Sometimes, you have a camera rig and you need a thing, and there’s just no real commercially available solution out there to give you exactly what you need. So, you make your own. And that’s exactly what filmmaker Maximillian Wasinger did for his Z Cam E2 rig, with this rather fetching looking wooden side handle that also acts as SSD storage. And when we make such things, sometimes we document the process to share with others. And, thankfully, Maximillian did that, too. DIYP spoke with Maximillian to find out more information on his process to design and build this handle, and he was more than happy to share it with us.
Why not, indeed. After all, if you’re going to go to the effort of designing something functional, you might as well make it look good while you’re at it.
Maximillian told DIYP that he built the handle mostly from scrap and leftovers. He had a metal angle bracket lying around with holes in it that just happened to line up perfectly with two of the 1/4-20″ mounts on the side of his Z Cam E2. He drilled them out to better fit the screws and trimmed the bracket down to the size requirements.
He says that washers might have worked as well, but using this bracket allowed him to distribute the stress as much as possible.
Being about to mount it in multiple positions to suit the needs of what you’re shooting is definitely a handy feature. Sometimes the most comfortable or ergonomic position isn’t the best for what we’re trying to film or the equipment we’re using – which Maximillian points out above about the ridiculously wide Laowa 4mm lens.
It sure looks like it fits the bill and that polyurethane makes even cheap scrap plywood look pretty awesome. A very cool idea implemented well and it looks pretty stylish, too! The goal was to make something that attaches directly to the camera without having to buy a cage. Saved me money and quite a bit of weight too! If you want to find out more about Maximillian and some of his work, be sure to check him out over on Instagram. Images used with permission.
