Steadicam

  • Thread starter Thread starter Will25
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Will25

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Has anyone ever tried making one? They're ridiculously expensive (probably with good reason) but I don't have £750+ to be forking out anytime soon and hiring one requires a deposit of £1000! Insane.
 
A kid I worked with a couple years ago had a homemade one. It worked pretty well as long as it was calibrated correctly. We ended up using some of the steadicam footage in the final edit.
 
Most of the time, my answer is "use a tripod". The rest of the time, I add "with a dolly". Handheld shots are way overused, IMO.

If you're determined to do handheld shots, my advice would be to start by experimenting with shooting the shots without a Steadicam. Lighter modern cameras with good image stabilizers (Canon's optical image stabilization, for example) can often do a remarkably good job on their own.

Finally, in most cities, there are outfits that will rent out Steadicam hardware on the order of thirty or forty bucks a day (sans operator). It might be worth trying it out just to get an idea of what they can and can't realistically do.
 
This one looks cool too

DIY Steadicam, Glidecam

steadycam_20080112_0011ss.webp

This is a similar set-up

both are a little more complex because of the Gimbal (sp?) joint - but apparently that really makes the difference

 
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