>> PRODUCT TANK: I needed a camera stabilizer and a quick online search showed me all sorts
of options ranging from sixty pounds to six hundred. Sixty pounds for a camera stabilizer,
your having a giraffe (Laugh)! So I decided to make my own out of scrap wood and roller blade
bearings. The design works well, but It's really heavy, so If you use it for more than
5 minutes your wrist feels like you've been arm wrestling a gorilla and without a pillar
drill, it would be very difficult for any one else to make. I wanted to build a DIY
camera stabilizer that was really light, so you could use it all day, out with the heavy
Camera and in with a GoPro. I also wanted it to be something that anyone could make
without any tools. Lots of people still have some Lego or know someone who has some, so
why not dig it out and get yourself a fully functioning stabilizer, for free. Everyone
making videos of camera stabilizers shakes them around to show how little movement they
produce, but actually their main purpose is to take out the vibration caused by your foot
steps as you walk, the best mechanical way to do this is with the famous steady cam system,
I found that I could replicate this using elastic bands to arrive at a solution that
I was happy with.
To produce this design, you will need a load of Lego, in particular the technic universal
joint 3L from one of the car sets, if you don't have this you can buy a few from ebay
for a really cheap price. You also need thin elastic bands, a sheet of paper and some tape.
There are three parts to my system, the gopro holder, the balancing arms and the tensioning
system.
The holder, cradles the GoPro camera and I've used folded paper and an elastic band to hold
it securely in place.
If you want to study each part, I've left a decent amount of time between clips, so
just use the pause function.
The balancing arm is tensioned with elastic bands to limit wobble. I've completely balanced
this with Lego. To balance the system it helps if the 3L joint is directly underneath the
camera. The camera should be balanced to swing as slowly as possible because this slowness
means the system is slow to react to your movement. Heavy weights and a fast swing means
wobble will be more noticeable.
This swing is far to fast and shows the pendulum is too heavy.
This swing is much better and the camera swings in a nice straight direction without twisting,
which is what I am aiming for.
The tensioning system uses elastic bands to counter act movement and also reduce vibration.
Thin elastic bands are best as they allow you to fine tune balance and you have to experiment
with what works.
After experimenting I added bands to hold the beams together, which improved the strength
of the system.
In terms of improvements, adding a few paper towels to the handle will greatly improve
comfort and if you want to make this solid, you can superglue the Lego together or wrap
it in tape.
If you do have some wood working skills, you can improve the set up further by making a
double handed system that holds a tablet.
A few tips I've picked up whilst experimenting are to wear soft shoes to help limit vibration,
walking backwards creates less vibration than walking forwards, and light camera stabilisers
are prone to move around too much in windy conditions.
Here are some results, no corrections at all have been added to this footage in my editing
package.
If some of you don't have access to Lego, you can make an indoor stabilizer out of cardboard,
Sellotape, a sewing needle and a golf tee, balanced with coins. Once you get the basic
principles, It's not hard to achieve good stabilisation. 60 pounds for a camera stabiliser,
I think not!
Thanks for watching and if you want to see what I do next, please hit subscribe.