DIY Projects Collection

Hi everyone,

Here is my idea of a cheap but practical microphone-holder for your Sony Alpha with video:

first you buy (or beg, steal or borrow) a few wooden curtain-rings;



then you drill holes for pins and make four 'sleeves' at 90 deg. each;



the next item you need will be spacers, small metal tubes, and hairbands...



Glue it together and put in your microphone, in my case the mike of a Sony HVR-HD 1000e, with the hairbands;





is everything in good working condition? Paint your microphone-holder in a nice black semigloss finish;







When used in stormy conditions you can add a Dead Cat made by Rode.

Enjoy your videorecording. Der Dickgg

DIY L-Plate for $5

I picked up one of these flash plates from Ebay (available from several sellers) for something else I planned to do. I ended up not needing it for my other project and it was laying around for a while till I wondered if I could use it as an L plate on my camera.Link to similar flash plate as purchased.

The flash holder (Canon style) unscrews to leave a 1/4 inch screw which can then be removed by unscrewing. This thumb screw, and the other on the bought Ebay item both have a 1/4 inch socket in the thumb screw to attach to tripod plate. You will need one of the two later- and have a spare for a rainy day.

The plate needs to be bent to 90 degrees, with the rubber part of the plate needing to face inward when you bend it, to ensure that it sits fast when attached to camera. I measured 40mm from the single screw hole being needed for my A55 to be centrally weighted (mid-lens) when in use, and then had the plate bent on this mark. Other camera models might be slightly different. You would best bend in a vice. I knew a guy at a garage who bent it for me, as my only vice is photography- and that is only good for bending the rules

When bent, you plate should look as in picture below. You'll need one of those thumb screws that was removed before bending, and two tripod plates matching your own tripod.



Mount one plate direct to the place where the single drilled hole is. This is already threaded for 1/4 inch, so should fit standard plates. The long side needs to have a thumb screw put back in. On the longer end, find the screw thread, and remount one of those longer 1/4 inch thumb screws. The picture below is for illustration showing 2 mounted tripod plates. First screw the thumb screw into the camera tripod mounting. Then screw the tripod plate into the thumb screw mounting.



The long plate side can slide up and down till you find the optimal setting for your camera.

Once mounted, you are good to use the DIY L-plate for landscape and portrait photos- with portrait shots sitting better on your tripod head, with weight centrally over the head, which helps avoid tripod or camera slip with the head tilted.



For those of you without a vice or with less DIY lust- I notice that the same ebay seller now actually sells L flash plates, which probably to just the same job... but will cost you a couple of USD more.

Very cool, @CuriousOne! Sounds like a great success.
At some point, I'd like to see a photo of the light on and a photo or two taken using the light as a light source to see a sense of its color. I also encourage you to make the pics a little bit larger than the one in your original post. It's hard to see without jumping to the host site.

Thanks!
Ian

@ Alex

See my sig for a link that covers posting pics and links.

Please edit your post if if have inadvertently deleted anything while inserting the pics for you.

I think you are missing an explanation of the second shot, although it is obvious how it was taken with your homebuilt photo/video light..

Edited by brettania - 14 October 2012 at 10:21

that is a pretty amazing spread of light. How do you mount it? Do you have any pics?

Ok here it is:



Not a top notch design but it works. You may have some questions I think:

Q: Why mount light below the camera, instead of top?

A: The top of the camera is already occupied by the flash. So no place there. Also, angled light from below reduces visible nose size on human faces and also makes eyes less dark. (Most georgians have large, protrunded nose and eyes sit deeper, so top lightning keeps eyes dark and nose larger)

Q: Why such weird angle for the light, is this correct?

A: Yes, that angle was sellected according to proper iluumination of the middle of the frame, considering the working range of this light.

Q: What is the battery life?
A: I haven't done any long term field tests so far, today I'm taking it to the birthday and we'll see.

Just back from the "field test". The design idea overall is nice, but hot shoe mount idea is bad - the classic hot shoe "lock" feature is not strong enough to hold the weight of the light, so when I moved rapidly, light fall of the shoe. And there another problem arised - I forgot to insert foam padding to hold batteries in place, so they jumped out of holder and circuit was disconnected, and due to type of used controller, it won't power up, without "initializing" by external current source. So, either batteries should be dead soldered, or holder provide more tight grip.