Home Made Steady CAM ideas?

[Jesse & Ana Cordova]

Any suggestions on making a home made Steady Cam for a Cannon XL1 , I don't need anything Nice just something that will help while I walking around DIA filming Kids playing on moving walk ways. I want to be able to keep the camera low vs. mid or high.


I don't have the funds to go out and rent or buy everthing I need. I have lots of tools and very mechanically able to creat from ideas or direction. Got any
Thanks Again

Jes

[Rick Shipley]

Jesse,
I bought my Glidecam 1000 on closeout from the company but it was still over $200. I did find some great sites to build them after I made my purchase. Take a look at these:
-this one is cheap to build and simple

-I like this design
http://www.videouniversity.com/xlstablz.htm
-this one is similar to the previous one
http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue5/gimstead.html
-this one is wild
http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue23/Figg_rig.html
-I'm going to build me one of these
http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue33/DIYSVest_1.html

I hope this helps.

Rick

[Jim Brennan]

The cheapest/easiest one I've seen is this:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/
I built it early on for my DVX. It was okay, but nothing great.

Dan Selakovich's book:
http://www.dvcamerarigs.com/
Has plans for a pretty effective one. In fact, if yyou are a DIY-er, it's a great book for other stuff as well

DVXuser has a great forum for DIY stuff, and there are a bunch of stabilizer ideas there
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=47

A few more links in this forum
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=48624


Good luck.

[Winter]

google "homemade steady cam" and you find hundreds of ideas that are cheap

[Gary Otte]

Here you go Jesse, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/. I've used it and it works pretty well.

[Ken Hendricks]

...and if you really want to get involved, check this site out:

http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/

Ken Hendricks
Director of Photography
REDRUM Digital Cinema Production

[Jim Brennan]

Ken, I love that site!

[Jim Brennan]

Saw this on craigslist:

http://boulder.craigslist.org/pho/1028062375.html

[Rick Shipley]

Ken that is the best site I've seen yet.

[Jesse & Ana Cordova]

Ok now I need something to replace this hair pulling out of my head with all these Choices, You guys are great thanks! Jes

[Todd Bradley]

It's not a SteadiCam alternative, but I bookmarked this site a long time ago which has a great idea for a very portable and very cheap tripod alternative:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1041948/1_image_stabilizer_for_any_ca...

[Thomas Lofstrom]

Jes, As a porfessional Steadicam operator and a manufacturer of support gear, Your best bet for this application is a shoulder strap on the camera, over the head, extended so that the camera is at waist level, hold the camera so that you maintain a constant tension on the strap. This process works well. Otherwise, I can send you plans to build, or sell you prototypes, but the taunt shoulder strap technique works very well (usually better) at little or no cost. -Thomas