Minute Fourteen – Chipped from Rob Antill on Vimeo.

Here’s a quick process video showing how I put together this image. A friend work’s at a electronics factory here in Nelson, BC, Canada. They had collected a bag of parts that the machines miss-place. Usually these will just get chucked out or recycled. I tipped them out on the table and was fascinated by all the tiny bits (some the size of a grane of sand). It was new to see these separate components before they are soldered to a board.

Music: Flotsam – Tasty Morsels - (free track download)

Click more to see more stuff on this..

Camera set-up for the time-lapse shots over looking the laptop.

The final shot. I thought the little chips could represent the ants building the logo from the pile (anthill). I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how this looked though. I think its a bit too literal. Also the little ‘ants’ have what appears to be 8 legs (real ants have 6 legs). I thought the two front legs could get away with being the ants feelers.

Some close-up shots..

Here’s another shot of the final image. I prefer this simplified version.

So yeah, this was a fun little project to spend a couple of days on. I think theres some potential to take this idea further. If you really had the patience you could create an entire image with the parts, using different coloured bits as shading and high lights. It would also be better to have a flat dedicated screen for the job. Having the laptop perched up like this was highly unsettling for hours on end. I had to be so careful not to knock it over and ruin the piece. It would also be cool to create an animation in Aftereffects that corresponded to what was laid on the screen. Maybe something I can experiment with.. if I get the spare time.

I recently re-created my logo out of very small electronic components. Really pleased with how it turned out. Video of the process here.

Download the full resolution image to use as a desktop image if you so wish:

Desktop [1920x1280] | Tablet [1536x2048]| Mobile [640x1136]

Here’s a quick post running through how I’ve tried to smooth out the footage coming from the GoPro and DJI Phantom.

There are basically two important things to do so that the footage doesn’t have a jello effect.

You need to balance your props and create a shock absorber between the camera and aircraft.

Continue after the break…

It took me three days to come up with a solution to separate the camera from drone. I ended up finding a Meccano set and using parts from that.

I tried ear buds as dampeners, but they were too soft and the camera wobbled around.

I tried reducing the wobble by adding springs in, but this didn’t work either. The rubber needed to be harder.

Here I have replace the headphones with rubber seals. The GoPro mount is still separate from the drone but tight enough not to wobble. I added the extra springs just to help with the sturdiness of things… also it makes it look pretty interesting.. like it should work, even if it’s pointless.

Next challenge was to balance the props. This literally means making sure that both sides of the propellers are of equal weight. This is important because unbalanced props create vibration that is noticeable in the footage.

Trying to get a spindle to fit this shape was hard. I ended up relying on the trusty Meccano box again.

Using a dremel I span a small plastic washer at high speed and used a knife to create a taper.

I could then use these tapered washers to wedge into either side of the prop, and keeping everything perfectly centered.

When I placed this spindle between two points so the blade could move freely, the heaviest blade would rotate towards the ground. This told me that I needed to sand some material off this side until it would not spin any more.

This method was very effective. I would highly recommend you invest in a prop balancer. Due to my current location, buying one online would mean a two week wait, so I set out to make one my self, but remember what ever you do it has to be pretty accurate so you dont end up causing more damage.

It will be interesting to see what others come up with to reduce the vibration. I can vouch that this method works pretty well. Footage to prove it on its way..

Been shooting a fiar amount of footage with the shiny new GoPro3 Black recently and the shakiness of the footage was bugging me. I tried using my DSLR handle and found it worked well at getting lower shots and keeping the camera still. However the size of this was totally unnecessary. I did a bit of hunting online and couldn’t find anything that was suitable.

Continue after the break…

So just like the GoPro pole I devised over two years ago, I set out to make my own contraption. After a bit of hunting in the shed I found an old rusty trowel covered in hard cement. I could see the potential, so I started by prizing off the flat trowel area. This left nasty sharp weld points on the under side, not ideal.

Using a bench grinder I soon got rid of  any sharp bits.

From then I sanded away any remaining rust/concrete. The wooden handle came out really nice.

Next challenge was attaching the GoPro to the bar. To get the camera to fit between the wood handle and the bar I had to bend the metal a little. This was just a matter of sticking one end in a vice and pulling gently on the other until the desired angle was achieved. I then used a standard flat sticky mount and popped it on the bar, however there isn’t enough surface area to provide a sufficient stick. I carried on looking for an improvement, and eventually found a pipe clamp that tightly secured everything in place.

That’s about it really. Keep a look out on my Vimeo, there will be videos coming that take advantage of this little device.

And as always, go out and be creative. Im sure these will be available to buy soon.. but theres no fun in that, trust me.