Crazy Cheap Camera Slider DIY Ideas- wacky but they WORK

all right sliders and I'm not talking about the kind that you eat at happy hour junk food restaurants throughout America if that's what you're thinking about you got to go to another channel the healthy life com today's sliders is about how to move the camera if you were to use a camera and hold it in your hand and try to move it like you know in in a video shot it's probably gonna be a little bit shaky so you need something that keeps it perfectly smooth and that's where sliders are a slider is basically just a track that this is a basic slider here that hits a track and it has something that slides on it really smoothly and you put the camera on there this is a real basic once a little tiny one and you have two different sizes of threads that go on there and it comes a little feet that you put on here on each end so you can set this on the ground like this and slide it and it also has holes that you can screw into like here a tripod or light stands which I have here you can so you can hold it up with all kinds of different ways but the idea is that you can have it you know go up diagonally or vertically that's what a slider is now in the old days a way to do this was you have a track you have a little wheels that go on if you have like a flat surface like a countertop you can use something like this but most people don't have like for example here there there's a ridge here so it goes smooth but don't bedont smooth but help it up you know that if you don't want that that's what it slide it by the way this is a Pico dollies are really cute I'm going to show you how to use these in a minute but let's go to sliders here the most basic one that campers and hikers and people that go out in the wilderness that you'll have to backpack they stick it on a tripod like this which is basic if you have a little tiny camera a little camcorder or something you can do this the problem with this is unless you have a real heavy-duty tripod it can wobble a little bit in the middle as you can see here you know but if you hold it I mean it's a smooth move if you hold it steady and the camera is not too heavy that's a basic one the second one is light stance so you have a light stand underneath each end and that keeps a little bit more steady and then they come in different sizes there's the kind that where it's a track like this it's a single piece of metal or something a little more heavy-duty like these which have two pipes the eat this pipe is actually three different sections that are screwed together so when you're backpacking or hiking it out there the bag that it goes in is only two feet long and then you screw them together and yet something at six feet long and you put a dolly on on there and you roll it and this is a little bit more heavy-duty for you can put heavy cameras on stuff like this this setup is only like $250 that revolve camera it just takes some assembly something like this doesn't take a lot of assembly this thing here for example this is pretty heavy-duty because of the track look look at the cross-section here this is a heavy-duty piece of metal and it can handle just about anything and you can see there's holes in here to screw in to hold the lights though you know the light stands tripods whatever that you're using to hold it up but this is in this bi-conical mofo this is a really good one it's five feet long this one's like 35 bucks at mobile photo calm and there's a long one here this is a six foot one this one here is really good it's really really long 6 feet long believe it or not I got this online from Walmart for 165 bucks it moves really well now the thing about these longer ones is you have to have because it kind of bows and it starts bowing in the middle so you have to have something in the middle there's actually a screw hole down here that you can put another tripod underneath to hold it from bowing but I'm going to get to that in a minute let's get to the fun stuff on by the way the light stand that you can use to hold these things up at each end don't have to be big here's a little tiny little light say anything is so cute and you get on location then you open them up and here's your light stand sometimes that's all you need to hold up a like down there you can see I have some short ones just to show you you know sometimes you don't need to get them really high off the ground this is easy this is the simple part the track is easy you can get these really cheap you know some of these are like 20 bucks or something and then you just manually move it with your hands that's like as basic as it gets tracks are cheap a way to move it is really cheap but what if you're the only one out there what if you want to film yourself talking you can't be standing there doing this while you're talking unless you have somebody with you and even then the movement might not be totally smooth it might be like again you get the human arm going it might be a little bit jerky so that's where motors come in and this is where it gets fun and I'm gonna show you some expensive ways and some cheap some really ridiculously insanely cheap ways homemade ways to do this but before I show you the really cheap way of doing it let me show you the more expensive Pro way this is the pro aim cambered what makes this special is it uses a counterweight that equals the weight of the camera so no matter what angle the track is at the camera is smoothly held in place and it only takes one finger to move it in either direction even uphill if you can balance this so well you can do cool stuff like this you can even use this rig as a jib and a slider it's called a pro aim cambered and it's about $1400 without the tripod and about 2000 with the tripod the track is a simple part moving the camera that's where it gets you get creative or it gets expensive so here's one by a company called Pro aim they have all kinds of really cool stuff I've got all kinds of stuff by Pro aim this is a