Usual disclaimer, this is all my understanding of things and how they work, I could well be wrong or misguided, feel free to throw in comments if you know better! However for now this is kind of a layman’s view on things, I got a LOT of enquiries about the steadicam while running around with it at KitaCon and I promised I’d do a detailed writeup of how I abused the poor thing.

There’ll be a later post on actually using the thing and considerations for the filming itself, but for now this is the techy side of fixing up a cheapo steadicam.

This rig, of course, is all I used for the first Cosplay Cascade video, so the results are already out there!

[Action shot of me with steadicam by Bento Dan]

Staring at these videos for some time isn’t the worst way to spend an evening or two but there’s much to be learnt – I’m certainly one for leaping in headfirst and figuring it out as I go along but I’ve technically already tried that. I know full well what my old camcorder footage looked like and magical and smooth it is not! So a steadicam of some description is clearly in order.

Second up is the Fig Rig, or steering-wheel cam as it’s fondly known. Many have seen this put to good use on freddiew‘s channel in behind the scenes shots, and the design is simple, a large wheel with the camera mounted somewhere in the middle. You can buy them or mock one up quite easily using plumbing parts and there are several tutorials online on how to do so – I did myself and it’s kinda fun to make. The idea is that rather than one hand held at an awkward angle (for most dslrs especially) you’re using both hands, spread widely apart, increasing stability. Also the ring allows you to grab from many angles to get high or low shots. Again it’s not perfect, hand shake is still present even if reduced, and you still don’t get that magical gliding camera feel unless you’re damned good.

So here’s the product image vs how it looks now!
Not so different at first glance, beyond the rebranding!  and it’s not like I took a blowtorch to it, but it’s certainly had a lot of tweaks required before I got good results out of it!

First of all, STICKERS EVERYWHERE, ahem. Yeah, ignore those. I got a zillion One Piece themed durable name stickers as a birthday present from my sister a while back, pretty handy things.

Second of all, note the camera is level, note the FREAKING SPIRIT LEVEL IS NOT -_-  So yeah, unless I was just unlucky, you’ll quickly learn to ignore it. (The same applied before the odd tripod plate thing was added, since I know it looks like that isn’t helping matters)

So let’s take a look HANG ON, THIS IS A BALL AND SOCKET JOINT -_-  So much for the gimbal.. Not that I really expected it for the price but grr.

I’m pretty sure we all know what a ball and socket joint is, but gimbal’s probably a new one to many, it’s also known as a universal joint, sometimes just U-joint, wikipedia gives this colourful example of one:

That’s the basic gist of one, clicky and it might even be animated XD   It’s typically used to transmit rotation through angles – even though they’re at an angle here, turning one end turns the other, magic!   For this use though a camera stabilizer takes advantage of the freedom of movement in all directions – with a ball-bearing ring around one end to allow free rotation as well.  Long story short – and if you look at most of the YouTube DIY versions you’ll see this – it’s a metal and more condensed as well as rounded version  of the above, with a skateboard bearing stuck on the camera end, so that rotation specifically does NOT transmit!

Compare the points of contact on the joint there to the surface area of the ball and socket and it’s easy to imagine you get way less friction with this method, and more importantly the socket for the ball has to cover over half of the ball, or else it would fall out!  So you get about 30 degrees of freedom from the centre.  With the gimbal, you could potentially get something crazy like 120 degrees, far more freedom. This is important!

This is as far out as the handle will go with the ball and socket, why’s that bad?  Well, basically when moving your steadicam, everything apart from the handle needs to be free from contact with anything else, if you move too far and your handle touches the edge here, it’ll bounce the whole rig around.  You go from a smooth movement to a sudden jolt and the camera will fly off in the other direction!   Going for low angles is far more difficult as you still have to hold the handle upright, so you have to get your elbow lower than the camera itself!   With a more able joint, you could hold it more comfortably and from a higher vantage point.

