Tripod/boom arm to shoot perpendicular to the floor?

I am looking for an inexpensive solution to shoot products (think posters, press kits, shirts, etc - things that don't stand up on their own) that lay on the floor, and have the camera pointing down. the idea is to set up the lighting, backdrop, camera settings, etc and then just blast through photo after photo, without having to move the camera.


anything that'll do the job but not cost too much?

TIA.

Don't you mean parallel to the floor? Perpendicular would mean at a 90° angle to the floor which is what a regular center column is.

Feisol makes attachments that can very the angle of a center column, Benro makes a tripod called the Versatile which has a fully articulating center column (I use one and it works well), and Manfrotto also make a tripod that can have its center column parallel only to the floor.

thanks for the suggestions, i'll check them out.


by perpendicular, i meant the direction of the lens as relative to the floor.

Manfrotto's 'pro' tripods all have a centre column that can be set either vertically or horizontally. I have their 055cxpro3, which means a carbon fibre 055 series (tall) with 3 leg sections.

This type of setup is okay for shooting small objects on the floor, but can be limiting for large objects, because the tripod legs can get in the way.

If you have the horizontal arm fully extended, be sure to weigh down the other end to prevent the tripod tipping over.

It will be more stable if the projecting arm is directly over one leg, but this limits the field of view so you may end up with the horizontal arm placed between two of the legs.

Also, it might be worth placing a suitable background on the floor so that you can place each object on this in the same position to avoid the need to recompose, centre, etc.

I have found that shooting even near a large window can produce a gradient across the image.

Cheers

Dennis

nardes wrote in post #17426512
If you have the horizontal arm fully extended, be sure to weigh down the other end to prevent the tripod tipping over.

+ 1 to that brother. I learned the hard way.

Don't know what your budget is when you stated "not cost too much", but I have the Benro A2970F, which uses the center column for such. It's not CF, so a heavier tripod, but solid, which is one of the reasons I bought it. I use it for some macro work.

I've used the boom arm from my light kit before with great success. I simply mount my tripod head to the screw on the boom, counter weight it and I'm good to go.

thanks all!

Have you thought about something like a "Magic Arm"? You could clamp it to a table or shelf and then shoot at almost any angle.

nice one. thanks!

i have two of these: http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …wood_Century_C_​Stand.html You can also just buy the grip arm to mount on a stand that you already own. Just make sure the pin on top is super sturdy, a pin riveted in an aluminum pole won't do it, it needs to be integrated steel like the c-stand.

one holds the light over the other that holds the camera. I rigged up a long stud ( http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …arm_pin.html/pr​m/alsVwDtl ) baby pin thing with a piece of threaded rod and a thumb screw thing to put it in the grip

i'll find it in a minute and take a pic of it.

This set up is good for me because i use the stands all the time anyway. Eventually i'll either put a magic arm or other regular tripod head on the end of the grip arm.

by counterbalancing the stand I haven't had any issues with stability in fact it is pretty darn stable. One day i might go this far, skip to the 4 minute mark to get to just the set up:

Here's the pin I use, I couldn't find it because it was holding a flash to my c stand, duh. With this double sided pin I can have both the camera end and a clean end to hold my flash or other accessory. The pin is about five inches long, I cut a 1/4 x 20 stainless steel threaded rod to about an inch and a quarter long threaded it in the pin and locked it down with the nut. I then threaded on the little knob all the way down to the nut. I had a similar rig that I tightened with a small adjustable wrench but that was kind of a pain. This works great to quickly tighten and loosen the whole rig.

cost was about 4 bucks over what i already had invested in the stand and grip arm.

I ALWAYS loop my camera strap around the grip head a few times just in case.

second photo is terrible, but shows the set up. In this case i was messing around with a macro shot through a loupe, but had previously had the camera about a foot from the light and was shooting fabric samples on the table. I was set up in the TV room watching NFL playoffs and shooting tethered to my laptop.

I can offer the suggestion of a Manfrotto accessory to hold the camera out to the side of the tripod as depicted here. In this photo I have moved my RRS ballhead to the lateral arm which is mounted to the baseplate of the tripod (Gitzo 25xx). As you can see, the ballhead could be mounted on the very tip of the crossbar which is laterally shifted to one side for this photo, on the 3/8" thread seen at the left end (but also one is at the other end not visible).