newbie needs some help

[monks19]

Hi, I'm new to the DIY spots and I was surprised by many workarounds from some people using their DIY products. I'm actually a student at filmmaking & I really want to go to that field later. But unfortunately, the tools are very expensive (Lens, tripod, monopod steadycam, among others) and since I'm a beginner, I think it will be wiser to go the DIY way for a while, for obvious reason (money mostly). So, for a first, I would like to work on a heavy duty monopod & eventualy a tripod. Some people told me to not go that way and it will look like crap (for the tripod, even if made out of wood) and it that's useless for the amount of work that's worth. But, since I'm just a student with no much money and that $ 300.00 is a very (too) long shot at the moment for a student unemployed till summer and who have other important debts to take care of. So, that's why I would like to do these DIY. It must be possible to do a decent job out of this, I'm sure. So, can anyone help a total newbie with this ?

Thanks to answer

 

[OwainDIYer]

for a tripod you need

a triangle of wood
hinges on each side
3 legs attached to hinges
the camera mounting bolted to the top flat face of the tripod
webbing round the legs of the tripod near the bottom

if you want adjustable legs then it's slightly more work.

 

[monks19]

Hi, thanks for the answer. For the legs, it must be adjustable, but I've figured out something about it anyway. for the triangle, I'm looking for something else than wood for durability reasons. Aluminum or something else would welcome. I'll post other details later, since I'm between classes right now.

Thanks again and see you later.

 

[ChrisFrost]

Craig's List or similar. Buy a s/h tripod.

Tripod legs are a possible DIY project, but the head needs to move and adjust in 3 axes and smoothly if it's to be of any use for video work. TBH, that's just not achievable out of bits of wood as a cheap DIY project. The head is where most of the cost is because of the engineering involved.

Depending on the size of the camera being used then the cheapest and most effective DIY camera support is a tension line.

Take a screw the correct size for the tripod mount. Tie a length of string to it. The string length should be roughly equal to your height. Fit the screw with attached string to the camera. Hold the camera in your usual shooting position - let's say at eye level for this How To example. Let the other end of the string fall to the ground. Now tie an adjustable loop (noose) at the other end of the string at the point where it touches the ground. Make it big enough so you can get your foot in it, then put your foot in to it. Now lift the camera back to eye level. You should have tension on the string. The tension acts to smooth out any movement in hand held shots. If yyou tied the loop right then you should be able to increase the size and so shorten the string. This is useful for waist high shots.

Clearly you can only use this when standing or perhaps kneeling just as you would a tripod or monopod. But for a couple of dollars in parts you have something that will let you get stable handheld shots and still pan with the camera.

 

[monks19]

Owain, I have alteady some lead about the locks rings, but I'm still looking for aluminum tubing/pipes for the legs and I'm struggling for the triangle for now. Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks to answer

 

[mikej2005]

How heavy-duty does your tripod have to be ?

A quick check on Amazon (.com) shows that you can get reasonable-looking tripods for $10 upwards that would certainly hold a standard camcorder without problems, or are you wanting to use larger, heavier kit ?

I can't help feeling you could end up spending a lot of time and going to a lot of effort and risk ending up with something that will be bulky, too heavy to carry around and may cost more and not work as well !

 

[ChrisFrost]

I think this is one of those posts where the OP is either hell bent on doing it their own way despite plenty of good advice to the contrary, or it's just a fantasy project that'll take up a load of talk time and end up going nowhere.