THE LERBERG RIG

So I was at Comic-Con San Diego shooting promo video for local Poken affiliate and I knew I would be running around all day and didn't want to shlep the tripod, so I decided to debut my DIY steadycam (an Ikea CD shelf). Even though it wasn't quite finished I didn't want to try and go handheld, my JVC HM100 is tiny and shaky as all get out. I have been eyeing the manfrotto fig rig and when my wife brought home some CD shelves from Ikea for me to organize my office, I held it in my hands and it felt like it was meant to be. I immediately started running around the house with the CD rack and quickly realized this could work...

Fist step was to knock out the center support with a rubber mallet.

Next I decided which side would be the bottom (icoinflip) and using a 3/8" bit drilled a hole dead center for the counter weight mounting hole. The counter weight is just a 2.5 lb. weight from a weight set that can be found at any sporting goods store or just go take one from the weight set in your garage that you never use :)

I went to the Depo and picked up a 3/8" threaded 12" rod and some nuts, lock washers and a wing nut for the bottom. Here's what it looks like with counter weight attached.



Next step is the camera mounting plate. I really spent a lot of time thinking about how to best mount the camera on this thing. The bolt popping up from the counter weight was making it tricky. Then one day my wife and I are cleaning out the garage and she hands me these bracket/plate things to throw away and I had another ah ha moment. Apparently this plate is supposed to be used with the expedit shelves to attach it to the wall?

Here is a shot of the plate. I immediately (well after finishing the garage of coarse and like 3 days later, but mentally it was immediately) got the faithful dremel tool out and began chewing out a slot for my mounting screw. It could be cleaner, but you want to make sure your screw can enter the hole but won't fall out the slot. Here is a detail of the slot (twss). One thing I forgot to photograph was the square pad of craft foam I spray mounted around the slot so that the camera has a soft compressible surface to sit on so it won't jiggle loose with use. So here it is with the plate attached.

After that I cut some strips of the craft foam and spray mounted then to the handles. Then I used good ol' gaffers tape to finish it off. I drilled some holes in the top of the rig to facilitate mounting equipment like LCD screen, lights, mic receiver, etc. I bought some of these screw on hot shoe mounts from B&H to use with hot shoe accessories. Now lets load it up! Next, I will post a link to some split screen footage showing with and without the rig......