Camera Mounts & Stabilizers

Dan asked if I could help him build a series of camera mounts and stabilizers so he could capture video for paintball and canoe jousting.  We started out building a simple clamping mount for a waterproof digital camera, intended to be used on canoes to get shots of the paddlers, and of the boats capsizing.  The mount is built using a ratcheting carpentry clamp and a modified inexpensive tripod head.  I machined a small bit of C-channel aluminum and modified one of the jaws of the clamp slightly to mount the tripod head.  We also created a polycarbonate sled to hold the camera in its waterproof bag.  Here is the mount, shown holding an iPhone for demonstration purposes.

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More recently, we worked to build a more complex camera stabilizer mount intended to be attached to his paintball gun so he could capture some smoother in-game footage.  We worked late into the night last night and constructed the four-bearing gimbal, the counterweight arm, and the camera mount.  Still to be done is the bracket for mounting to the paintball gun, and much fine tuning and tweaking to get the weight and center of gravity correct.  Here is Dan testing out the stabilizer for the first time with a camera and counterweights.

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Once we finish the paintball stabilizer, the last project is a Steadicam knockoff project, similar to this or this.

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