cable cam DIY? anyone?

I think the harness would be the cheap and effictive way to acomplish a pro looking shot right out of the box....good inspiration in this old thread :)

I'll have some shots by summer time.

AX
 
Hey guys, i have been interested in cablecams for a while, primarily for bikeing and snowboarding, i've built my own rough cablecam, no controlls but it works, kinda... anyway i'm working on building a better one with rc controlls for movieng along the line and for rotateing the camera, this is for my sony HDR-HD1.

I'm really interested to see what you guys were makeing but all the images you guys posted seem to have expired on their respective hosting sites. Could you repost them? i'd love to see what other people have been doing.

Anyway this is my current setup

DSC02350.jpg

DSC02296.jpg


Bikeing Footage

http://media.putfile.com/cablecam-first-day8

My snowboard/ski footage isn't yet finished

Anyway, i'm looking to rebuild the whole thing, no more weak wood and home depot pullys either.
 
GREAT effort Jaxon!!!
Except for the initial wobble in the beginning - which was MUCH better in subsequent shots - this REALLY goes to show that with a bit of ingenuity and some elbow grease you can get some really creative and very, very cool shots.
Well done!

(I think the putfile site is a tad awkward. I think dvxuser offers some upload somewhere)
 
really good idea Jaxon.

The footage got alot smoother towards the end. Maybe adding small weights on the bottom of the woodplate might offset all that bouncing.

good job though!
 
A Tighter Rope might also fix the Bouncing issue.
Looks like somthing i should try :-D - But Would you use a Wire Removal Technique for that, or just angle it so you dont see the wire?
 
Very cool.

I too woudl recomend adding a little weight to help prevent wabbling, however I would mount the weight to the trolly in a way that places it ABOVE the cable. - You want to counter-balance the camera to stop it swining like a pendulm. Don't put too much or you will flip your camera over, but the closer to the weight of the camera you get, the more stable it will be.

- Mikko
 
Thanks for the great comments, i like the idea of a weight placed above, its a component of my next design, sort of like a pendulum above it, i might also try to build my own giro stabalizer. IF you guys are interested i'll get the snowboard and ski freestyle footage that i shot last weekend up, just learning how to make a decent export out of FCP though so it'll be a bit.

And if any of you guys have your own designs i'd love to see them
 
I built a cable cam with sheet metal, pulley wheels, 400ft of string and 300ft of 1/32" cable.
I use a come along winch to pull the cable super tight so theres no wobble in the cable.
Just some quick pics.
DSCN7864.jpg

DSCN7865.jpg

DSCN7866.jpg

DSCN7867.jpg

Total cost, 80$ including the 4ton come along winch. Yes 4 tons is a little over board but thats all they had left.
You tie the string to the eyelet thing hanging off the end. As the camera slides down, I can pull on the string to slow it down or stop it. I have a little ring i thread the string thru on one of the ends of the cable so that the string runs right under the cable. If the cable is straight and I attatch a motor to the spool of the string, I can drag the camera along steadily.
 
A good idea for quick removal, which is what i use and to get a tight rope is to add tie down straps at both ends. Tie the rope to each strap at each end, ratchet the straps around a tree, pole or whatever and then you have a tight solid rope and can easily and quickly cen be removed.
 
Would you mind mirroring that footage somewhere else outside of putfile,
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Im going to take your footage and use Steadymove and see if it looks any better :-D
 
Trippy_filmer said:
A good idea for quick removal, which is what i use and to get a tight rope is to add tie down straps at both ends. Tie the rope to each strap at each end, ratchet the straps around a tree, pole or whatever and then you have a tight solid rope and can easily and quickly cen be removed.
Click to expand...

I've got little clips at the end of my cables. One end is clipped to a chain which is wrapped around the tree, pole or object and the other end is attatched to a winch which is attatched to another chain to wrapp around the pole, tree, etc. It works for me.
 
I worked on a shoot a few months ago where they had a fischer cablecam system strung between the bleechers in a sports areana and a crane on the other end. About 1/4 mile run, and it could do 60mph.

They use 2 cables, one for it to run on, the other to pull the camera back and forth. Cables are 1/4" kevlar.

