It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the steadier you can keep your camera, the better your photos will be. Keeping your smartphone steady can be a bit tricky because it’s small and light. Sure there are smartphone specialist supports, but there has to be a cheaper, lighter way that’s in-keeping with the pocket-sized nature of smartphone photography, no?
I’m not entirely sure why I decided that I needed to modify an emergency string tripod for use with a smartphone, but obviously I was channeling MacGyver somewhere, so I gave it a go. If you’ve never used an emergency string tripod, it’s a loop of string secured to your camera to help keep it steady. You might’ve heard of it as a chainpod.
For my proof-of-concept smartphone stringpod, I used baling twine. It’s not the ideal material because it’s too coarse and too slippery against the phone’s casing; however, we have an abundance of it and I just needed to prove my idea. A thinner string with a less shiny finish, like kitchen string, would be better.
Take a length of string that’s at least double your height and tie together the ends to form a loop.
Take a loop of string and secure it around your smartphone in girth hitch
Use the loop to secure a girth hitch around your smartphone. Girth hitch: the technical name for a simple knot made with a loop. You can see better distructions here.
You should now have your string looped around your smartphone, and the rest of the loop hanging down from it.
Smartphone held in a loop
Place your foot (or feet) through the loop and pull your smartphone to taughten the string.
Stabilise your smartphone using your feet to taughten the string
That should stabilise your smartphone on the vertical axis, meaning that you can concentrate on horizontal stability. You should have a better chance of taking wobble-less landscapes and shake-free selfies now.
If you need to shorten the loop, just put a twist in it and secure it with your feet on the twist. Also: don’t forget to keep your elbows in when you’re taking a photo, no flapping around like chicken, thank you!
How’s that for a camera stabilisation device that costs pennies and fits in your pocket?
This article was originally posted at Emergency smartphone support: a piece of string! , on Photocritic.
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