DIY Overhead Camera Support

Parts:

$15 – Spring Balancer 1-3kg
$18 – V-Slot 1m rail
$16 – Backpack
V-Slot parts seller (UK & Europe)
V-Slot parts seller ( US)

So I bought the Feiyu Tech MG and its a great gimbal and the dual handle setup makes it much nicer to go around corners, however its heavier on your arms, so I made this Overhead Camera Support (OCS).

What the Overhead Camera Support does, is that it transfer the weight of the gimbal to your back via the overhead support and the cable attached to a spring. This way the weight be less on your arms but on your back, and the gimbal can still be moved up or down as the spring can be set to a certain tension to be able to hold the weight without it slipping.

The reason of building one myself instead of buying something similar, is that most of the Overhead Camera Supports cost $500-1000usd which is quite expensive, while the mechanisms is not that difficult to replicate and build one myself for a much lower price.

The most important part is the Spring Balancer in this entire design as you can also choose to put it on the end of the support so you don’t have to lengthen cable of it and open it up. However I wanted to have a much cleaner design with the spring balancer hidden inside the backpack.

Also I advice not to build a PVC version of this as I had tried it as the first prototype, however the main problem is the bend, as it is just not strong enough to hold the weight.

One thing I still might want to change is the size of the top rail section, as its can be half the size and does not have to be so far away from me. And the back rail right now, with it all tucked in, its the perfect size for me, which means it can definitely be much shorter as the rails inside the backpack are 35cm and the middle rail is 70cm and could cut off 45 or 50cm to give enough to extend to 70cm.

The total cost of this Overhead Camera Support was around 175euro to build this and most cost been for all the V-slot parts and rails. You can either use the information from this and build one yourself or if you want I can also take up commission to build you one.