little slider called the pro aim jazz and what it is it's motorized and it's so cool because I'm going to show you why in a minute now watch the camera here it just goes in a straight line and you can adjust the speed you can make it go faster and slower okay that's a basic move where the camera just goes like that now watch this there's a knob here and if I pull this knob back watch this track here see how it goes diagonally it goes diagonally I'm gonna do that again see I pull this knob it stays in position here but it goes to eglee see what it does to the camera when I move that it is attached to this diagonal bar so now when I put this diagonally in place and I move the camera watch the angle at which the camera is pointing see how it's turning this is called a parallax move what this does is if I am back here and I want to keep the camera pointing at me at all times so here I am talking the camera is looking at me the whole time even though it's moving isn't that cool check that it's just me there's nobody working the camera I can program I can program the track and the camera just how much it moves as it how much it looks at me or doesn't look at me or where the center of focus is the center of attention is of the camera I can make you go really slow it's going really slow right now so this could take like five minutes for it to make its move or I could speed it up so it takes like ten seconds but the camera is looking at me the whole time so that's really cool this is by company called Pro aim it's a slider called the pro aim jazz without the motor is a little over a hundred dollars with the motor control system it's like about three hundred dollars at pro ENCOM here's a basic one my company called revolve this is in this is an early version of it I've been using this thing for years and they have different speed motors this is fast than a medium is slow and you can speed it slow it down slow it down so it's barely moving and it slows down to a stop at the end so it doesn't just go and then suddenly stop so as you noticed this is battery-powered you can plug it into the wall or you can battery power it now here's another one here this is another one by revolve what's really cool is you can have extension cords for the cable here they just keep it going as far as you want I got a lot more cable here so I could be 20 feet back there it goes it's between two hundred four hundred dollars depending on this set up at revolve camera comm and then I push the button in the other direction and it goes back in the other direction so again I could be like you know as far back as I want I just keep extending the cord with more extension parts to it now obviously what you do is you screw a ball head on to here and then you screw your camera on top of that okay so these are the motorized ones what about if you don't have a motor and this is where I started getting creative with my own crazy ideas and this is where it becomes fun here let's take the 6-foot one here you'll notice this ends a little bit lower than this end so if I was to let this go it just moves on its own that's this pretty smooth camera move so if that's all you want and if you go like 120 frames per second or something you've got a shot that can last you two minutes if it's in slow motion and it's smooth now this is obviously for if you're the only if you're the only one working it then you're not trying to film yourself but what if you were trying to film yourself and what if you wanted it to go back in the other direction you want to go this way and then back and forth that's where the fun begins all right check this out and through the old world method of string pulling this is funny all you have to do is get some string this is where high tech becomes ridiculous and it's so easy and simple you just tie a piece of string to this thing and then you come over here and you find something to have it wrap around let's take this so now we have camera on a string on a track going around a post and I'm holding this end here now let's say I'm I'm about to film myself alright so here I am let's say there's a desk in front of me or something which I'm going to show you a shot where I actually did this and I start talking now watch oh I need to unscrew this alright it's ready to go now I'm going hello there anyway welcome to my show today I'm sitting here talking and the camera is moving isn't that cool the camera is moving I'm talking I'm pulling this string blah blah blah blah blah blah blah all right or I could be sitting here just pulling it like this where you don't see my arms moving and then when it gets the end I just let it go there it goes it goes on its own it's going on its own it's got to move on its own and then I could stop it isn't that cool so I could make you go back and forth and back and forth again I can go like this hello here I'm talking I'm talking you're not seeing my arms moving because it's underneath the desk and I'm moving the camera the camera is moving this is as silly as it gets but it works and here's a shot that I actually did it was funny because this was actually a serious talk and I was the only one around Cara's not here a lot of times during day so I have nobody to help me and I do my videos very spontaneously so I don't have time to call somebody to come over so I got to figure out a way fast how can I make the camera move while I'm talking and this is I actually did this in this shot it's so cool so that's one way to do it now let's say I'm to concentrating on what I'm saying and I don't want to pull a string well that's where you get a motor to pull a string this is where this is I'm going to show you what I did here this is where it gets very MacGyver ish it's kind of fun there's these motors you can buy on Amazon that are slow motors most of these a lot of these are used for like for example turning the inside the microwave that makes the food turn really slow these motors you can get different speeds from one rpm to this ones 