Back to friction, straight out of the box, if you hold it and tap it from the side it’ll only travel about 10-15 degrees before coming to a stop. That’s not too great.  You’ll want to take it apart (requires a right-angle screwdriver or a bit of creativity to get at it), clean out the grease they’ve used and spray some high grade lubricant in there.  After that – and the occasional spray before use – a tap will sent the steadicam swinging all the way around, hurrah!  It’s not perfect and does need those occasional sprays but still a vast improvement.

So yes, it lacks a true gimbal/universal joint, and those are the reasons why that’s a shame and why one would be preferable if you get the option, but we have to make do, so let’s do that!

So here’s where the most obvious differences are from after modding, the adjustment screws. Next picture is the type it comes with.

Check out that surface!  Usually the point of adjustment screws are that you do them up and they stop things from moving. NOT THESE!  they’re smoother than the balljoint was.. Didn’t fancy putting it back the way it started but when you balance a camera like mine, unsymmetrical, you end up with the counterweight at an angle to keep the balance straight, tighten the top screw up so it stays there.. aaaand the weight would just sink down until it was straight >:|   Smooth. Literally!  So that got replaced with a 1/4″ bolt and a wingnut – the threads were a different size so this could look neater if you pick the right threading, without it just jams in and the wingnut tightens the rest of the way.

The other problem with them is this one, originally it just comes with the single big counterweight, so I’ve held it up to show where the weight would normally sit.

A quick bit of theory on how this model works: the pivot is just that, it relies on being balanced as best you can, everything in front of the pivot needs to balance everything behind it, everything left balanced with right, top with bottom.  You can have a bit of extra weight on the bottom so it rights itself quicker but otherwise keep it all even, that way the camera ends up level.   So let’s just consider that a second, everything in front of the handle has to be counterweighted by what’s behind.  The camera sits on top, most of the weight is on top of the handle but the lens will shift quite a bit of it forward, the counterweight is slung underneath so needs to be able to go behind the handle surely? Now imagine where the weight sat originally.. Uh.. it’s kind of directly underneath the handle, not behind it!

Secondarily, the balance is supposed to be even, but not all cameras are identical so only giving one single large weight is kind of odd, there’s no room for adjustment. They seem to have gone for the idea that no one will be moving with these cameras, so just weight the bottom as much as possible and the rig will be level! However if you move the heavier mass will drag behind and you’ll tilt for sure, and then the swinging begins!

I quickfixed this with the above massive-ass 1/4″ bolt I found lying around, the loop at the front actually helps tighten it as a bonus, a couple of washers to keep it from slipping through, a nut and another wingnut at the other end before large washers and the original counterweight made up the balance.  Originally I used the kit lens (Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) and the original counterweight was too heavy, 15 washers did the trick instead, now I’m using the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR LD IF which is heavier so the original weight and 2-4 washers seemed to do the trick!   The long bolt meant I could place the weight behind the handle, and get the whole thing balanced finally!

Now I’m looking at this solution again I’m wondering if having the weight raised like that is hindering as much as it’s helping so I may try to get something to extend the lower arm down instead of this raised weight I’ve got now.  There’s also potential for better stability in making the weight a crossbeam and putting half the weight either side rather than all in one place like this is.

It takes a bit of practice to get the art of balancing it right, I’ve decided balancing front to back first then left to right seems the easiest but there’ll be a bit of back and forthing.  Shake the handle as you test your balance as friction still plays quite a part, and the vibration will help the weights find their natural rest.

More screws!  This time the tripod screw that holds your camera to the steadicam.. Once more the friction here is far less than the ball joint!  Here you can see what it looks like now but originally the screw was hollow, just the ring around the outside, saves on plastic.  Also means there’s crap all surface area to hold anything – the bottom surface it’s screwed to is smooth metal, and the rubber mat on top doesn’t hold much grip.  Long story short, bolt the camera on as tight as you can, it can still effortlessly swivel side to side, a bit of a disaster for balancing!

