“<...>A Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera, which mechanically isolates the operator’s movement from the camera, allowing a very smooth shot even when the operator is moving quickly over an uneven surface. Informally, the word may also be used to refer to the combination of the mount and camera.” (c) Wikipedia.
I have completed my in-house small project building the Steadicam from scratch. This is the 2nd try. 1st one was not so very successful or better say stable. 1st try was based on very small u-joint. I kept the old one:
Current version of steadicam is stable with heavier camcorders. With a light camcorder steadicam start to waving and needs manual movements reduction. Currently tested with the FlipHD. FlipHD is about 170 grams (5.9 ounces). Totally stable picture can be achieved with the heavier camcorders. Tested with the Sony Handycam (~500g). Picture is stable and no spontaneous movements.
Hardiest part was to curve the metal pipe. Old method with the sand was used to achieve the current curve. Another showstopper in this project was u-joint. Thanks to ebay I got what I wanted.
After month all the parts were in place:
U-joint with one bearing was used to create the most critical part of this project. PVC pipe was used as a handle. Camcorder holder and calibration points was a headache. Searching around I found very flexible and easy customizable stuff – pipe holdings. Those were just fine for my whole construction because I used metal pipe in full length in the steadicam. So far so good. I’m satisfied how it works just need to think on how to raise a weight for smaller camcorders. Some photos from build process:
In parallel my wife was in artwork too. Check is out >>>