Bricks in Motion
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Hey anybody who replies to this topic!;) I have a tripod and a custom made eye level camera holder but I can't seem to keep the eye level holder still. Any suggestions on keeping it still?
Is your holder made out of lego? If it is, try to use a firmer structure or you could use a gorilla pod like I do. I wrap it around the top of my tripod
and stick my WCP9000 on the gorilla pod with a lego cradle. If you have any more questions or for me to explain better, please don't hesitate to ask.
-VFS
Ya my holder is Lego:(
You mean you want to put a Lego-built cradle for a webcam on a tripod, or what? I am not sure I understand. What is your camera?
I put my Cannon Powershot Digital Elph in a custom made Lego camera holder...... But I can't seem to keep it still when I take the the shots....
Are you touching your camera to take a picture? Unless you have a super sturdy holder, you're going to move the camera.
I put my Cannon Powershot Digital Elph in a custom made Lego camera holder...... But I can't seem to keep it still when I take the the shots....
A picture would be helpful. Also, do you use a capture program or do you take the pictures manually? (With a button)
Maybe the camera doesn't sit tight enough. I mean, your camera has fine nuances in design (gradient lenght, width and something like that), so it's pretty impossible to build a good camera holder for a camera with Lego unless you're really lucky and your camera fits by coincidence. It would certainly help to tape the camera down inside the cage (using a double-sided tape -> that's best for all kind of taping something down in stop motion in my opinion) but I'm not sure if that is a good solution. You'll see if you still have camera bumps or not.
Better ways would be to either buy a remote trigger (combined with tape and maybe with cage) for the camera or get a tripod, or both! Tripod would be the best option but they can get quite expensive. It's better to save up for a single decent one even if that means to wait a bit (for example I got a Cullmann one for about 100 euros, that's enough actually -> I'm saying that because professional tripods are 1000ish but that's insane IMO) than quickly snatch a cheap one that doesn't do its job. Cullmann is a very good (German) brand for tripods and also Manfrotto is recommended. Both enjoy good price-for-value with their tripods.
Hope this helps a bit.
During animation, always put your camera on a two second timer. This can sometimes seriously help prevent bump. 
Sorry.... Here's the link to the picture of the custom made holder: http://anteater201studios.webs.com/apps … d=96948911
I do use a tripod also:)
Anteater, please do not triple post. If you have more to say within 20min, you can just use the edit button in the bottom right hand corner.
What I can say is that, from experience, putting your camera on a tripod and sticky-tak it to the desk on which you're animating (Thanks Mason 
). This helps to reduce bumps drastically, although I'm afraid you can never get a camera with manual shutter to stop moving completely.
...although I'm afraid you can never get a camera with manual shutter to stop moving completely.
I've always brickfilmed with a manually activated shutter, and in filming my TOY entry I developed a method to prevent all camera shakes/bumps (and I don't use anything to hold my tripod down). It just requires a little patience and care.
Setting a 2 sec timer for auto-trigger is also good idea which I forgot to mention. I do that myself, too.
What camera do you have?
I don't know if that question was directed toward me, but if it was, I use a Canon Powershot SD780 IS. It's a pretty inconvenient camera animation-wise, as it has almost no manual controls and doesn't support tethered shooting. But I've managed to find a way around these problems by experimenting with different ways to set up my "studio".
I was wondering the same, probably he means us both. What I use is a Canon G9 - it actually does support tethered shooting but I don't use it at the moment. It's quite inconvient with my current set-up.
Oh ok so they are almost the same kind of camera....
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