DIY Camera Gadgets

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After many hours of scouring dozens of You Tube videos that describe do-it-yourself (DIY) movie and camera gear, I have built what I think will be enough gadgets that will make our videos and stills a little better than what we could hope for with just the basic equipment we own.

If you look a some past entries I have described a few of the gadgets that I have built so far.  But here is the list of the complete camera gear we will be taking with us as we travel around the world.

In terms of cameras, we have a few:

 The built in camera on our iPhone:
You would be surprised how often we use the iPhone and how good those pictures are.  Last Christmas Shelley bought me an I-Pix underwater housing for it and we used it in Cuba and got some awesome underwater pictures when we added the orange correction filter. This housing is good to about 100 feet or 30 meters.

2 Olympus point & shoot cameras:
They are both waterproof to about 10 meters or 30 feet.  Perfect for having a small lightweight camera handy and with us when we are exploring or just out and about.  These cameras also work really well when we are snorkeling or playing at the beach.

Olympus C-7070 camera:
With this we have an Olympus underwater housing and a Sea&Sea YS-90 underwater strobe and bracket.  This rig has given us most of the amazing underwater pictures in our collection.  This is not the most sophisticated or up to date equipment out there, but gives us everything we need to capture wonderful underwater memories....

Go-Pro HERO 2 camera:
the cost for the Hero3 was just too much for us, so we settled for the Hero2.  Last summer we got some awesome shots of the boat as we sailed and motored along. In addition to the basic camera, we have the wi-fi connector so we can monitor and control the camera from our iPhone or iPad.  It also came with underwater housings and other protective gear along with a bunch of accessories.  This will be the camera that we hope to get our most amazing videos from...

Nikon D3200 DSLR:
Our newest addition and perhaps the nicest camera I have ever owned. In addition to the camera body we have and 18-55mm and a 80-300mm lens, plus a close-up kit for both lenses.  For lighting we have an off brand TTL Flash that can light up the sun! This is the camera we will be using to create our videos as well as still pictures.  For movie making we have a shotgun condenser mic and a variable LED movie light with various filters for colour correction.

Now for the gadgets:

We have 2 large tripods, 2 small tripods, and 2 mini tripods.

A DIY steady cam made with a macro slider and quick disconnect for either the D-3200 or the Go-Pro.This was the most expensive gadget that I made, but it will hopefully make our videos look way better than if we just hand held the camera.

A DIY octagonal frame holder to steady the camera for regular hand held shots and to hold the camera for shots that come from different and interesting angles...

A DIY slider unit.  This is our latest addition and perhaps the most fun. When I use the track, I can slide the camera along for 4' nice and smoothly, either horizontally or on almost any angle or incline...  when attached to the 2 big tripods it can be used almost anywhere, otherwise the track needs to be on a table or the ground. The rig that actually holds the camera was made from a $15 skateboard that I bought at Walmart and a REALLY cheap tripod that I found at XS Cargo.  The track and all the bits and pieces came from Lowes our newest and nicest big box home improvement place.

A DIY balanced holder. This rig can be used with almost any lens or light configuration, as the weights at the end of the arms can be adjusted to balance the rig as necessary.

A DIY Jib Crane.  Again, with some leftover parts from other projects, a $9 tripod and some garage door pulleys from Canadian Tire, I made an awesome Jib Crane that will make shots look like a professional made them happened....  This unit can be dis-assembled and assembled in about 5 minutes and is portable enough to go almost anywhere....

Along with this equipment we will keep all the cameras in protected dry-boxes and all the images on removable hard drives. If you want more information on DIY camera gadgets just check out You Tube...  It is a GREAT resource for almost any project....

One final note for today, I went with all my copper to the scrap yard yesterday and discovered a world that I never knew existed! WOW! what a place...  I met some very helpful people who re-sorted all the stuff I though I had all worked out, and ended the day with $140.00 WHOO-HOO! Free money!  This is from the bits of copper that I removed from the boat during the re-fit and would have otherwise thrown away, if I hadn't seen a scrapping video on You Tube... I will never again wonder why I see someone going through my trash every Wednesday night...  There is a ton on money to be made in the scrap metal business...

Cheers everyone,
Kyle