Ghetto Magic Arm From An Old Golf Club
Photographer David Martinez thought that $110 is a bit too much for a magic arm. He came up with his own version for half the price. It's all David from here.
Over the years I have found a few broken clubs laying near tee boxes on golf courses. Graphite shafts are usually very stiff and I always thought they might be repurposed. So I have collected a few of them. Well it just happened that I was in thinking about buying a Magic Arm recently. A friend had one and it was pretty sweet but the price was kinda crazy.
The light bulb went off and I began to formulate a plan to make my own magic arm out of one of these found graphite shafts. I went to a local camera shop and found the Giottos mini-ball head. It is a nice small, all metal mount. So I bought 3 for less than 30 bucks. I also picked up a metal strobomount. Next stop was the hardware store where I picked up a few nuts and bolts, some heavy duty epoxy, and a nice beefy clamp. A few glasses of wine and couple of hours later I had made my Ghetto Magic Arm.
The whole assembly is pretty sturdy. I used a clamp that is made of plastic with a very wide mouth. The clamp had to be drilled out slightly to accommodate the 3/8 - 16 threaded bolt. This particular clamp also has a hole fortuitously placed on the opposite end that a 1/4 - 20 bolts fits in nicely. I placed a wing bolt here.
This can be used to attach practically anything else; I have added another stroboframe. The shaft was cut in two pieces with a hack saw keeping in mind the inner diameter would need to be large enough to hold the glued pieces. To maintain stability I tried to keep the lengths to less than a foot for each piece. After that… it all went together super quick.
Total cost was about 55 dollars. I could have gone with cheaper pieces but I am attaching some pretty expensive flashes to it. The graphite shaft was free but you can buy a sacrificial used club for dirt cheap at a pro-shop or used sporting goods store. I have used it quite a bit since it was made and it is very useful. I can clamp it to just about anything from a table top, door, passenger window of a car (some pretty cool outside the car shots), or a 4x4.
It holds about 4 pounds which is all I really need for flashes, my PS camera, flags, gobos, etc. It can easily be broken down into two separate pieces and each piece can be attached to anything with standard 1/4 or 3/8 bolts. I wouldn’t put my heavy 7D on it but that's about the only limitation I’ve found.
got any other cool hack. Let us know via the comments.
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Comments
Very Slick
Have you tried mounting a flash/umbrella holder at the end instead of a straight coldshoe?
What do you call those clamps BTW?
Thanks :)
Dave Tong - David's Simple Photography
cool stuff i was looking for
Cudos to this great setup! I was looking for something like that for some time now!
In response to Dave Tong...
I actually have... it worked. I'm still testing the boundaries of the weight limits with PS camera, flashes (430EXII and 580EXII), with and without Fong lightsphere, and westcott umbrella 43" with flash. The most I have gotten on it is about 3 pounds but they Giottos are rated to about 4 pounds. I'm very comfortable with 2 pounds and don't even think about it. Keep in mind that I have not Locktited the joints so that I can break it down easily...so, more weight and you have to be make sure that all is tight. I'm not sure what that clamp is called but it's one of the newer models available at any Sears or where they sell Craftsman tools. Also, on the other end, I have attached the Manfrotto super clamp to see if it could work also. It did. It seems to play nice with just about everything so far. Try mixing and matching as the "universal" parts are the graphite shafts. I figure any joints could be used… I have seen quite a few. Oh...make sure that the epoxy sticks to the graphite...I used Plastic/metal specific type.
Thanks Lenni !!!
Thanks Lenni !!!
$55 + a couple of hours?
A little too ghetto for me. I'd hate to pull this rig out with a client watching. If you factor in your "couple of hours later" with the $55 worth of parts, you can easily afford the $110 magic arm, that WILL hold your camera.
to Ben
To each there own...consider the PVC version that was posted earlier.
Questions...
I have gotten a bit of Flickr mail with questions. I'll answer them here...
It took about 2 hours to let the epoxy dry and finish the wine. Really it only took minutes to cut and glue...Then it was done. It was really just a quick project.
There is no model number on the clamp. I’m sure any clamp would do. This one is nice because it is also a spreader clamp. You can tension it between two objects.
It does break into 2 pieces and I attached the extra strobomount so I have it available when I do this.
A magic arm with all the attachments cost easily 150 bucks. So this was really about a 1/3 the price as is. And this clamp won't chip glass if it’s attached to a car window.
And no, I would hope that if I had paying clients I could pull out a real magic arm. This was just for fun.
Hope that answers some of the emails. Thanks ;o)
Did I hear someone say
Did I hear someone say MacGyver?
Cool, excellent!
Cool, excellent!
Pics are gone. :(
Bummer, I was looking forward to seeing htis one.
thanks anon
that is fixed.
Those clamps can be bought at
Those clamps can be bought at a harbor fraight store for around 5 bucks and come in a ton of sizes. I have been thinking about doing this for a long time myself, but for a camera. My wife does research in libraries so she takes allot of pics of books so to clamp it onto the table and just be able to set and forget and just push a remote button...
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