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Majistyks Videos Middle Path 5G overview TransAfrica
by Ossas

My current favourite camcorder - the Panasonic HDC SD900

When I first set foot on my videography journey my first challenge was to hold the camera steady enough to produce something worth watching. My first camcorder - a Canon Legria - weighed in at around 270g and was so light I found I had to brace it against solid structures to get a reasonably steady hand-held video. A tripod was obviously a solution - but if I wanted to move around - it wasn't much of an improvement.

a waterdragon from the rideon

And I had a need to move around - I wanted to get some footage of the Water Dragons which are plentiful around Middle Path but they fled form me when I was on foot well before I was within a useful range. However when I was on the rideon mower I could get right next to them - they just didn't seem to regard me on a mower as threatening. But a tripod on a mower is not an easy or elegant contraption and juggling the machines fully occupied my abilities so that there was precious little left to do the actual filming.

the prototype sunroofcam



I also wanted to get some footage of Maleny to show off the local town on websites and had comeup with a sunroofcam system using a folded tripod, a big sponge and a bungee cord - the results seemed on a par with Google's street cam but the tripod wasn't the ideal mount as there was a lot of leg to play around with inside the car. I felt there was something better (and, as it turned out, cheaper) out there.


I looked around for a solution to holding a moving camera steady on a tight budget - I wanted to pay a lot less for something to hold the camera than I had for the camera - nothing commercial fitted the bill and then I came across the Johnny Chung Lee's $14 Camera Stabilizer page which made a lot of sense (thanks Johnny). Off I set to follow Johnny's well-presented guide, I picked up some Celsius cast-iron bar bell weights (2@1.25Kg & 1@ 2.5Kg for flexibility) and fortunately went to the local irrigation supplies shop for the pipes. I am familiar with irrigation so I knew I would have a choice between metal and plastic pipes and fittings. Johnny had used iron pipes - it was a great discovery to find the weight's central hole was a snug fit on a 3/4" plastic riser.

the bits needed to mount the camcorder on the multicammount system



Using plastic greatly simplified the fabrication as I only had to drill one 1/4" hole in one plastic end-cap to have a very versatile camera mount system using stock standard plastic irrigation parts which are readily available form any irrigation supplier. I also dug up an old ball head which I'd had for over 40 years which gave the system a very adaptable camera mount for a whole range of situations.

Here's what goes into the multicam mount system:

Here's how we make the floorcam

for those rare moments when you want to walk the camera along at floor height while shooting




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