DIY Crane for the budget challenged.
 

You can buy a Kessler after you sell your production.

DIY Camera Crane colvins.ca

Nice.
 

I'd like to try to make one of these. Thanks for the tips!

Exquistely simple and effective. I like the original counterbalance materials.

I made a man-sized crane once using water for the counterbalance mass before I changed to iron-ore pellets in 5L oil flasks with handles on them. I was going to use wheel weights but the tyrefitters were selling them for scrapmetal.

I tested the thing on my own with what I thought was a clever idea of climbing on, turning on the hose which supplied the running water faster than a small outlet in the water drum would let it out and had this scheme where I would kink the hose to shut the water off. Yeah right. Some crap in the drum blocked the outlet and I was stuck high and mighty in the wind and too shamed to sing out for help at 11pm at night.

I hit upon pulling the hose off the tap fitting and letting it siphon the drum back out. Hauling destructively on the hose to break the snap-on fitting whilst 14feet in the air was interesting in a fearful sort of way. I was up over the concrete driveway. Yeah right again. When I threw the hose down onto the ground, the siphon began to work. Then the free-end slipped out of the drum and the siphon was lost.

I eventually got down about two hours later by devising a way of climbing down the structure without upending it.