Photography Hardware

Since Nikon doesn't provide any accessories for the Super Coolscan 5000 ED with which to scan 110 film (for reasons now obvious to me -- the film sucks), I made myself a film carrier for the negatives. It consists of four layers of bristol paper (heavy white art paper), 5cm x 5cm, taped together along the edges. I cut a 19mm x 14mm hole in the middle, and then made small slits between the inner two layers of paper through which to slide the negative. The whole thing is a bit more square than it appears in this picture. It's a little tricky to get the prepped negative into the scanner without bumping the negative out of position, but it can be done with a steady hand and foreceps.

The finished product, ready to be installed in the car. All told, it took about an hour to fumble around and get this to go together. View the resulting timelapses here.

A closeup view of the mounted camera in its intended orientation. Since software settings will readily flip the image on this webcam, there's no reason it can't be flipped over the other way. The original mount on the camera is opened up just for visibility - that little counterweight leg folds down neatly over the steel nut. Unfortunately, however, I couldn't disassemble that part of the original mount in order to take the counterweight off. View the resulting timelapses here.

It took a lot of bending and adjusting to get the holes in the interleaved feet of the P-clamps to line up. Be patient, and carefully adjust the bends in the "tangential" feet, so as to shift the loop a bit and give a little slack to the "bent" feet on the clamps. I did most of the adjustments with the tangential feet (only) bolted together with a short 1/4-20 bolt-nut pair. Once the bent feet were adjusted enough, their slotted holes started to fit over the free threads on the bolt. At that point I removed the bolt and nut, and trimmed a 3/8" section of the rubber liner off of the P-clamps (not visible here - it's in the area facing the "outboard" sides of the camera's original mount) to allow the bent feet to reach just a little bit further (with the untouched rubber liner plenty enough to hold the camera tightly). Having previously removed the head from the suction mount (by opening the clamp on the ball head), I then slipped the feet of the P-clamps over the thread on the head, and (somehow, don't ask me how) managed to get the nut to engage before it all fell apart. On the suction mount's head, there is exactly enough length to go through the nut and leave the rule-of-thumb 1-2 free threads on the other side. The only thing left to do is to fit in some sort of restraint on the hinge between the camera and its original mount, so that it can't swivel freely there. View the resulting timelapses here.

The webcam as seen from underneath, attached (sorta permanently) to the mounting bracket. I say "sorta permanently" only because, once you have it assembled, you won't want to take it apart again. For use on a tripod, I would buy a sacrificial quick shoe for the purpose. And yes, the camera head is upside down on its original mount. I disassembled it to see where I might pot in a threaded insert for the tripod mount, and then put it back together the wrong way. This same mounting approach should work with the original mount in its proper orientation, though. View the resulting timelapses here.

Two 1/2"-diameter P-clamps. Not shown: a single 1/4-20 steel nut. That's it. All told, about $3 worth of materials from the specialty fastener drawers at Lowe's. Oh, and a Logitech 9000 camera, which was about $85 when I bought it new a year or so ago.

Another tripod hack, this time a crossbar for mounting two camcorders for filming Monday's Space Shuttle launch (STS-131). The plan is to mount one camcorder with a telephoto extension on the fixed quick-release (left) and adjust the entire assembly to align that camera at maximum zoom looking at LC-39A to get the ignition and early liftoff. The second mount, a small Promaster ball head, is for a second camcorder, with a somewhat wider field of view, independently pointed at the same pad with slightly higher inclination, to capture ignition, liftoff, and the first minute or so of the launch. Dunno if it'll work, but there's no harm trying. All told, there's about $40 worth of materials involved, $28 of which was the ball head which I had to buy for the project (already had the QR plate and shoes and other bits and pieces). The crossbar is a piece of 2" x 3/8" steel C-channel from Home Depot, cut to 12" long, drilled for 1/4" bolts, and covered with black gaffer tape (in lieu of black paint, which I don't have the time to do right now). Oddly enough, the gaffer tape makes it look pretty professional, as if it's powder-coated. 1/4"-20 bolts hold the two mounts on at either end. In the center is the spare 3/8" shoe that came with my Vanguard Tracker 4 tripod, with the screw removed and replaced by another 1/4"-20 bolt and nut (need to get some washers tomorrow morning). And yes, I did drill a 5/16" hole in the bar to receive the set screw on the shoe, because I am that detail-oriented. The Manfrotto QR plate on the left was the same width as the C-channel, which posed a small problem - it wanted to ride on the tines of the C. To fill the gap, without having to fuss about finding something exactly the right thickness, I took two leftover composite door-hanging shims, cut 2" long pieces from them where their thicknesses added up right, and then drilled an oversized hole in the middle. I then oversized the hole lengthwise to the crossbar, so that when I assembled everything and snugged up the bolt, the wedge-like shims would slip just a little bit until they were exactly the right height inside the C-channel. Brilliant, if I do say so myself...

