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iFixit Teardown Camera Setup

Hey Everybody! I've been working on a top-down camera setup for documenting projects and teardowns. I'm looking for some input. What do you guys use?

I just implemented this rig the other day. So far, it has been working pretty well. I like this solution because it positions the camera square with the table and puts the camera up and out of the way. Having the camera at this elevation allows me to easily document my projects and do teardown timelapses. It also frees up my hands and lets me continue to use my swivel chair without hitting into a tripod. I control the shutter and video button with a remote trigger, so there's no vibrations from hitting a button on the camera. The camera arm also swings closed to it doesn't hit me in the head when I'm not using my camera.

I had a Kodak external flash unit sitting around from a brownie camera, so I just re-purposed the mount and attached it to a swinging aluminum tube sourced from a walker that was discarded. The walker would have went to landfill, and it's a nice aluminum tubing, so it really came into use. I'm using the rest of the walker to make a gimbal stand in the future.

What do you guys think? Thanks.

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Looks great! We personally use tripods (and trip over them a lot), rather than the top-down view because we prefer the "first-person" feel, but top-down is a popular angle and it works well!

Our biggest fixation is light, and the elimination of shadows, so we have tons of lights on all sides, as well as a white backdrop for reflecting more light in on the device. We find limited shadows makes for better viewing and fewer distractions. The shadows on your Lumix shot (4th image) really aren't that harsh, but you can try using diffusers on your lights, or add more lights to eliminate those shadows.

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I think that reflections and flash problems are just an unavoidable problem with overhead photos. I've had that problem before, but with that being said my strategy for good photos isn't as thought out as this. What I normally do is put the item on my desk (which is brown), back off and zoom in as much as I can while retaining as much content as I can and keeping a distance so the flash bounce is minimized. It isn't perfect but the one space I'd have room to do that is taken up by my printer(s). I think the reflection problem usually lies with reflective parts with little to no room to break the light down. I still have it on larger reflective parts like optical drives, but it's nowhere near as bad. It seems to be worse if you use the camera's flash.

I do sometimes have cropping issues because of that, but it typically isn't bad enough to cause serious problems most of the time. If I know it'll be a problem I'll take a wider picture with less zoom and 2 close-ups and see which works better and retains the most content.

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So just for clarification, I was not focusing on perfect lighting for the 4th photo, I just quickly took it. I am still experimenting with lighting though. I am planning on using the diffuser sheets from broken LCD displays to get a wider, more even fill light. Sure, reflections and shadows are hard to minimize, but I am trying to reach that happy medium where the photo (or video) is not too full of contrast, but not so overexposed that it hurts my eyes to work :D.

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It seems like matte surfaces dither some of the light and deal with the problem better, as you can see here with this picture of the optical drive installed. While I had trouble with the first 2 pictures and decided to come in the middle, I had better luck with side shots, even with the flash.

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Yeah, sometimes shiny or patterned surfaces are tricky. I find that manually adjusting shutter is usually the best way to reduce such effects, but you can't always do that in video since 1/(2xframerate) = shutter speed. If you deviate shutter speed too greatly from this value, your footage results in unrealistic motion (footage looks sharp, even when shifting the camera suddenly).

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Awesome! Honestly it sounds like you already know what you're doing, I'd say just keep iterating! Great job on this!

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Here's some more detailed shots of the camera arm. @oldturkey03

My camera arm measures 19.5in in length, and is cut from the leg portion of one side of the walker. Each walker leg is about 30in long from bottom to top of the handle. I wanted to get as much use out of the walker as possible, so I decided to use whatever scrap pieces for a camera gimbal stand, which uses a similar diameter tubing. I measured 19.5in from the top handle toward the bottom of the walker and made a cut with a standard circular pipe cutter. This left me with a 10.5in segment for one of the legs on my 3 axis gimbal stand. I determined the desired camera arm length after some mockups with wooden dowels.

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I found that between 18in and 19.5in is the sweet spot for fitting the entire width of my ESD mat within the field of view of my camera. The field of view on my Panasonic GH3 is slightly different from my GH4 and slightly different from my LX100. That 1.5in of wiggle space allows me to compensate for the difference in video framing between cameras, and in case I have an object that overhangs the ESD mat, which is flush with the edge of the table.

I decided to preserve the curve in the tube because it would provide some additional strength when the arm is folded out, and prevent the arm from rotating and ruining the camera image. I decided to cut the tube about 4in from the side of the tube.

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I also decided to cut the side of the walker that already had a hole centered and cross drilled. The hole was 3/16in in diameter, and I wanted to keep everything 1/4-20 because 1/4-20 is common for camera mounting equipment. A stepped drill bit really helps in this case. I also had a bunch of 1/4-20 bolts and threaded rod lying around, so that helps in the decision making process :D.

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In case you were wondering, here is the bottom of my 3-axis gimbal stand, made from left over scraps and a 3 way stainless steel boat rail fitting.

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@salvagedcircuit looks absolutely awesome. I really love the idea of repurposing the old walker. Hopefully you'll post some drawings of this so I could replicate your build. Excellent idea!

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I'm glad you like it! It's rather a custom setup, but I'll attach some dimensions if you want. It was rather an easy installation. The walker already had a center-drilled hole collinear with the pipe, towards the middle of the bend radius, so all I really had to do was cut the desired length of pipe with a pipe tube cutter. I wanted to keep a few inches of bent tubing to give the arm a bit of structural rigidity. I was thinking of adding a second camera arm to my work table, but I realized that one was enough for filming setups. I do have that other segment measured though and I'll snag a quick photo.

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Hey everybody! I thought I'd give a little update and show you how the footage looks from a top down view. I have some shots from the camera arm in my Lambda power supply teardown & analysis video.

The lighting is still a bit of a challenge, but I think the shots look pretty square and parallel to the table. I did not perform any lens correction or perspective correction in video editing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly1QGHXD...

I still have another camera on a tripod, which I bump into a lot, but the top down shots definitely help with circuit analysis.

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@salvagedcircuit your link is to your Teardown & Analysis of a Lambda LLS9060. Not bad but I am sure that is not where you wanted to show us :-)

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To be fair, that was the first test footage I have uploaded with the camera arm camera. But it looks like you have seen through my little ruse :D This is the last update for now.

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@salvagedcircuit looks like you are doing some pretty awesome stuff. You know that efforts like yours are appreciated by many! Keep on building/fixing/repurposing!!!!

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Thanks. That means a lot :D

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The lighting looks great honestly! Very in depth. Great job! You can always embed videos in the intro of a guide to make your own teardown on iFixit, too!

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Anthony Kouttron will be eternally grateful.