Thread: Motorised DSLR Tripod, Work In Progress.

This is all happening again but in a very different way, there is no longer a motorised mast and the head will be timber and fibreglass but no timber will be visible. I have two Chinese 2.5RPM reduction motors that are rated to 350Kg/cm which I have assumed will be closer to 175Kg/cm and that should give me more than enough torque to rotate the 3.5Kg camera and lens combo.

I currently have one of these tripods which allows a head to be mounted to the top or bottom and the centre is raised or lowered by using a crank handle, it is a fantastic looking bit of gear. My brother wanted to be able to do macro shots near ground level and he will be able to as the head can be run on the bottom of the column and the head rotated 180 degrees.

Gitzo.jpg

A Dynamic Perception AT2 will give the unit joystick control or one press jog, it is a really nice bit of kit, fairly agricultural in terms of assembly but still well made. https://www.dynamicperception.com/AT...-p/dp-at21.htm

I'll put some progress pics up when it starts to look like I know what I am doing, my head has had quite a lot of scratching in the design stage. Bearings have been omitted in the new design and teflon discs are used instead, the head is also single sided for more comfortable shooting and so the camera can be mounted at 90 degress and the head can be used to level the horizon.
The camera going on to it is an old Canon 1DMk3 which is a crazy 167x163mm so it is quite a huge beast!

Just to let you know, there are a number of heads that may suit the problem for you, called joystick heads and made by Manfrotto. There are four in the lineup and should mount on the tripod you show without an issue. By the looks of the tripod you have it uses 1/4” thread for the head, Most high end stuff uses 5/8” but there is a reducer available to get to 1/4” commonly available. (I use to work in the photo industry)



These heads are reasonably priced too.
Cheers Cal

Thanks Cal, my brother has one or two of them and can't use them. He's had three carpel tunnel ops and they didn't work very well, his tremors and spasms stop him from levelling the camera.

The tripod I have is a Gitzo and it's a monster, goes to over 2m and has a 3/8" mount.

Ahh yes sorry 3/8” it’s been a while! Ok, no luck then on the joystick. Well it will be interesting to see how you tackle the problem. With his carpel tunnel will he be ok to get down low to do the macro shots? I also have a manfrotto boom arm, I wonder if that would help him, it would get the camera away from the centre of the tripod. It is adjustable and lockable. Do you think you could get use out of it?
It has 3/8” thread one end and 1/4” the other, the main mounting thread is 3/8”. I used it a bit for doing macro and overhead table work, very useful. Let me know if you are interested.

My son is interested in macro.

We've considered a few things, perhaps these could be useful?

AirTracks - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...-camera-slider
Steadify - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/650610026/steadify
Slider - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...rammable-speed
Lapse - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...1/slider-lapse

Given your brothers interest in gardening AND macro, the Lapse would be cool.

I searched simply "camera" on the site.

Weve found Kickstarter an excellent place for products. I backed the Lightro (an amazing device), A foldable A3 macro light tent (cant remember the name!) and Emblaser (a FRIGGIN AWESOME LASER!!!)



Edit: A search for "stabilizer" also produces some interesting results for hand held options, but Im not sure if thats what you want given the Dystonia and CTS: https://www.kickstarter.com/discover...d=0&sort=magic

Originally Posted by Cal

Ahh yes sorry 3/8” it’s been a while! Ok, no luck then on the joystick. Well it will be interesting to see how you tackle the problem. With his carpel tunnel will he be ok to get down low to do the macro shots? I also have a manfrotto boom arm, I wonder if that would help him, it would get the camera away from the centre of the tripod. It is adjustable and lockable. Do you think you could get use out of it?
It has 3/8” thread one end and 1/4” the other, the main mounting thread is 3/8”. I used it a bit for doing macro and overhead table work, very useful. Let me know if you are interested.

With the Gitzo tripod you can wind the centre column up to attach the camera on the bottom mount and then lower it then he can shoot via remote, even though the camera is 10yrs old it still allows the use of an external(?) display so he can view from a comfy location.

The boom is a pretty interesting looking bit of gear but I can't really spend any ore money, I quit my job a few weeks ago and have to take all this stuff to Scotland so money is stupidly tight. I am hoping to have the whole head done for around $150, the tripod was quite a bit more though, hahaha!

Cheers for the links woodPixel, I will have a look through but I am 90% sure what I am making will work for him. I do have a couple of spare reduction motors so if I get time I may make some sort of motorised skateboard sort of mount. I am no photographer so that makes researching these sorts of things a bit more difficult as I don't know many brands or part descriptions.

Cheers gents.

This is how it can be used

If you want it, pm me your address and I will send it up to you. FREE! Going to a good cause, least I can do for you.
As for connecting up to a monitor, not sure. The camera does have component out but I can’t for the life of me remember if it can be used for live view or only review after the photo is taken. You may have to get him to hook it up and try it out.
Cheers Cal

Cal, that is an extremely kind gesture, I will ask my brother if he has anything like it before saying yes. He did have quite a bit of studio gear years ago but I'm not sure if that made it to Scotland with him.

I will get a couple of pictures up tomorrow of the build so far, it won't look pretty but unfinished fibreglass rarely does.

Since there is no progress shots here here's a pic from my backyard with my little DSLR -

Flower.jpg

No problem, just let me know. Very nice pic!


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Tripod Head IP.jpg
That is the top part roughly sorted, I can't finish it as I need an adaptor machined to connect the output shaft to the platform. It is annoying as this one is 3/8" and there are cheap off the shelf adaptors for metric shafts but not imperial.
I have to have the front of the motor's gearbox exposed as it has to be inserted from the front and I don't want a cover fastened to it as I think it will look a bit tacky. If it was mine I would glass over it but the motor may fail and it will be a five minute swap and I can't really go to Scotland to fix it, hahaha!

Oh, the side of the base will be glassed but I will make sure it is all square after fitting the coupling to the output shaft and will shape it if needed and then finish the glassing.

Your brothers' 1D Mk3 should be able to shoot tethered to a computer/laptop via a micro HDMI cable which, assuming he has the laptop, is a low cost option.

If that's not suitable there are a lot of on camera monitors available that should suit.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/O...4/N/4028759510

The second motor finally arrived so I did a quick test to see if the fitment is right and now I can get the adaptors machined up and finish it off.

Tripod Head Test.jpg

I haven't been able to do a huge amount as I can't get in touch with the guy I was hoping would do the machining.

Painted the lower mount/motor housing, it looks okay, there are a couple of pinholes and I did the routing freehand so it's not spot on but it's good enough.
Tripod Head Lower.jpg

Almost finished, I decided to paint when it was far too cold and humid for the paint so it will need some touching up tomorrow.

It looks very simple but it was quite a lot of work, keeping everything somewhat symmetrical was quite difficult, the timber was initially square but the shrinkage from the FG pulled one piece slightly off square which meant parts had to be built up more and then leveled out.

Tripod Head Painted.jpg