20 rpm this one's 30 rpm so they turn really slow and they're 110 volts or you can get them at low voltage too and you hook them up like this to a cord make sure you insulate it well and then you have a plug on here and when you plug it in it turns really slow so let me plug one in and you can see it here you see it turning now that shaft if you were to coil up string on that shaft it would take quite a while for it to move the camera on the track that little shaft it would take a lot of turns to make that camera move so you need something wider attached to it and that's what this is and this is where it gets kind of fun this is my little way this is uh okay this is funny this is a motor this is you see the motor in here okay that's a motor like this that I then glued to this little grip device called a receiver plate which you can get at modern studio equipment that goes on your light stand I just glued it to there so now that goes on a light stand it's glued on there and then I got guys recognize what this is this is a fan from a bathroom vent cost like a buck kid anything on Amazon so I attach the motor to the bath the microwave motor to the bathroom vent and this is cool because now and you screw it to the top of a light stand and the bigger drum makes more string that get coiled up as its turning so I plug it in put a switch on there my beautiful high-tech homemade electrical wiring job and there it goes now it's turning this is turning for me at just the right speed for making string get coiled up for the track so let's make this track a little bit higher up on this end this time let's do the other end so so now when we pull from this end it comes up if you let go it'll go back down okay so if I was to attach this thing right here any piece of tape this is just real quick and dirty because I'm just trying make a demonstration here but it would be a little bit better than that and the ribs actually give the string some friction to grab on to and make sure that the string is at the same height as the track there we go it's turning so here's the finished shot using this setup look how smooth the camera motion is it's so amazingly smooth using this cheap little thing that only costs a few dollars to make and a piece of string and a microwave motor and in a bathroom fan it doesn't have to be really expensive fancy equipment just be resourceful with what you have sitting around just something that slowly pulls the camera down the track here I used a faster 20 or 30 rpm motor and just use the thread spool on some cardboard hanging whatever works it doesn't that be fancy just be creative with whatever you have lying around [Music] I've done this before also a couple of one by 12 this ends a little bit higher than that end you have your dolly on there if you let it go it goes on its own clear the ball head on there put your camera on that if you if the front wheels are turned obviously the camera can move in different directions like that this is really good for product shots turn the wheels so it curves around the object just make sure you have a flat surface without any ridges or grooves and it's amazing how simple it is to do a cool looking shot you want it to go in a straight line put the wheels in a straight line and then you hook a string up to it I did the Sun up for for this shot here the shot that you're looking at right now I had the camera on these boards being pulled by a string uphill like this and then when I got the end I flipped the switch and it went in Reverse and that the the motor started unwinding the cord and it started going back in the other direction and then we could just go back and forth and back and forth during the whole talk without actually having to manually work the camera by hand like this and again this is called the Pico dolly and get this that revolve all these are cheap it's under $100 that revolve camera everybody's got them they're really you know meant B and H - so these the basics of moving a camera there's other ways to you can get a motorized call you can get a toy car if you want but then again how you going to turn it on and off if you're the only one there I try to make things as if I'm the only one there and there's nobody to help me and because sometimes you're out in the middle of nowhere or you're alone at home and you want to do a shot so I try to figure out things that are things that I could just do you know from 10 feet away click a button pull a string whatever and I share with you when I come up with these crazy silly ideas but they work they work I've used them in actual videos the tracks are cheap he attracts anywhere these these ones here like that long one that's from China you can get some of these things super cheap there's a million of them out there you can use slider tracks for you know curtains curtain rods whatever there's a million ways to get tracks that's not the tricky part the tricky part is how you're gonna move this thing if you're not moving it by hand so that's what I was trying to show you today and I thought you know whatever I come up with crazy ideas I'll share it with you because that's what I'm about it's giving you guys things that ideas that I like to share in photography that's what this channel is about cuz I love photography tell your friends about this channel I give away a lot of free things Marcos picks ma RK USP IX stay tuned for the next fun episode what crazy idea will I come up with next see you in the next one [Music] you [Music]

Channel: MarkusPix

Views: 255,629

Keywords: camera sliders, photography gear, video sliders, camera gliders, camera tracks, proaim, movo, revolve camera, camera motors, slow rpm motors, motion control, diy, DIY motion control, parallax, paralax, motion slider, portable sliders, 6' slider, 6 foot slider, 6ft slider, 5 foot slider, DIY sliders, proaim jazz, pro aim, motorized slider, cambird slider

Id: oCotul5lVnI

Length: 21min 46sec (1306 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018