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I thought I would share my home made Camera Jib I built using as much recycled materials that I can. The only parts that were not recycled were the gym pulleys and a few nuts and bolts that I purchased new for this project.

 

This Jib is very heavy since the metal square tubing, brackets and the base plate I used were heavy steel and the metal pulley was heavy duty. There is a bit of side to side slack on the arm and the speaker wire I used to run the pulleys slips easily if the tension is not tight.

 

I have added a tilt feature on the Jib that allows me to tilt the camera up or down which is great for following a subject while you are moving the arm above or below the subject. I get about 1.2 meters of swing from the arm which is good enough for what I need it for and the results I get from using this device is pretty good. I have also mounted some 1/4 thread screws on the base plate so I can attach camera accessories onto it like an external monitor and audio recorder.

 

Here is a some footage I did using my DIY Camera Jib. Please note that there is image stabilisation on the camcorder used in this footage.

 

 

Pros

• The arm has some nice resistance due to its weight for smooth raising, lowering and panning.
  
• The results are comparable to commercial Jibs.
• Tilting feature allows for flexible style shooting and following of subject.
• Cheap to build because most parts used were recycled materials.

 

Cons

• Too heavy to be portable.
• No locking mechanism for the arm when disassembling and removing the counterweight which can result in the arm and camera slamming into the ground.
• Tilting quickly sometimes causes the pulleys to slip due to the speaker cable I used as wire for the pulleys.
• Time consuming to build.
• Some of the parts I used are a little rusty and it makes the Jib look used and worn out.
• A heavy duty tripod is needed to use this otherwise it could tip the tripod over when using, assembling, disassembling or moving.

 

Conclusion

I found building this device out of recycled materials harder than if I just bought the parts from the store. I had to basically work around the parts I could find at home rather than design something and then buy the parts new at the store. This is pretty much a Frankenstein build with a few issues but I really can’t complain because it still produces the desired results comparable to other jibs that costs twice as much.