DIY: The Super-Small Bottle-Cap Tripod
When you are going on a field trip, you want your tripod to be small. Small and light. It would be best if it can fit in your pocket. When Ron Uriel saw the post about the wrap-able tripod, he had an idea. Why not use the 1/4" bolts in other ways. He told me about an idea to make a small tripod from a coke bottle.
This sounded like an interesting idea so I got to work. First I got several coke bottles (you can learn allot about a person by the bottle caps he uses. In my case, the gray-silver cap suggests I drink the diet version of the bubbly beverage). I also needed a 1/4" hex bolt, a 1/4" hex nut, and two of those round thingies called washers. For the finishing touch I used some sand paper. (If you are not into coke or diet coke you can use the beverage to perform the Mentose and Diet Coke experiment - just make sure you retrieve the bottle)
The first thing I did was to drill a hole in the middle of the bottle cap (note - after this step you can no longer use the cap to seal the bottle :) I drilled using a small drill to mark the middle and enlarged the hole using a 1/4" drill. See the picture for the drilled caps. You can use the sandpaper to even up the top of the cap (not a must). You can also see how the diet cap ended up smoother then the regular one.
Now you make cap sandwich: you take the bold and you slide one washer in; then you screw the bottle cap onto the bolt and slide another washer.
Lastly you tighten the nut on the outer side of the cap. Make sure you tighten the nut pretty well, other wise, you will have trouble removing the camera from the tripod.
This is it. Very easy.
The next step is to find a coke bottle. Fill the bottle with water or sand to make it heavy and stable. Now place the bolted cap on bottle and plug your camera in.
Now a word of caution here: this tripod will work great for point and shoots like canon A620 or A75, I would not try my D70 with SB800 and 100-400 lens mounted on this fixture.
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Comments
That's sick man. You have
That's sick man. You have some wacky great ideeas.
Bottlecap tripod Stability fix.
January 19, 2007Nikki
Interesting idea, but not sure it's that great... pop bottles get tipped over way to easy as it is. Make them top heavy (even with a light weight point and shoot) and I just don't see it as being very stable.
Fun idea, though. This site is full of great stuff. :-)
------------------------------------------- FIX ------------------------------------------
Adding a bigger base solves any stabily problems. cut a thin wood base & glue the bottle to the board.
Interesting
Interesting idea, but not sure it's that great... pop bottles get tipped over way to easy as it is. Make them top heavy (even with a light weight point and shoot) and I just don't see it as being very stable.
Fun idea, though. This site is full of great stuff. :-)
Stability
For best stability, I recommend using a 2 Liter coke bottle - half filled with sand.
Great article.
Might
That sounds like it might work pretty well that way!
Oh yeah
And a small piece of fine brass screen to keep you from drinking sand with your soda pop.
Totally slick. You could use
Totally slick. You could use something like gatorade bottles too, they're usually pretty short and fat in comparison to a soda bottle.
Brilliant!
Holy crap, how did I *not* think of that? Thanks for the suggestion, that works even better than the original :D
Simple but Effective!
thanks for sharing ;)
Suggestion
You could try filling the bottom 2/3 or 3/4 with sand, and then using wax to seal the top off, leaving at least some space at the top so that
Review: DIY: The Super-Small Bottle-Cap Tripod
Great idea and after trying it I can say it really works. I wanted to give you a trackback ping but apparently... well the page didn't list a trackback. So instead if you are interested my really short review is located here.
nice!
What a great idea! how about a diy for shutter release cable any ideas?.... thanks!
DIY Shutter Release Cable
The process varies depending on your camera, but here are some to get you going in the right direction:
Canon 300D, 350D, 400D, and some Pentax cameras.
For cameras with infrared remotes (but you don't have the remote)
For cameras that don't have a plug for a wired shutter release, or an IR port.
another tutorial
And here is another tutorial for a shutter release - right here on DIYphotography.net
What aa idea!
Yeah thats a good and all can find in a house !!!
cool
Great idea and yes it wil work(already did this)....you got here a great usefull site TOP!!
Keep up the good work!
beach photoraphy
Dig the bottle half way into sand and use self timer. At last you get the whole gang into same picture on an empy beach.
Nothing new under the sun
I know DIY is the whole point, but there's a commercial version of this at WalMart for $3.67 that has a tilt/lock and a quick release plate. If your rig is going to fall over it might as well have the extra features at that price. I saw it here:
http://zzakksgarage.blogspot.com/2007/02/amazing-bottlepod.html
Interesting
Saw this about 4 years ago on Tech TV.
Your bottle cap top
I teach a digital workshops for consumers and have been given them a bottle cap top for the last two years, you can find them on the web selling for $24.99 out of Hong Kong. I've also found that for DSLR you use a wide mouth two liter bottle of water.
Also using a locking nut and a 1" 1/4" screw with 3 washers works better and with one washer being 3/4" and the then use a 1" washer with a wing nut between the camera and the base, will help also.
Dennis
This would work great
This would work great if you had it in a cup holder on a stroller or similar cup holder device.
Very awesome idea!
Very awesome idea!
I adapted this for my mountain bike :)
I actually adapted this concept to make two very useful camera tripod mounts for the front and rear of my mountain bike. Why pay $20+ for one of these when you can buy the part for less than $1? http://bit.ly/MyQLZ
This is too cool
on the link roll.
Fruit Jar
I am too fumble fingered to try this. However, change the pop bottle to a quart fruit jar half filled with sand, and even I might not break an expensive camera. Great Idea!
this is a really good idea
this is a really good idea and i found that if the bottle keeps falling over just fill half of it with sand and it stay still for a better shot.
hahahaha mispelled "MENTOS"
hahahaha mispelled "MENTOS"
SLRs?
A lot of mayo jars are now plastic. So, fill it 3/4 full of sand, do the wax seal thing, and there you go for your SLR.
Bottle Cap Tripod
I think some are missing the point here. Who wants to carry around a coke bottle filled with water / sand or whatever. The intent behind the design, it seems to me, was to provide a quick, instant fix to the need for a tripod on the spur of the moment. If you want a small, stable tripod, there are several to choose from on the market that will serve your point and shoot AND DSLR needs that are way more compact than any soda bottle.
The soda cap tripod presented here is an ingenious idea for those moments when you're sittin' at restaurant or some out of the way place and you need something quick and useful. Great idea!
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