3D humor

[Greg Erker <erker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  While working on my 10' bar for fireworks
shooting I've been trying to keep the weight
down by cutting corners at 45 degrees etc
to save 10 grams here or 50 grams there. In
total I maybe cut off 200 grams worth of aluminum
(about 1/2 pound).

  Then the other night I decided it would
be nice if I could see into the/a camera
viewfinder during the fireworks so that
I could tilt the tripods to the right angle
(to avoid the previous years problem where
a lot of shots cut off the top of the burst).

  But I need to stand in the middle of the
ten foot bar to adjust the two tripods together
so I decided to put a 3rd camera in the middle
just to use the viewfinder. I have a 1/2 stripped
Diacord (dead shutter, broken advance knob) but
the viewfinder works fine. So I put a mounting
plate in the middle of bar of the Diacord.

  No for the humor: the stripped down Diacord
weighs 700 grams plus about 100g for the mounting
plate. So all that nickel and dime weight saving
was blown away by adding one "little" feature
to my bar :)  And, if you think explaining two
cameras on a big aluminum bar to Joe Public is
difficult. Try explaining three.

  But lugging the extra 800g will be worth it
if it prevents the cut off bursts. Maybe I
can get 8 or 10 good shots this year instead of
about 4 last time (in 97).

---

  My big bar is almost ready to go. I just need
to set it up on our back deck and aim the cameras
at the strip shopping mall across the park behind
our house. Then I can shim all the mounting plates,
if necessary, to get all three cameras aimed at
the same point.

  Then all I need to do is wait for my long cable
releases to arrive and wait for Canada Day. Hopefully
won't be a rainout.

Greg (I'll get some photos of this baby on my web
page one of these days.)