Wk11 Bungie Shooting

This was an interesting method of shooting... I'd decided to hang the camera from two jockey-straps to see what kind of movement I would get if I shot the wii in such fly-bys... it wasn't half bad.  This will be perfect for shooting the shot where it goes across the side and then up to a top-down shot.

Camera hanging from bungie

Wk11 Tables with Ty in Green Room

After speaking to Ty today he thought he could assist with an alternative idea... it involved something a lot larger than I was dealing with... the idea was that the subject (wii) would sit on one table while a second table on wheels would be slid along the edge of that table in an effort to provide stabilisation... this failed because you couldn't provide a steady means of pushing the tables.

Wk10 Rubber Band Fail + Winch (Slight Success)

Well, the rubber bands have been a fail and on reflection it was bound to happen.  The issue is that when some weight is placed on the gears, the top of the band will bunch until the tension on the lower pulls it along.

I've decided to make a winch system based on gears.  This is the first prototype of this system.

It's working relatively well but does need me to hold the based of the camera tray to provide some resistance... again, hopeful with this new design.

Wk10 Lego Gears, Speed Variation

3-speed gearbox

right-angled axle to avoid vibration

possibility to use a winch??

I've been playing with different ways of controlling speed and vibration over the weekend.  The gearbox would be better designed as a binary system thus giving me 4 gears.

Wk10 Weight Issues + Build for my Smaller Camera

I'm having no end of issues when it comes to mounting the 5D... This has been the primary issue from the start!

I've decided to additionally build for my smaller camera so that I don't have to deal with the weight but can still get some of the shots I need, admittedly without the quality I wanted but something is better than nothing.

Wk10 Lego Prototype 3 (Rubber Bands)

In order to avoid noise and jitter, I decided to move to rubber bands.  This is what I've come up with...

Vehicle based on rubber bands.

motor-based prototype

Wk10 Lego Arrives + Prototype 2 (Cogs)

My Lego has arrived... all 30KGs of it.

Thus, using my Lego bricks, I've made a new prototype:

The issue I came across here is that the gaps between the cogs cause pauses, especially due to the weight of the camera.

Wk10 Borrow Felix Lego + Prototype 1

Diana offered to lend me her brother's Technic 8094 set in leu of my Lego collection arriving.  It's the basic parts of that particular set that I'll use to make my Lego-based camera slider.  Therefore, borrowing it will give me a head start.

LEGO Technic 8094

This is prototype 1 - I like the speed but it's noisy and vibrates, thus not very smooth.

Wk9 Lego Rig Research

I'm failing to find the website Kit's friend is using which has instructions on it.  Unfortunately, due to the relatively common practice of using lego to reimagine famous scenes in movies, finding relevant resources is proving difficult.

I like this one involving a rotating camera mount... I'm not sure how something like a 5D would work though...



The NXT stuff looks promising... this is next generation stuff that was built I think to make robots... it makes me think that maybe my old lego motors might be too crude.  In any case:



There's quite a number of NXT time lapse attempts out there... this is one of the better ones:



Follow Focus is another big Lego Camera-related rig:



Can't help but include this remote control follow focus rig too:



Still can't find a solution to my need but I live in hope that the guy Kit knows will provide some assistance.

Wk9 Needs a Motor!

Some of the shots taken from Tuesday aren't too bad but I'm still not getting the result I'm looking for... they remain annoyingly jerky and too fast.  I'm convinced now that I have to use a motor that can go at a very slow pace... the Lego will hopefully do the trick.

Now I'm worried that when the Lego arrives the 9V motors might be too powerful... let alone noisy.

Wk9 Talk to Kit -> Lego!

I'm feeling pretty down regarding my feeling of continual failure this semester.

A flicker of a light at the end of the tunnel came from speaking to Kit today.

She suggested that Lego might be worth investigating.  I must admit that I had considered Lego, particularly when I saw some Mechano at Dick Smith in Tuggeranong the other day but I'd convinced myself that the Mechano would be too flimsy and that Lego was too expensive to build what I needed starting from scratch.

Kit suggested obtaining my old Lego from back home (Coffs Harbour)... this has been my new mission.

Kit also said that she had a contact in Sydney who uses some site to construct such Lego things... I'm feeling a little better now.

Nothing Works, I'm over it.