So here I’ve filled the screw in with hotglue, used a toothpick to smooth off the top as it cooled, and scratched it up a bit with a knife or scalpel to give it some extra friction, this helped considerably!

I ended up doing the same with the hollowed tripod screws on the plates I’m now using but I’ll get to those in a bit.

This I only needed after switching to the heavier Tamron lens, but with the extra weight the tripod screw alone wasn’t enough to hold it steady and it actually bounced with every movement!  So this is literally a piece of thickish cardboard tube cut, squished, and hotglued into place as a rest, and painted to look less hideously cardboardish!

Now the tripod plates, or at least that’s what I’m calling them.  Cameras like these are expensive and I generally freak out if mine isn’t physically strapped to me!  But there’s an issue with that, if it’s attached to you, it can’t be free and on it’s own inertia!  Neck straps are right out, as they’d dangle down and upset the balance as well as catch on things.. So my solution was to go with this style of quickstrap, or rapidstrap – available cheaply on ebay and I highly recommend them for comfort over a neckstrap as well as for these reasons.  This kind has swivelling screw-lock carabiners which clip onto the eyelets of the plates, and the plates can screw securely into the tripod sockets in any camera (I did end up adding a bit of hotglue to the surface of these plates for extra friction) and they have screwholes in the bottom so they can still be used on tripods or indeed steadicams!  As a bonus it means you can clip the camera onto yourself even with steadicam attached for security when not in use, it’s bulky and awkward but it saves never being able to put the thing down!

A quick note, the eyelet is bent out at an angle here because normally it’s pointed straight down, flush with the edge of the camera, but this gets in the way when used on my tripod in portrait mode, so I bent it out to let it fit!

So really those are the all the adjustments I made to the stock steadicam, replaced or filled all the screws, added washers and a great big bolt, and glued some cardboard to it. and painted my name on it, which I’m sure helps somehow.

The steps beyond this stage are – again possibly adding horizontal weights for better balance, moving to the glidecam style of stabilizer – which look like metal bird tables with a handle partway down them, much heavier but that in itself reduces shake – and it means you can mount lights and stuff which this style really can’t handle. Finally you can all the way up to the full-on vest-mounted crazy suspension-arm style of steadicam which cost more than A HUMAN SOUL, but oh god they are made of magic. Even if you need to go on a course just to figure out how to even wear it.

So that’s it for how the thing is constructed, again there are plenty of YouTube tutorials out there for building your own if you have the ability, but I hope this helps people get a grasp on how these things work, and indeed get a customised working version using only an off the shelf one, plus some nuts and bolts, cardboard and hotglue.

UPDATE! 01/05/12 What sorcery is this?

Yet to go through its paces proper but I’ve taken my own ponderings into action and bolted together a v2 of my steadicam:

The original adjustment arm is now a horizontal piece with two sets of washers on bolts+nuts+wingnuts and is dangled behind the handle by two flash-bracket things scavenged from my box’o'parts – because I don’t have the tools to make a decent replacement myself XD It already feels more stable despite not looking it, and the twin sets of weights means I can just load one more than the other to balance out my unsymmetrical camera rather than stick it at a jaunty angle. Hopes are high but I’m keeping everything from the old balance in a bag in case of sudden THIS SUCKSness.

It’s been a long time, my jog/shuttle wheel hasn’t seen this much exercise in many years but it’s time I got back in the editing seat and got some movement up in my visual media deliverings!

In other words: A cosplay music video has been made! Except CMV doesn’t sound all that cool so I’m going with the far cheesier Cosplay Cascade! (I reserve the right to retract this name if the world and its dog hates it) Thanks to all the wonderful cosplayers of KitaCon 4 for putting up with me not just snapping photos but also making them spin like tops, jump about, and generally flail around like loons. This is your payoff! All 130ish of you! Apologies to anyone I filmed who didn’t make it in, there aren’t many and most are my fault at the camera end!

