Horizontal camera stand

I hope this is a worthy cause for a new thread, i am doing an animation based on digital photographs of work laved flat on the floor or a table. It must be flat like this otherwise it will fall apart.


(GETS TO THE POINT) anyone know where to get hold of a camera stand that will hold the camera facing downwards, or a DIY alternative?

it's called a copy stand, most photographic studios have em, I'd be very suprised if you uni doesn't have some

You should be able to get the same effect with a decent tripod, but a copy stand is the way forward if you're talking about photographing for an animation/in a studio

yay thanx flid, so thats what they are called lol, yes it looks as if i can borrow on from uni, although it would be nice to own one.

check out ebay, there's a couple on at the moment.

To be honest thou, unless you have space for a studio/equipment it'd be much better to get a decent tripod which you can use for both. It's not ideal, but I use my tripod as a copy stand these days.

Its ok, I have aquired a tripod that happened to be lying on the side in our studio

Seem good enough, its a manfrotto

cool, mine's from a spanish supermarket that I bought when I was about 14

The main advantage of a proper copy stand is that it has spotlights attached. You need to make sure you get the lighting right, which can be hard if you're photographing something that has a glossy surface or isn't 2d

The other thing to note, if you're photographing something 2d (ie paper) you need to make sure that your camera is in the centre and looking directly straight on. Otherwise it won't look quite right.

Don't rule out using a scanner either, may give much better results

most cameras typically use 1/4 20 thread, so it wouldn't be that hard to jury rig something up. Hell you could even just stick it to a table over your work, it makes things slighly more complicated though and like flid said a copy stand would be the way to go if you're going to do a lot of this.

Bogen/Manfrotto is a great brand btw, hold onto that if you can

Thanx lurch, I dont think I have strong enough sellotape to strap it to a table , but seeing as I am using my digital camera, I can zoom in once, so I dont get a shot with tripod legs in it

Just need to consider lighting now, i have a daylight bulb in my housemates lamp.....hmm