Tripod maximum weight and teleprompters

Jim Brennan

Jim Brennan

VHS Member Old Skool
I've been searching the internet like crazy looking for the best teleprompter solution. So far I am the most intrigued by this one because it's 15" (Larger than the others I have seen in my price range) and only around 800 bucks.

There is no listed weight that I can find for the prompter, so I sent them an e-mail asking them. But it says your tripod should be able to support 20 lbs. My sticks can handle it, but I usually use a Bogen 503 head, which maxes out at 17.6 lbs. Does it matter if I am a bit over the weight if I am not panning and tilting the head? This is for all talking head stuff, shooting with a stripped DVX.

Thanks
 
One of the things you can do for extra support and relief is to use two or three sandbags on the tripod. I made a diy telepromter that I'm very happy with. lt uses a 17 in 4x3 lcd screen and I built the box from 3/16 plywood and a 3inch piece of alder that is 20 inchs long. I used a framing bracket to connect the alder to the box and it works great. I painted it all black and the base for the lcd to rest on was a music stand that I took apart. You can buy a 2 foot by 4 foot piece of plywood from you local hardware store that will give you the four pieces that you need to create the triangle box. Two rectangle and two triangle pieces that create the box. Two pieces of aluminum 1/2 inch angle to hold the glass and I mounted my camera to the base by useing a longer 1/4 20 bolt and so the base hooks to my tripod and to the camera that rests on top of the base unit. You dont have to worry about it fitting your camera because when mounting the box and the box you drill the hole for the base plate so the camera just fits into the hole that you cut into the back of the box. The right angle framing bracket hooks to the top of the base of alder and you set your camera on the top and slide it forward until you can measure where to cut the hole for the camera lens hood to perice into the box in the center of the back. Its quite simple to make and cost about $30.00 bucks and a couple of half days and you can have a unit that will fit your camera perfectly. Its not adjustable for different cameras but I only need it to fit my HVX200.

If you want to see some picks of the unit I'll set it up tomorrow and explain how I made it. It works great and looks very professional being all black and I have a cool handle on the top that folds over that helps you install onto the tripod. Im happy with it and when I've used it no one knew it was home made and it work flawlessly. I like the 17 inch LCD because its much easy to read form further away and I use a hand held radio wave device to control the laptop playing the software. There about $20 bucks at Frys.

Let me know.
mt
 
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