Build this DIY fully stabilised DJI RS2 camera mount rig for under $500

If there’s one thing that many of us would love to be able to do, it’s attaching a fully stabilised gimbal camera to a vehicle. It lets you get shots that would otherwise be impossible. But such a task is not cheap. Commercial rigs cost $20,000 or more and that doesn’t even include the cost of the actual gimbal.

Bestboy Adam, though, has come up with a pretty neat DIY solution in this video that you can put together yourself for as little as $500, including the gimbal, using a mix of items from various manufacturers to which you can attach your DJI RS2 gimbal (or probably any, with the right brackets) to get that nice clean stabilised driving footage.

Adam’s specific components list is below. Not all of them appear to be available easily everywhere, though, and some of the items Adam managed to pick up used to save a little extra money. So, you might need to do some shopping around to find comparable bits.

• Stabi-fly Vest Light
• Stabi-fly Single Arm Light
• Additional springs
• Global Truss Clamps
• DJI Expansion Base Kit Plate
• RJI Ronin TB50 Battery
• Kipp clamps 30mm and cross connector
• SHOWTEC clamps 32mm (code 70360)

Adam realised that stabilising arms work pretty much the same way for vehicles as they do when you’re flying a camera off a vest like a Steadicam, the Thanos Pro or, in Adam’s case, the Stabi-fly. The prices Adam paid for the items he used totalled around $400, not including the DJI RS2 and DJI accessories. But if you’re looking at how to do this for yourself, you probably already own an RS2 or another gimbal you can do this with.

There are rigs out there that cost less than $20K, like Tilta’s Shock-Absorbing Arm. But that’s still going to cost you $5K and, well, unless you’re flying a RED or Arri or something, do you really need something that heavy-duty?

How much you trust your gear in a DIY rig attached to your vehicle is down to you. Anything like this is definitely done at your own risk. And you probably won’t want to drive too fast, either. But if you’ve been thinking about giving this a go anyway, Adam’s video should offer up some great tips.

[via ISO1200]