Hanging from the cart was a libra head, remote controlled pan/tilt head. This thing was programmed so as the rig swings in the wind, the head automatically moves the camera to compensate so the resulting image is quite stable. To control up/down they change tension on the cable that holds the rig.

They put a Varicam w/ Pro35 adaptor, 10:1 35mm zoom lens on the rig. To operate they had a guy with a laptop running things by wifi. The crane had an operator as well, which I'll get back to later. The set up some pre-programmed moves which they could run later, and also had a rig to control the position in real time. At the same time, there was another control station for the camera op, who could control focus, zoom, aperture. This was via wireles video sender, and the image quality was complete crap- but good enough to get the job done.

Now the fun part-
While testing the thing, at full speed, a pulley in the crane broke. The operator saw this, and hit the brakes- full on. Think of cracking a whip- only this one was 1/4 mile long, and made of kevlar...
When that shockwave hit the rig, it sheared off a 3/4" steel pin holding it on to the cable. The safety strap snaped as well, and I got a front row seat to view the distruction of $250K worth of camera- which fell and hit the ground in front of us. Landed on the lens- complete and utter distruction.

I shot a bunch of video of it, but haven't posted it yet.
 
tomk358 said:
I worked on a shoot a few months ago where they had a fischer cablecam system strung between the bleechers in a sports areana and a crane on the other end. About 1/4 mile run, and it could do 60mph.

They use 2 cables, one for it to run on, the other to pull the camera back and forth. Cables are 1/4" kevlar.

Hanging from the cart was a libra head, remote controlled pan/tilt head. This thing was programmed so as the rig swings in the wind, the head automatically moves the camera to compensate so the resulting image is quite stable. To control up/down they change tension on the cable that holds the rig.

They put a Varicam w/ Pro35 adaptor, 10:1 35mm zoom lens on the rig. To operate they had a guy with a laptop running things by wifi. The crane had an operator as well, which I'll get back to later. The set up some pre-programmed moves which they could run later, and also had a rig to control the position in real time. At the same time, there was another control station for the camera op, who could control focus, zoom, aperture. This was via wireles video sender, and the image quality was complete crap- but good enough to get the job done.

Now the fun part-
While testing the thing, at full speed, a pulley in the crane broke. The operator saw this, and hit the brakes- full on. Think of cracking a whip- only this one was 1/4 mile long, and made of kevlar...
When that shockwave hit the rig, it sheared off a 3/4" steel pin holding it on to the cable. The safety strap snaped as well, and I got a front row seat to view the distruction of $250K worth of camera- which fell and hit the ground in front of us. Landed on the lens- complete and utter distruction.

I shot a bunch of video of it, but haven't posted it yet.
Click to expand...



POST THAT VIDEO!!! thats crazy. i saw a making of a no doubt music video, and there is one part where, I don't know if they had a crane on a boat, or the crane guy was not looking, but the whole panavision rig almost gets dunked in to the salt water, but gwen stefni reached out and grabbed it before it hit the water.
 
I'm thinking of giving this another shot, i just got a old treadmill that im going to use the motor from to drive the system.

I just need to play with the speed control some more...
 
wow this thread has seriously blown up, i almost had forgotton about it. i've contacted a few vendors about getting wireless lanc support for hvx/dvx and its doable but expensive. and i've got some drawings with a setup including a come-along and a rig with rc car motor driving it and servos controlling the camera turret. its going to cost me quite a bit to do this, my next freelance gig should take care of it. especially if i can find someone to get me parts at wholesale. but you guys just got me motivated again. heck yeah.
 
manglerBMX said:
wow this thread has seriously blown up, i almost had forgotton about it. i've contacted a few vendors about getting wireless lanc support for hvx/dvx and its doable but expensive. and i've got some drawings with a setup including a come-along and a rig with rc car motor driving it and servos controlling the camera turret. its going to cost me quite a bit to do this, my next freelance gig should take care of it. especially if i can find someone to get me parts at wholesale. but you guys just got me motivated again. heck yeah.
Click to expand...

Depending on what parts it is i could probably get them as i have a resale license, but some places have a minimum order.

one place that is awesome for parts is http://www.mcmaster.com/
 
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