cheap birds eye view?

[catherine lutes]

Hello all

 

Wondering if anyone has any DIY ideas for doing a locked off birds eye view shot. I will be using the Panasonic HVX200 and at this point do not have a tripod with a removable head - but that is not entirely out of the picture. The shot does not have to be that wide, but most certainly has to be locked off.

 

ideas??

 

Catherine

[Michael Nash]

You're going to have to give us more information. Birds eye view of what? From where? Is there anything you can mount the camera to (like a building or telephone pole)? Are you asking us what hardware to use?

[catherine lutes]

sorry for the delay. Yeah I am basically asking about hardware to use or cheap tricks to rig a camera looking straight down. The shot is a body on the ground being dragged out of frame. Not extremely wide but a medium close up kinda thing. We have a video tripod (miller with removable head) but not alot else. Anyideas would be helpful

[Michael Nash]

You could span a piece of 12' lumber (2"x6") between two 12' step ladders, or Mombo-Combo stands. With ladders use large C-clamps to fasten the lumber to the top of the ladder, and bolt the camera somewhere in the middle. You may want to fasten a smaller piece of lumber at 90 degrees to the 12' section (vertical against the flat board), and bolt the tripod head to that so the camera can point straight down. Use plenty of sand bags at the base of the ladders.

 

I'm not sure off the top of my head the best way to fasten lumber to the top of a Mombo-Combo, but there's got to be a dozen ways to rig it. You could use speedrail instead of lumber, but the weight of the camera mount has to be directly below the pipe or else gravity will want to make it spin (even when it''s clamped really well).

 

But this is just off the top of my head, assuming you have no budget for proper grip gear. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to do this.

[Rolfe Klement]

find a bridge with roughly the same surface below - lean the tripod against the railing

 

free :)

 

Rolfe

[Mitch Gross]

Just build it out of 2x4 lumber. The thread mount on your camera is a 1/4"x20 screw. Get some bolts in this size in various lengths along with some nuts & washers to attacj the camera to the wood. Mount the wood together using drywall screws. You should be able to build this for about $20, assuming you have a powerdrill handy.

[Peter J DeCrescenzo]

Hi Catherine: Whatever you do, especially in a case where gear/rigging is overhead, please use an abundance of caution. Safety first, second, and third. :-)

 

Let us know how your shot turns out, and post an example frame and a pic of your rig if possible.