Laura Kampf is an imaginative and accomplished maker doing all sorts of interesting projects in her shop. While filming her work she got frustrated by her tripod and decided to make something better – much better.
Being studio photographers (and videographers) ourselves we know a thing or two about making DIY solutions (this is not just a necessity – we just love solving problems and shooting food and products present constant hurdles that we need to solve on a daily basis).
While Kampf is not a professional photographer, she is a content creator and YouTuber (with over half a million subscribers) and she apparently discovered that she needs to raise and lower her tripod for her videos dozens of times each day and doing so takes too much of her time and is simply an annoying task.
What does a maker do – come up with a solution of course and is very comfortable with working with metal she decided to create her own rolling camera stand that has an extendable are (for top-down shots) that you can move around as well as easily change the height of the camera with very little effort which should save her a lot of time.
In the video, you can see the various steps that Kampf took to create her ultimate wheeled tripod which also includes a place for a large battery on the lower part (also good for added stability), a monitor mini arm, and a large vertically movable arm for the camera (we would not be too surprised if she will also add an option for mounting lights later on).
Her design looks pretty solid and is certainly heavy-duty. If you are not a maker or don’t have the time, tools, or skill to create something similar of your own but like the general concept you can rig your own similar wheeled camera stand just like we did on our own studio (we might have a video on that later on).
All you need is a Manfrotto 231 (Kupo and others have similar products as well) with one or two extra “grips” (for accessories like a monitor/batteries and lights) and use an extension arm for the camera (we use the fantastic 9.SOLUTIONS Double Joint Arm with a ballhead) and you have a really nice setup which is very similar to what Kampf built (although not quite as robust and obviously more expensive).
You can also check out many more interesting DIY photography projects here on LensVid.
Iddo Genuth 
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