Best DIY Camera Sliders

DIY Camera Slider Roundup: The Internet’s 5 Best DIY Camera Sliders

December 19, 2013 / by / 2 Comments

Sometimes you really need to get a smooth, direct panning shot with your GoPro, but you want it to be utterly and completely smooth. Obviously, handheld operation won’t do thanks to the shakiness inherent in human movement. Even a Steadicam setup won’t be smooth enough, it will be a little too loose for a straight back and forth pan. Sometimes you just need a direct line that the camera can move back and forth on. It’s fairly easy to construct a setup like this for a good price, so here are several DIY camera sliders we found around the internet.

DIY DSLR Camera Slider Under $8

Let’s start off with a basic, rather small camera slider setup. This DIY camera slider can definitely be used for a GoPro and is nothing more than a couple metal posts, a plastic slider, and a mount for your DSLR camera to. This is a great little setup because it is extremely inexpensive, relatively easy to set up, and it works with your existing DSLR camera. Now, you may be cautious about using a DSLR for filming, but you need to remember that many modern DSLR cameras come fully ready to capture full 1080p video, so you should be just fine with this rig.

Backyard FX PVC Slider

This DIY camera slider may seem very similar to the previous slider, but there are a few key differences. First off, it’s made of PVC and wood rather than metal, which is a lot easier to work with. Many more people are likely to own a drill than a welding kit. Further, this slider can be mounted on a normal tripod, which allows you to adjust the height of the shot easily and quickly.

Gutter Slider

This DIY camera slider is really an easy, effective, and cheap solution. You still end up with a perfectly useable camera slider but you don’t have to use anything that you probably don’t already have lying around your garage or backyard shed. To be fair, this may not produce the most stable shots ever, but it’s the most direct way to make a camera slider with a little bit of elbow grease. Simply take a length of gutter and a small piece of the leaf catcher. Cut the leaf catcher down to fit the width of your camera, add a little bit of padding, and then plop your camera right on top. Now you’re all set to shoot!

Ultimate DIY Camera Slider

While this DIY camera slider is a touch more expensive than the others at a whopping $30, it produces an extremely smooth shot. This is partially because this rig actually encapsulates the wheels the camera moves on. This keeps everything tight and removes all the jittering. Further, using small wheels reduces friction of the other sliders. If you have a little extra time and don’t mind having a fully connected slider, check this one out.

DIY Camera Slider

Here’s one last DIY camera slider for you. This one is based on the commercial ZaZa slider, which is a metal slider on a single metal piece mounted on a tripod. This is a very simple setup, and very direct. You can use the Igus DIY Slider Kit to build this kit even more simply.

Regardless of the option you choose, this should be a fun DIY project that will produce nice, smooth shots for you for a long time to come.


About the Author

DIYGoPro.com aggregates and awards the best DIY GoPro project tutorials out on the web. We organize and rate tons of videos so that you can easily find the best projects to take your film making to the next level.

2 Responses
  1. Matthew Grover
    Aug.09.2014 at 2:00 am
  2. Mauricio

    Inspired in your project, here are my cheap version of Camera Slider. Only $8 USDhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYcdmeezMyA

    Jun.26.2015 at 10:33 pm
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