Helicopter Parts Make For Amazing DIY Camera Stabilization 78
Iddo Genuth writes "Videographer Tom Antos developed an advanced DIY camera stabilizer which can hold almost any DSLR or mirrorless camera steady for video photography. Although this surely isn't as sophisticated (and super expensive) as the professional MVI M10 handheld 3-axis digital stabilized camera gimbal, its still quite impressive especially when you consider it only costs a few hundred dollars rather then tens of thousands — that is if you feel like building it yourself." Antos' design takes advantage of stabilized gimbal systems made for hanging cameras on remote-controlled helicopters, and does a very impressive job for its price.
Why isn't this done digitally? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not take the same sensors data and apply the same computation but into digitally manipulating the image on the fly instead of actuating motors?
Or mount it on an owl. (Score:4, Insightful)
Owls appear to be a pretty suitable stabiliser, too. [youtube.com]
The point of a steady cam is to be steady. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like this man's ingenuity, and DIY ethic. But the final video is obviously jerky and unusable, which he explains by saying you need to balance the camera better than he did in an earlier step. Perhaps reshooting a better example with the camera balanced would have been better approach to get people interested. Because after watching the video, we have to take his word for it that this will actually work. Which doesn't really make me want to run out and try it.
Re:yes because of course labor is free (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us *gasp* LIKE building projects like this in our spare time.
There's the door, please hand in your geek card on the way out.
Why [make it | fix it | climb it | run it | ...] ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yes because of course labor is free (Score:4, Insightful)
They might if they saw a bottle of honey in an odd place.
Re: yes because of course labor is free (Score:4, Insightful)
But many people enjoy creating things in and of itself.
The whole idea of "why build when I can buy" is why people are so much worse at making things that mostly work, fully work than they used to be. Building things is fun. If it's also significantly cheaper, and nearly as good, why not learn something on the way?
summary claims the purpose was to save money (Score:2, Insightful)
the summary , and so so many other /.ers, claim they do this stuff to save money.
it doesnt save money. stop lying.
if you do something for the thrill of doing it, then just fucking admit it. dont lie about it and claim that its somehow a wise economic decision or that you did it out of necessity.