Another tripod hack, this time a crossbar for mounting two camcorders for filming Monday's Space Shuttle launch (STS-131). (No, the tripod is not really that short...) The plan is to mount one camcorder with a telephoto extension on the fixed quick-release (left) and adjust the entire assembly to align that camera at maximum zoom looking at LC-39A to get the ignition and early liftoff. The second mount, a small Promaster ball head, is for a second camcorder, with a somewhat wider field of view, independently pointed at the same pad with slightly higher inclination, to capture ignition, liftoff, and the first minute or so of the launch. Dunno if it'll work, but there's no harm trying. All told, there's about $40 worth of materials involved, $28 of which was the ball head which I had to buy for the project (already had the QR plate and shoes and other bits and pieces). The crossbar is a piece of 2" x 3/8" steel C-channel from Home Depot, cut to 12" long, drilled for 1/4" bolts, and covered with black gaffer tape (in lieu of black paint, which I don't have the time to do right now). Oddly enough, the gaffer tape makes it look pretty professional, as if it's powder-coated. 1/4"-20 bolts hold the two mounts on at either end. In the center is the spare 3/8" shoe that came with my Vanguard Tracker 4 tripod, with the screw removed and replaced by another 1/4"-20 bolt and nut (need to get some washers tomorrow morning). And yes, I did drill a 5/16" hole in the bar to receive the set screw on the shoe, because I am that detail-oriented. The Manfrotto QR plate on the left was the same width as the C-channel, which posed a small problem - it wanted to ride on the tines of the C. To fill the gap, without having to fuss about finding something exactly the right thickness, I took two leftover composite door-hanging shims, cut 2" long pieces from them where their thicknesses added up right, and then drilled an oversized hole in the middle. I then oversized the hole lengthwise to the crossbar, so that when I assembled everything and snugged up the bolt, the wedge-like shims would slip just a little bit until they were exactly the right height inside the C-channel. Brilliant, if I do say so myself...

A few months back I bought a lightweight compact tripod (Slik Mini-Ultra II, I think it is) for hiking use. Then discovered that I had more use for it for mounting a camcorder than a still camera. The standard ball head was fine for fixed shots with the camcorder, but useless for less boring pan-tilt shots. I didn't see any pan-tilt heads that I liked that weighed less than the tripod itself, unfortunately, so resigned myself to adding a "steering" handle to the head as a compromise. The head as shown is topped with a Manfrotto quick release adapter plate (for compatibility with my other tripods). Between the Slik quick release shoe and the Manfrotto plate is the resulting mounting feature for an improvised handle. The mounting feature is simply one loop of a standard door hinge, still connected to the bulk of the hinge leaf. The leaf itself was cut down to match the profile of the Manfrotto plate (notice the silver line just below the thumb lock). I removed the screw from the Slik shoe and replaced it with a standard 1/4-20 bolt (with a bit of the head filed down to reduce its profile to fit the Slick QR plate), which passes through one of the original holes in the hinge leaf. Another hole in the leaf was enlarged slightly, to fit the bolt head of the thumb lock, which protruded about 1/8" from the bottom surface of the Manfrotto plate. The displacement between these two holes conveniently set the tube at about a 20deg angle to the boreline of a mounted camera. I have not yet made a handle for the rig, as (and here's the punchline) when I went to Amazon to order the filters for the elsewhere-described webcam modifications, I discovered that I had already put in my shopping cart Slik's pan-head equivalent of this ball-head...and forgotten all about it. This means I don't actually know if this hack works, because I haven't had reason to finish and test it.

I bought two filters, a decent CP and a cheap UV -- both of which had to be ordered online, since suddenly none of the electronics or camera stores in Denver carry 30mm filters. This is apparently a recent development, as I swear I saw them in stores as recently as a couple months ago when I started planning this project. The glass in the UV filter was not desired, so I applied masking tape over the whole thing, stood it on a stack of quarters (so that the glass was in contact with the quarters and the ring was unsupported - so as not to put any load on the ring that might distort it), and broke the glass out with a hammer and nail set. The glass crushed into a mess of dust and sand-sized particles (which I did not expect), but came out as clean and easy as I could have hoped for, with no damage or distortion to the ring. View the resulting timelapses here.

The filter ring fit over the spherical trim ring around the lens, and so was somewhat self aligning although it did want to slide a bit. Lacking any solid reference features, I aligned it parallel to the face of the lens as best I could by eyeball, then applied a few drops of cyanoacrilite glue to lock it into place for the epoxy. And yes, the rig is mounted to the front of my microwave. View the resulting timelapses here.

After application of an internal and external fillet of Loc-Tite 50-minute marine epoxy, using a bamboo skewer for mixing and application. Note the blue tape used to protect the lens from contamination. View the resulting timelapses here.

The circular polarizer filter (30mm), the webcam with filter ring attached and lens cap in place, and a patch of velvet for a sun shade. I was a little peeved that the lens cap does not fit the circular polarizer (no outer thread on the filter). Now I have to carry the filter separately in my bag. Total weight: 1 lb for the camera rig, lens cap, and sunshade, 2 oz for the polarizer and case, and about half an ounce for the cloth bag the folded up rig slips into for carrying. View the resulting timelapses here.

The filter ring installation, after application of a coat of flat black modeling paint to minimize internal reflections behind the circular polarizer. Before painting, a bright sun-dog-like ring appeared whenever the camera was pointed at a light source. I later touched up the thin sliver of unpainted silver around the lens with more matte black paint. View the resulting timelapses here.

For belt and suspenders reasons, I added a patch of black velvet around the camera as a removable sunshade. Once in place on the window, the velvet will be secured to the glass with some patches of gaffer tape. View the resulting timelapses here.

The business end of the windshield webcam, with the velvet sunshade and circular polarizer filter in place. It's really impressive just how black that black velvet looks in photographs. Wow. I later extended the matte black paint to all the lens-facing surfaces of the filter (everything here but the knurl). View the resulting timelapses here.

The windshield-mounted time lapse webcam in action. The velvet sunshade is looking a little scruffy thanks to having to be moved from the dead Land Rover to the replacement Explorer, but it served its intended purpose well enough. View the resulting timelapses here.

The Igus slide for my time-lapse/video dolly project arrived yesterday...