So, here I am at 5:15am finally giving up.

This degree, this year, is really getting to me, I'm so angry, disappointed, annoyed and upset right now.  I have to type this to get it out of my system so I can calm down and get some sleep.

Why so annoyed?

I spent the entire day on Monday building a rig, from 10am out at Bunnings to 2am the following morning finally happy with the result... A lot of cutting, tweaking, building... let alone the hours of research into DIY sliding camera rigs.

I then spend the following day (yesterday now), after theory in the morning, obtaining and preparing the subject to be shot, fruit, assuming my Wii would also be re-shot.

Now, after nine hours of setting up the rig, modifying it, trying other solutions... if it wasn't the weight issue, it was lighting, if not position, or lens, let alone that the way is slid along the track was f**king ridiculous.

My primary frustration, I think, is due to the f**ing 5D.  Essentially, I have all this process and build-up with no room for error... as soon as one thing goes wrong in the shoot the whole thing is up to s**t.  This means that I waste so much time trying to fix things and end up with nothing useful.

I'm soooo over how hard everything is.  What the hell happened to this being enjoyable?

And all of that was just for my complimentary, not my major... I didn't have time to re-shoot that!  Let alone that my theory essay isn't writing itself while I stay up until all hours doing what essentially amounts to nothing.  The worst part is that I still need to make a working rig and wait yet another week to get the 5D again just so I can fail another time. So, what do I have to show?  A useless rig, useless footage and another week closer to failure.

I need someone to tell me that I'm on the right track and it'll be fine or let me know an alternative way of achieving my needs without this f**king camera and its stupid schedule constraints, but the semester is almost over and I've got nothing to show for it but anger and frustration and that doesn't maintain my HD average!

Let alone that everything I do is given so much soul destroying criticism and feedback that combined with such failures as tonight, I'm not left with much confidence at all.  I hate this semester.

Wk9 Birthday & Construct Plumbing Slider

It's my birthday and I decided to visit a friend of mine to use his additional working space and get his help with constructing my new camera slider.  The plan was to make the wheel based slider with bides again.

He suggested that I go with a modular design instead,  particularly since I couldn't find any wheels that I feel would work properly.  Thus, today, I constructed this:

plumbing-based camera slider.

From what I can tell, based on this design, I might have a winner.  It slides really smoothly, particularly if I use it with different height ends, thus allowing gravity to assist with the movement.  I get the 5D tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.  I've also ensured that I can mount the camera from above and below.  I've also cannibalised my tripod so that it can be mounted on multiple things using the proper head.

Wk7B Construct Drawer-Based Slider & Shoot & Fail

 I've decided that I want to make a timber camera slider using a drawer-type design... using materials from Bunnings.  I spent that evening making the the drawer... here it is.

Update: Unfortunately it can't take the weight of the camera!  But I've managed to couter-balance the weight and have the camera connected with my 'grabby' tripod on the end:

Update 2: I've managed to get some footage of Rocks, the surface of a pineapple and some skin but in this last respect, I feel like I've failed.  I cannot work out what is wrong but I can't get enough light into the camera when it is zoomed in further.  I'm failing with the 5D.

Wk7B Research Rigs

I've watched about a million videos today about how to make a camera slider.  None of these have the same requirements that I do... ie, that the camera slide OVER the subject, that it use MACRO and go extremely SLOW.

As I see it, there are some major themes...

1. using a platform on wheels, where the wheels are guided by some form of track - whether skateboard or trolley but using really good wheels.
2. mounting a camera on a surface that runs across some plumbing pipe as a guide, whether using wheels or some felt on some joiner pipe connectors.  Variations include using steel rods and such instead of plumbing.
3. using a piece of drainage with grate used to mount the camera - light would be an issue particularly.
4. towing or winching the camera on various setups like the ones mentioned.
5. on the really cheap side, using a camera on a small tripod in a box, sitting on carpet... or sitting on a lego platform with the small wheels.
6. purchasing something particularly made for this purpose - too expensive.
7. one very cool idea was using a camera mounted in a helicopter which isn't feasible.

One big issue is that people are mostly building these things to film scenes...  I'll have to decide on an idea that best fits my unique needs.  Argh.

I think I'll go with some form of wheeled platform on a track made of a wooden plank with dowel for guides.