So, you've seen 'em - rig shots! You can't beat 'em! Definitely a great way to show action in your automotive photography - something a still photo just can't accomplish! Unfortunately, photographers do not like to show off their rigs. Lucky for you guys, I will!
This is my rig, built on a budget - the rig reflects that. Hopefully, this will help make sense of a simple rig setup that just about anyone can piece together. This is not necessarily the best setup, but it works.
This is a basic suction cup style setup, the piping can be adapted to use magnets but most the cars around here are -slammed- and my piping is pretty thick.
The rig is built with the following:
- (3) Aluminum Piping Sections, 1.5" Diameter Approximately, 4-5' in length
- (2) 1.5" Compression Couplers for Piping
- (2) Piping Locking Clamps
- (3) Manfrotto Super Clamps
- (2) Avenger F1000 Suction Cups
- Manfrotto Magic Arm
To make it simple, a rig consists of a boom, two suction cups to hold it to a car, and three clamps to hold the cups to the boom, and to attach the camera to the boom. The magic arm is just a fancy arm that rotates and attaches to your camera, a simple tripod head would work fine, and will probably be more stables.
I've had this setup for two days. I didn't get much time to set up properly, I didn't spend much time editing, and the photos aren't the greatest... but they are sharp, and thats what I was looking for.
ON TO THE PHOTOS!
Here are the cups and the clamps attached to them. The clamps bolt down onto the studs coming from the cups. If you notice, the cups have a small blue extension - this is where you pump them up. You pump until the red line is gone, if it shows up again it means suction is limited, pump some more.
The cups are Avenger F1000s, and the clamps are Manfrotto Super Clamps. These can all be purchased of Adorama or B&H I believe.
This is the piping, as well as the clamps & cups. The piping is the only "custom" part of the rig. You can use alot of things. I bought mine from someone I knew who used the piping as a rig. Its 1.5" round metal pipe, with screw clamp connectors. Try locally to see who sells pipe, you could also possibly order online.
Here is the magic arm. Its pretty simple. The clamps shown on the cups? Use one of them here, and attach to the stud on the magic arm. Attach magic arm to camera. This can also be replaced by a tripod head, which you could drill the pipe and attach, that would be sturdy as well.
I forgot one thing you need! A friend to push the sonofabitch. Just get a smart one that knows how to get the hell out of the damned way! j/k, I clicked the shutter to early
Now photoshop the rig out. I know this is a shitty edit, but I just wanted to show off the setup.
