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June 13, 2004
iSight Tripod
Apple design is legendary and well deservedly so. Thus I was surprised to find when I purchased my iSight video camera that the mounting attachments that came with the camera did not include an attachment for a camera tripod. If you affix the iSight to your Apple monitor with one of the included attachments, you have little flexibility with adjusting the position of the camera. Mounting the iSight on to a mini-tripod however, would solve the problem. Oddly enough, an easy tripod attchment mechanism was not part of the iSight's design. The Apple plastic iSight mount will fit over a tripod bolt, but there isn't enough room in the plastic opening to allow one to secure the mount with a nut.
Looking around on the Internet for a tripod attachment, I found Kaidan which offers an iSight accessory kit, including a mini-tripod for $9.99 and a tripod attachment for $24.99. Annoyingly, Kaidan only ships via Federal Express, adding at least another $10 to the tab. Total minimum bill - $45.
The solution? Build your own. With a $7 mini-tripod from ebay, or any photographic store, and $2 worth of washers, clips and a nut, you have a perfectly usable tripod setup for your iSight.
Affix one or two 2-inch wide washers to the top of the mini-tripod with a nut. Peel back just enough of the sticky bottom of the most upright of the included Apple plastic iSight mount attachments and place on washer edge, as close to the nut as possible. For extra support, use binder clips to secure the iSight mount to the tripod washers. With this arrangement you can easily remove the Apple iSight plastic mount if you want. For a more permanent solution, you can glue the washer to the tripod and then just stick the plastic mount directly over the entire washer.
Links:
iSight in the Classroom - includes instructions on how to attach an iSight to a tripod with a hexagon coupling nut.
Making Movies with the Apple iSight - includes instructions on how to attach an iSight to a tripod with a tripod adapter bushing.
SightFlex - a very cool looking flexible iSight mounting stand.
Posted by elise on June 13, 2004 to Computers
| Comments (4)
Comments
Wish I had made my own. Unfortunately I bought the pricey Kaidan tripod several months ago and it is very poorly put together. I have to rig it just to keep it stable. Your solution is obviously much more affordable and probably of much higher quality.
Posted by: kelly at June 14, 2004 3:33 AM
This is a definite design failure for Apple. Its what happens when you don't have interdisciplinary professions in design. They don't know therefore they don't do.
General Electric company made it mandatory that all unrelated scientists had lunch with each other once a week. Jobs needs a few photographers on his staff.
Posted by: tomas at June 14, 2004 9:37 AM
I had the same need for a tripod mount, and came up with this solution.
Posted by: Jay at October 10, 2004 4:47 AM
Sorry. My tripod link is here:
http://myopia.typepad.com/jay/2004/10/isight_camera.html
Posted by: Jay at October 14, 2004 7:10 PM
Comments are now closed for this entry.
