I have been getting into video more and more lately. I have a great little mini-dv cam that meets all of my needs at this moment. The problem that I have found has been the ability to keep my camera steady when I try to move with a shot or even pan slowly. This is typically why most camera users don’t want to move around while shooting. You will often see shoot …stop …move location …shoot. Cutting down on the need for those vomit inducing home videos that we are used to seeing.

So I started to look around for a solution for the problem and I ran across a DIY solution that is very effective and has made a definite difference in the quality of my video. Inventor and amateur video buff Johnny Chung Lee and his site “$14 Steady Cam – The poor mans steady cam” has the solution. He has a very detailed description of how to build this and some of the things you can do with them.

Here is my Steady Cam

Under the Camera View

And the bottom

I have found that this has made a hand addition to the shooting tools that I have now. This really allows for some great action shots and would be a must have for anyone creating their own movies … I hope that this is helpful.

Cheers,

Scott

FYI I managed to build the whole thing for around $20. Not including the cool paint job and old bike grip. I also used 12″ pipe sections versus the 10″ recommended. I did this on the basis that I am fairly tall and that there was no 10″ pipe available at the store.

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