All weekend I was trying out my amateur steadicam and running semicircles around people in order to get that magical floating-camera effect that’s popular these days, with the aim of setting it to music and making something cool. I had a lot of fun with this and it was great to see so many people getting involved.

“But hang on“, I imagine you saying, “aren’t you ripping off CosplayFever with making music videos?”

• Not at all! I started out in music video stuffs, albeit not with cosplayers, nor with any clue what I was doing, nor were they any good, but NEVERMIND!
• I did – since we’re on good terms anyway – check I wouldn’t be stepping on toes by making one, so I think we cool. Hopefully.
• I’m ripping off acksonl, get it right! Jeez. I am half expecting a knock on the door and opening it to get the back end of a steadicam to the face for this, but I figure no one else this side of the pond is making them so..

So yes, music, cosplayers, swishy steadicam, and much silliness. As a disclaimer – beyond not owning rights the music in any way, shape or form – I’m not a pro at this. The steadicam rig is cheap, flaky, customised and abused muchly; this is only my second outing doing any filming with it and my first on this scale; my editing skills haven’t been flexed since like 2006; etc etc excuses excuses. Basically: it isn’t all sharp, perfectly focused, smoothly panned, ungrainy footage and I can’t even promise I kept peoples’ heads in view the whole time. I’ll get better!

For obvious reasons, I’ll take criticisms on the filming, the grading, the editing, music choice, what have you, but keep negative comments on individual cosplayers to yourselves – they’re out of my control XD and a lot of them are good friends of mine.

Hope you enjoy, share the love, etc. Anyone interested in taking up similar projects or donating footage to the cause of Nert Makes More Videos, I’ll be making posts about the steadicam and its trials/tribulations soonish.

Kita4 managed to best the previous year on just about every count, the vibe throughout the venue was amazing, lots of lovely costumes, and all the special guests were awesome to meet.

While the gallery numbers are respectable for a small event, Kita is anything but, so what gives? Also what the HELL is up with that massive data count, I ask myself? I may have been.. preoccupied the entire convention with the gadget you may have noticed in an earlier post. Details are still sketchy and we haven’t got all the intelligence on the matter yet, but rumour has it that I was filming cosplayers all about the convention merlin-steadicam-style. To what end? We just don’t have the answers yet..

But soon…

Up-and-coming MyM magazine enquired about some assistance with their cosplay section so I was duly thrown at them to take some pictures by their stall, as will be apparent when you look at the gallery! Also something of another first, I teamed up with Foxy of Fox’s Eye Photography and his photos from the stall are mixed in here, head along to his gallery for more photos from the whole weekend!

More video footage was also taken, it’s a slow process but I amassing something of a collection for The Project ™, hopefully KitaCon will source me with enough to get something substantial put out!

Minami’s 18th outing, breaking another landmark as the country’s oldest running anime convention, did not disappoint and was a remarkably chilled event for me. We didn’t even break any tables this year!

Photography backup was to be found in the forms of Niffer and Lucy once more, covering convention ground that I could not! Their first Minami and they both loved it.

Apologies in the delay of getting these done, the world and its dog seemed to want these buried, or just me in general. I’m still typing this through a swimming headache!

To the right you may well notice something unusual, you may see this at the forthcoming events, do not run, do not fear or panic. Well, unless it looks good in 60fps, then feel free. Most importantly, don’t freeze on the spot! The deer-in-headlights look isn’t in fashion this season, do something cool instead! The lemon demands it. ManyLemons may well be revisiting something of a page from its own tattered, ancient-runed book, and taking a little return to roots with a project I have in mind.

To this end: EXPECT THE LENS

Congratulations to our winners for both!

Lex and Sands are our representatives for the 2012 World Cosplay Summit with their excellent Vampire Hunter D (Amano version) costumes and performance, and will be attending the finals in Japan.

Yuka and Dahlia will be representing us at the 2012 European Cosplay Gathering with their costumes and performance from Final Fantasy XIII, as with Nomes with her Son Goku from Dragonball Z (which sadly I missed seeing!) at the finals held in France.

