit 4x4 sized rectangle filters, then with a rear section that allows the camera lense to move forward or backwards as necessary behind that. So nice and easy to change ND filters etc that slide in from the top, and easy to change lenses or whatever too. For the moment though, ND filter behind a lense hood, or just a lense hood works well.

-Handlebars:
This has worked out GREAT for using one of the bars as a left hand brace when mounted on a tripod with a fluid head, but not very well when trying to use it on a shoulder setup. As when you need to adjust the focus or zoom or camera settings or whatever, you need one hand off.
So you're trying to prop up the camera with an arm that isnt under the weight, it's awkwardly off to the side.
Not just for the fact that it's a bit of a strain, but you can forget about filming anything worthwhile while doing this as it causes a lot of wobble.
Having the right hand side directly under the camera would work infinitely better, so your left hand can be free to do whatever... Might make a pistol grip type thing that sits under the camera, see how that goes.

-Shade for the LCD screen:
Didnt really work out that great... Still get a lot of problems because you're generally aiming the screen up slightly, so hard to shade sunlight etc.
However I bought a cheap Loupe with 3x magnification that works brilliantly! In all lighting conditions.
Shooting with the loupe in place with a few options turned on like Zebras, focus peaking and the 'crosshairs' cropmark works awesomely in a lot of situations. In conjunction with the 10x digital zoom in liveview it is fantastic for taking pics as well as video.
This is starting to become my preference over using the optical viewfinder, thanks to the ML additions.
Well worth the very little money it cost.

My next iteration will likely be a lot simpler and only for use on a tripod, as the video quality is miles ahead when it's so much more stable that way. Either way, I'm glad I had a bit of an experiment with this for minimal cost, rather than spending $$$ on a setup that I would later find not suitable for me.

Just a 'handlebar' for my left hand, a long rear bar to rest my right arm under for long panning shots on the tripod will cover 99% of what I'm planning to film in the next while I think.

[hoganmw]

ilguercio...   ...no thank you    Without paint I do not have to worry about some scratches

[Roman]

Hey Nice work there Hoganmw!

How have you found it to use so far?

Having that long slidey quick release plate looks handy.

[hoganmw]

my son's school show

[ilguercio]

I always thought the side handlebars were a bit uncomfortable and in fact you're proving me right on that.
What about a follow focus directly above the left handlebar? This whay you could both hold the rig and focus.

[hoganmw]

Right hand on right handlebar and left hand on focus/zoom ring   is fine for the most of time. I did not think about follow focus yet. I focused on external mic, led lamp and lcd screen soon.

[Roman]

I always thought the side handlebars were a bit uncomfortable and in fact you're proving me right on that.
What about a follow focus directly above the left handlebar? This whay you could both hold the rig and focus.

The way I've got mine made means that I'm at the mercy of how long the lense is for the position of that.
As where the focus ring is relative to the base of the camera changes between lenses.
However it isnt much of a big deal since when filming so far I seem to favour using either:

55-250mm lense for zoom, which is impossible to keep steady enough without a tripod
8mm fisheye, which has a massive depth of field which you never really need to adjust.

I think the usual shoulder rig design with two offset bars is designed for maximum stability when you're not fiddling with anything else, or moving toooo much.

Using with an apeture of say F12 or F16 or something and auto iso adjust or iris pull would be fine, but manually adjusting everything while trying to hold it steady is just too hard. 5 different kinds of impossible to use a super narrow depth of field effectively anyway...

Unless you have a second person with a field monitor and a follow focus or something, but then it's getting a bit complicated again.


Hoganmw, do you ever use yours detached from the tripod?

[hoganmw]

...about 30% of time without tripod. It's ok. I do not have problems to keep it steady but I don't do any advanced projects