Camera mounts, expensive and cheap

When I bought my Kodak ZI8, the first thing I thought of was how I was going to mount it. As well as being a fun thing to take with me and film things like the Gadget Show, I am planning to do some home music videos (performance, not arty) and also do some filming in the kitchen; and although my camera tripod will do the former, it wouldn’t do the latter, where I would want a view down on a kitchen top.

a15cgSo I needed a flexible mount that is compact but versatile. I was persuaded to buy a Gorillapod, which cost me upwards of 30 quid. I’ve had it a couple of months, and I am still nervous of trusting my camera to its tenuous rubbery grip. It seems to work quite well wrapped around a gnarled tree branch or fence post, but not so good on a melamine kitchen shelf.

Then when I was in Brighton, I saw one of these in Maplins. It is simply a camera screw-mount, on a flexible stalk attached to a whopping big (rubber-lined) sprung clip. When it is attached to anything – door frame, kitchen cupboard, spare mike stand – it stays attached. While not pocket sized, it is small enough to not be a problem to carry about.

And it costs £9.99.

I wonder if I kept the box of my Gorillapod?

One Comment

  1. May 18, 2010
    Reply

    Maplin have a load of fairly cheap but good quality stuff, a lot of it stuff which wouldn’t be expected as well as the cables and adaptors which I would expect (but few other places have these days). They also have stores all over the place these days (I remember when they had only one store, in Southend, and mail order, back in the early ’70s). I use them quite a lot, and they are one of the places I generally check first (their web site is a horrible mess if viewed with increased text size, and the search function approximates Amazon’s in its rather odd selectivity, but I can work round those).

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