8 replies to this topic

[Marjo]

Every time I am in the water shooting I can't help but to think that housing handles are the most ill designed components ever. Almost all of the shooting I do is vertical, but handles are designed for horizontal shooting. It would be really cool to have a continuous circular handle that went around the entire housing, like a mini steering wheel. An alternative woukl be to have at least one straight vertical bar. This could probably be rigged using ballmounts and an arm. But a wheel that would allow to comfortable grip the housing in any direction... Combined with strobe arm clamp system where the strobes could be slid around the wheel to clamp on in any direction.... Oh that would be the dream!

Edited by Marjo, 05 July 2012 - 08:37 AM.

[MortenHansen]

Sounds like a good project for the weekend! It is a shame that the handles encourage landscape orientation only, the only major issue that I see is that you wouldn't be able to reach the buttons, if you've got a solution for that one then i'm off into the workshop!

[okuma]

+1

[acuevas]

I think it's a good idea, but only if the hand you are going to move to the new handle is the left hand, if you move your right hand you cannot press the shutter release.
That might limit the vertical shots to only one position.

[blaisedouros]

I think it's a good idea, but only if the hand you are going to move to the new handle is the left hand, if you move your right hand you cannot press the shutter release.
That might limit the vertical shots to only one position.

Some kind of cable linkage to a secondary shutter trigger on your circular handle might do the trick...

[rtrski]

This is a really good idea! The vertical handles do contribute to a lot of wrist strain, don't they?

Maybe make both handles sort of large 'knobs' and have the right one (with shutter control cabled so the button is on the knob, not just projecting from the housing, more like with a pole-cam) constructed to 'rotate' against the housing frame? Maybe with a lock nut option so you can lock it down for handling (passing up to the boat or whatnot).

The left 'knob' you can grip wherever you want, and is stable so you use left wrist strength to position the camera how you want. The right knob you only ever 'grip' one way (to put the shutter button in the right position) but because it rotates you can hold the camera out straight in front of you when prone or get your elbows bent to right angles so your forearms are parallel to your body.

The knobs would still have to be connected to some sort of base (tray) so that would become a bit more of a beefy u-shape....strobe arm connection would become independent of handles, somewhat. Overall it would probably not be able to be more compact than current rigs...

I'm not sure a whole 'steering wheel' would be that great. Hard to 'get low and shoot up' with a big arc beneath you...I think you still want as little structure below the base of the camera as possible for those times when you are shooting from a prone position.

Edited by rtrski, 08 July 2012 - 06:08 AM.

[Gudge]

Bring back the Canon Marine Capsule A!! I used one for 13 years and it had the best setup for doing this:



The shutter release was under your thumb and there was a little catch nearby on the right side of the handle that allowed the entire housing to pivot around the top of the handle into the vertical position with no change in how you held the rig or released the shutter.

More pictures here:

http://canonfd.farah...neCapsuleA.html

Edited by Gudge, 08 July 2012 - 02:01 PM.

[Marjo]

Imagine if the "uni-handle" was circular, a ring around the housing, and it had a cable running along the ring, threaded through loops along the way. The cable ends would both meet at one loop/pulley and terminate in one little loop that could be threaded over the shutter release handle. With a design around that idea you could trip the shutter from any point of the "uni-handle". This might have to be filed under "ideas hatched under influence of nitrogen narcosis", but this is what I found myself wishing for while prezeling myself for a pretty little frogfish.

[Marjo]

Or... What if the right handle was "flippable", So you could rotate it 270degrees to point along the base of the housing rather than up the right side?