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The Famous $14 Steadycam

Stabilizers – tripods, monopods, steadycam  Controlling camera movement  Zoom & focus techniques  

The Steadicam produces smooth motion video by isolating the camera from the herky-jerk of the operator, giving an impression that the camera is flying, or floating. One of its first and more famous uses was in the film Rocky, to follow Rocky up the museum steps and circle him at the top. A steadicam makes a huge difference in many ground-level shots where the subject is moving.

$14 Steadycam

Professional steadicams run into the thousands of dollars, so it's a challenge for amateurs to find a way to do this at a lower cost. If you Google "homemade steadicam," you'll be amazed at the number of different designs that have resulted.

The most famous of these, illustrated at the left, is constructed mainly of parts available at your local hardware store or Home Depot. It's suitable for a typical consumer camcorder, but is a bit too heavy for use with a pocket camcorder. For Johnny Chung Lee's instructions on how to build your own steadicam, click the link below:

http://steadycam.org/


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