Other prizes went to contestants for: Judges’ Choice, Best Junior, Best Individual, 4th place, and 3rd place.

Heresy.

tl;dr version: What kind of panel/workshop would you want to see from me? or for me to generally arrange and drag people into?

Initially just a quick note I’ve gone back and cherry picked  bunch of the better photos from the last few events to go in the Showcase folder, and I’ve randomized that up so it’s less.. static.  Also getting into the groove of taking special care of some of the nicer shots or ones that could shine if given a little polish.  I’m still very hands-off with photoshop, 99% of my photos only ever see a bit of ACDSee develop-mode love before hitting the upload script, but sometimes the odd shot deserves a little more TLC than that.

I has a beauty dish!  Only a portable, plastic, velcro-together deal but still requires some experimentation!  So expect that.  Also been toying a bit with a homemade fig-rig for potential video work in the future but it’s not perfect.  Tried to mount some LED worklights on it but they’re a bit.. directional. More playing is needed!

So that’s the update, however I have DUAL PURPOSES for this post, triple purposes if you count the fact I don’t like seeing the exact same static entry for the months between Oct Expo and Minami :P

Said ulterior motive is to get some feedback, and I know that’s like pulling teeth but TOUGH.   So another Minami approaches, and since the crowd is often highly similar in attendance I don’t want to drag out the old panel material for another revision.. I could get away with that at larger events or ones I’ve not been to before but here they’ll kinda notice.

Ideas on the table so far are revisiting the previous two (photography and posing) but with different approaches or more specific stuff, both were pretty open ended.  Workshops sound more fun but hard to do with only a couple of cameras and a lot of people!  Ideas welcome there too.  I could even do cosplay ones if.. I’d made any costumes worth writing panels on!  Not that that technically stopped me last time..

I’m happy to do another posing one, I have a bunch of ideas on action/fisticuffs/leapingaround/etc shots, and leading that in with scene recreations in general (expressions, intent, etc), but would that be enough of a panel to interest people?  Or what else could I cover?  Happy to re-tread ground as long as it won’t get dull for people who actually remember my previous stuff!  (or, you know, read it online)

Similarly I can blab for hours on photography itself, and there’s a wealth of stuff I have ideas to talk about regarding how cameras work, understanding how and why to use them as compared to our own eyes, all sorts of sciencey and optical illusionary things, and a ton of stuff on flash and shaping light, but again, that’s kinda specific?   and I’d want to at least somehow link it back to cosplay so it’s even relevant to the convention!

Even if you’re not going to Minami, once I’ve made the panel material you can be sure I’ll wheel it out at other events and/or do a writeup online later so if it does interest you, prod me to do it and  it’ll get to you one way or another!

I got a brief bit of freedom but otherwise was chained to the photo studio for the ECC finalists until Sunday.  My first attempt at seamless white!  Not my kit so thanks to Pounce for supplying it but after the feedback everyone got from Aya’s studios I tried a more adventurous setup with duct tape and foam gobos, painted MDF flooring and stuff like that.  It’s gone pretty well though now going through the photos again on a white screen it’s clear where the falloff still lies, sads!  Also thanks to Ashe for the loan of a gorgeous bit of kit in the shape of the 24-70mm f/2.8L Canon lens for the weekend, but JEEZ my arms hurt for days after carrying that thing for two days solid..

This year’s EuroCosplay contest was spectacular, once again some real showmanship and camaraderie between the majority of the finalists and some familiar faces back from across the waters.  The opening video was of mine and Locke’s creation, I did the stupidly overdramatic stuff and the cringingly patriotic flags, the 3D country flyovers were made from his sweat and tears learning the 3D mechanics over the last month.

Apologies for anyone looking for me on the Saturday, I was intending to get a bit more free time to do my usual thing but sadly was not to be.

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So much Felixize tri-dimensional love :P