I'll start.
I decided to improve the rigidity of the rig I built yesterday by adding some rear counter weight and a spreader and wire. It helped a lot. The rig barely vibrates now. I didn't shoot any shots of the Z 'cause it's raining outside but here are some shots of the rig itself.
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This is the view with the camera mounted on the rig.
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I didn't really "plan" it per se, rather I just started building. I based it on designs I have seen here and elsewhere. I had purchased the suction cup mounts a few weeks ago so I had already had those ($106 for two w/1/4" mounting threads)
Yesterday I bought an 8' section of square tube aluminum ($27) and some fasteners ($4) and built the rig. I also had a Bogen ball head that fit my monopod. I simply unscrewed that and used a 1/4" x 1.5" bolt to mount it to the 8' tube. The first rig was simply the 8' tube with two suction cups mounted on one end and the ball head on the other. It worked ok but it had too much "bounce" for my tastes. The test shot was shot at 1/2 sec. I wanted a rig that would handle 1-3 second exposures so I set about to make it more rigid.
Today I bought 2-3' perforated steel angle plates, a 3' aluminum square tube, eye hooks, cable, T bracket and a bunch of nuts and 2" bolts. (Total cost for this material was $114.) I built the rig in the pics with this. The steel plates extends the length of the 8' pole by another 3' but more important, it acts as a counter weight (the reason I chose steel). Adding the spreader and tension wire acts to dampen any "spring" to the rig.
The suction cups hold quite well but I just ordered three industrial magnets with 115 lbs of pull each ($45 total) to add to the rig when I want to mount it under a car rather than on the hood. I'll also need to figure out how to make an adjustable joint so I can angle the 8" tube up. I'll secure the joint with bolts and a cable tensioner.
