Don,

Buy some good muscle rub! I just used the $14 steadycam and man, my arms are tired. I used heavier weights on the base and arm. They certainly helped with the up and down and side to side sway that can come with this rig. I was happy in the end with my results though.....

As for advice on using it...I just got out and practiced with it. I taught myself to keep the rig as steady as I could & my muscles would allow!. I think repetition is the best practice here.

:)

Hi,
I plan to build this thing, and i have one question before i start working.

I have an Optura Xi, and as some of you may know, the tripod mount of the Xi is off center (the mount hole is near the lens towards the front of the "long shaped" camera body).

will that affect balancing issues with the $14 steadicam?

also, would it be possible to get a gimbal handle? sort of like the glidecam
2000 or 4000 handle. is it possible for me to buy the handle somewhere?

thanks

With that bar stickingout the side of th post of this design, just forget about it ever beeing in ballance, regardless of what camera you put on it.

..And it woudlnb't work with a gimble.. becuse it coudl never be ballanced.


- Mikko

Highly unlikely. At that point you're getting into the $100 realm, and you're gonna have to do some homebuilding to get there. If you do really want a Gimbal, and you are prepared to spend some money, let me know, I have a book of plans for my very simple, but still reasonably good stabilizer.

Well, right now, im more concerned with wheather or not my Xi will properly work on this thing. Maybe it wont acheive perfect balance as Mikko has suggested, but I plan not to incorporate the side bar.

So will that make it better?

I would love to have a gimbal and all, but I could live without it, since im VERY short on budget. This 14$ steadicam is realli wut i can only afford, and I was in need of a stabilizer for a while.

thanks for the info

If I were on a budget, I'd use just a pole, with the weight on the bottom, and a flange on top, connected to a piece of wood with a hole drilled in it farther back for proper balance, and then some foam wrapped around the post about 3/4 of the way up. Hold it by the foam and you should have a decent stabilizer.

Hey tom, just for kicks, throw out a simple web page with that design on it, and call it the $13 Steadicam... ...it's a much more viable design than the $14 handle.
;-)

- Mikko

Hey, Tom, could u sorta elaborate on ur budget steadicam?

btw, wuts a flange??

thanks

Boom. The... Uh... Under $20 Stabilizer!

http://home.comcast.net/~tomthemacman/steadiplans.jpg

There ya go! Want more? Buy my book!

http://cafepress.com/tomsstabilizer

Thanks a lot for the great illustration. i can see how to balance the Xi now.

just have the mount towards the front....

why couldnt i have thought of that??

The skill to instantly design things comes with having spent close to 2 years designing and building homebuilt stabilizers.

There you go, a < AUS$20 version of the steadytracker lite I just paid > AUS$320 for.