My first DIY rig. Let me know what you think.

T

TERRA Operative

Active member
So I'm heading to Japan in a few days with my brother and his Japanese wife for a holiday and to film some stuff for the local community TV station.

I had to whip up a few bits of gear in time, so this is the result....

camerarig01.jpg


There's a shoulder mount made from 16mm aluminium rails and waterjet cut UHMWPE (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, very strong plastic) from CAD drawings I drew up in Rhinoceros 3D, and it's screwed together with a battery drill.
There's also an Azden mic with a custom cable mounted on a J-rod and a sun shade for the LCD I whipped up from some plastic from a document folder.
Still to come is the adapter box to allow me to hook up two 6000mAh 7.4V lipo batteries into my gutted and modified Sony battery for some nice long runtime. I used micro XLR plugs for that which turned out pretty good so far.


Also there's this:

lenshood.jpg


I wasn't happy with the lens flare from the 0.7x lens the last time I used it, so I got a plastic kitchen storage container from the local hardware store, cut it out and painted it with Krylon Fusion plastic paint.



All in all, it turned out pretty good I think. Now I've only got 13kg of gear to lug around Japan for 3 weeks.... :undecided
 
It's a pretty cool bit of kit. It's a business around the corner from work that I just send DXF files to for cutting, they can even cut aluminium up to 10mm thick! (They use garnet in the water).
Their machine has a cutting area about the size of a queen sized bed, the thing is massive!
 
Friction. The rails are 16mm, and so are the holes, so it takes some real force to pull them apart. I was going to use screws to fix the parts to the rails, but the combined weight of the camera and all the gear doesn't come close to moving the plastic support.
I did rivet the rear of the two pieces that supports the handlebars though. I need that bit to be solid so there's no movement when the handlebar assembly is bolted together.
 
Well, if there's one thing I can say about a DIY rig, it would be counterweights.....

I was able to use this to good effect in Japan whilst filming doco material, but only until my back said stop.... I think some weights behind my shoulder to take strain off my arms would make this a much easier to use rig.
 
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