Sand and cameras can work together. Normally a combination to be avoided. However, some weeks ago I made sand bags to reduce vibration and had a couple left over. So, when it came to wanting something to support a camera this caught my eye.
They are roughly 3.5″ x 5″ and initially sewn along the sides leaving a small ~0.5″ gap to allow for filling.
When filled with dry builders sand they weigh approximately 0.3kg each.
Initially these were designed to be used inside the column of the milling machine. Sometimes on the milling table to dampen very lively parts.
However, I was setting up to make a video of the traction engine and was looking around for somewhere to perch the Pen F. That’s when the sand bag came to hand.
The sand in the bag can be moulded to shape, creating a very stable base for the camera. I know that normally we would avoid mixing cameras and sand. But with the sand in bags and contained this is rather a great camera mount.
The Olympus Pen F is a stunning camera and fitted with the 17mm f1,7 lens makes a great video camera. The only slight let-down is the audio recording, it really would benefit from an external microphone. However, with the PowerDeWise lavalier mic plugged into the mobile phone this covers both cameras. Another great benefit of this superb lens is that the focus ring clicks back to turn it into manual focus. A great feature if you are taking close videos.
The video footage came out stable and at a great low angle. It would have been difficult to achieve this low angle with a tripod. This just goes to show that sand and cameras can work.