The OMCC Stand - One More Camera Copy Stand

The OMCC Camera Copy Stand for photographing documents and small items

This stand was designed in Google sketchup and then made from scrap pieces of wood that I had lying around. It has turned out to be more functional than I had expected so thought would share the plans and the construction with you guys.
The stand can be easily adjusted for camera height, camera angle, distance from back pane. Lights and accessories can also be attached quite easily.
The best aspect of this design is that it is easy to construct. I used a hand saw, a plastic miter box, glue, clamps, screws and a screw driver.

To get a slightly different version as a PDF, please click this link.

Step 1 1. Designing the OMCC Stand

Google Sketchup was used to model a stand. After a few design iterations came up with the following based on what wood scraps I had at hand. The design contained five pieces; a column (1) that would support a collar (2) that would slide up and down the column. The collar would hold a sliding arm (3) that would have a camera support (4) at it’s end. The column would be attached to a base board (5). The collar would have two screw clamps that would hold the clamp the collar onto the column and hold the sliding camera arm.

To get the dimensions, I took a photos from a 4 feet height of a builders square at 1x zoom and at maximum optical zoom to get an idea of the field of view. The field of view would help me figure out how big the baseboard needed to be. Figure 2 shows what the Canon SX20IS camera sees ... a quite impressive 42 inches by 56 inches at 1 x zoom (a wide angle lens, I guess) and 3 inches by 4 inches at 20x zoom. I already had a 2 feet column so my baseboard neede to be about 2 ft by 2 ft.

Comments

[Light_Lab]

Nice job I am sure you find yours as useful as mine. I have even used my copy stand in some of my later Instructables. BTW I am really imressed you made all those holes without a drill. {^_=}.

[abizar]

Thanks. For the holes, I did use the dremel. Use it quite frequently too especailly for book page photographs. Have added a guide for aligning books (L-shaped wood frame) which makes it a bit easier.