Question: DIY Tripod Drag Control?

M

MeAgain

Carbonite Member
I'm looking to buy a cheap tripod, the Matthews M25 for a student short I'm making soon. The head isn't fluid and there's no drag control.

I'm not going to be doing anything crazy, just some pans from left to right in a few scenes. Are there any geniuses out there that can think of any way I can rig something up to get a more fluid motion? Like any kind of insane weight system? I don't care how convoluted it is, I once used scotch tape to rack focus without shaking the camera.

No, I don't have money for a good tripod, I'm just wondering if any kind of crazy balancing act has been attempted with a tripod like this. If not, get on it! (please)
 
You can buy little gadgets called rotary dampers. Most of them are small, and made for things like soft closing drawers, non slamming toilet seats etc. You can also get big ones, which may be what your looking for.

Be careful though, some only turn in one direction, and some only do a limited range of motion. The dampers that will turn all the way round, and in both directions are qutie rare, and in my experience, quite expensive.

If you were to do this, you would need to some how attach a large diameter drive gear to the pan axis of your tripod, so that the damper could mesh with it. I think after all that effort it would end up costing quite a bit, but I thought id mention it anyway.


Pete.
 
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