John Mason » Gadgets

DIY camera slider for the Canon 7D

John Mason — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:34:31 +0000

I’ve been playing with the Canon EOS 7D for sometime now and noticed that something was missing when putting my videos together. One of the first things you learn when shooting video is that you really need to use a tripod/stabilising rig – unless you’re going for that edgy look. That’s all well and good – but you’re then restricted to static or panning shots (watching carefully for the jelly wobble due to the cmos sensor). So, you can pan left, right, up, down and zoom in or out…… something was missing.

A dolly – a no, not a small toy – a specialised piece of equipment designed to create smooth camera movements. There are several on the market which include Glidetrack SD 1m (around £240) and the Kessler Crane pocket dolly (around $400 plus import fees/tax). However, a quick search around for a DIY camera slider (aka dolly) turns up a much cheaper way of building your own device which is very similar to the Glidetrack for around half the cost using pretty much the same components from Igus.

To build the slider you’ll need :

Cordless Drill
WK10-80 system plus carriage
Giottos MH7000-652 Series 1 Ball Head With Quick Release (one, but it’s easier if you have two!)
a couple of bolts

The only new pieces I had to buy was the WK10-80 system plus carriage. To assemble the rig you’ll need to drill one hole in the igus plate to accept the tripod head and one in the centre of the rail so you can mount it on your tripod. I went for a 10mm hole in the rail as it’s the right size for the Giotto head bolt and 8mm in the plate. To attach the tripod head to the plate I simply use a Camera Flash Hot Shoe Mount 1/4″ Tripod Screw Adapter with thread adapter so it’s flush with the plate and will not snag on the rail.

Now for the resulting video!

Xbox360 suicide….

John Mason — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 21:34:13 +0000

“Due to severe lack of gaming… I am thinking of shutting myself off… permanently… let’s see how badfracture digs on that!”

“Where is badfracture at? I want to disown him. I am putting myself up on eBay ASAP”

Two annoying comments from my xbox306voice . Anymore of this sh*t, it’ll be providing a nice base for a PlayStation3.

MacBook Pro BSOD

John Mason — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:12:28 +0000

Blue screen of death! oh yes, what’s the first thing to do seeing as I’ve got a shiny new macbook pro? That’s it; install the Microsoft Vista PRC1! installing was pretty simple – install bootcamp, change the partition size to anything greater than 10gb (Vista Ultimate needs at least 8gb), install the Mac Drivers and just wait for the BSOD. Didn’t take long to occur – problems with the ATI Radeon drivers – tried the latest download from the ATI Sites but I’m having the usual problem of removing the previous drivers. Other than having to pay to download the Office 2007 trial ($250 $2.50) looks like a re-themed XP with a lot more annoying pop windows asking if Vista can wipe your arse bluescreen randomly thrash the hard drive.

Just to push my luck, I’m going to install the latest beta Picasa and Google (as they’re not out for OSX yet) to see how they perform……

Underwater photography – comming soon

John Mason — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 11:49:39 +0000

With my hols rapidly approaching (well, two months away) I’ve finally decided to by the waterproof camera case to go with my camera. Should make taking photo’s while snorkeling or diving as the camera has a built in “underwater” mode and the case comes with a flash diffusion plate.