I designed a floating tripod

I designed a floating tripod

Intro

When I first started out on YouTube, one of the first projects I ever did was building a floating tripod for my GoPro.

https://youtu.be/UETIjq9VQLo?si=vX8OziGSuwxtig59

I was looking for new ways to get footage of kitesurfing, and having something that was closer to me in the water seemed like it would help get that footage.

Design

Here are the criteria that I had in mind when I set out to build it:

  • Had to float so I could go in deep water
  • Needed to get some height off the water to get a better angle of the rider
  • Needed to be collapsible for easy storage in my apartment
  • Easy enough for me to build with no real making skills
  • Anchorable

The Results

Here’s what I came up with.

Its basically PVC pipe connected with right angles, and a straight top tube with a 1/4 20 screw in the top to mount a camera to. I put pipe insulatino around the bottom to give it a bit of extra buoyancy. For an anchor, I just tied a string to it and either tie it to a boat or to an anchor that I can drop in water up to about 20ft of depth.

Real world testing

So I took the tripod out for 3 different sessions to put it through paces and see if it would survive. Here are my findings:

1) The ripod was really unstable and wobbled.

Any ripples or chop from the water would transfer to the vertical top pole, and thus to the camera. The GoPro has pretty good stabilization, but not enough to keep things stable as the water gets rougher.

2) Limited angle and tracking

Using a gopro is a double edged sword. It is wide angle enough to fit all the action into the frame, but it’s so wide angle that everyting looks quite far away. If I tried to kite too close to the gopro, I’d quickly go in and out of frame.

Conclusion

So I got some fun shots, but I wouldn’t say that the device was worth the hassle of dragging it out on the water. I also wouldnt recommend anyone else spend the time building it, unless they enjoy the building process.

In future tests I’ll have to try putting a 360 camera or some sort of gimbal with built in tracking on top of the tripod.