Camera Handles , How to design one customized to your hand ?

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Hello there,

I am seeing excellent camera handles either in wood or plastic. They have very complex, organic curves , surfaces and I could not figure out how to design such an handle to my hands . Is there a easy way ?
AFAIK , Gaudi designed one with squeezing his hands in to clay . I bought children clay and squeezed but nothing reasonable happened. Can you help ?

Thanks,

Umut
Istanbul

 

[AgX]

Squeezing a malleable material needs the rigt malleability(right word?), as thinning clay with water.

If that is not practical with your material, then you have to form it by trial-and-error until it fits. Then either harden it or copy the form into rigid material.

 

[anfenglin]

You could try sugru, I made a grip for my Pentax SFXn from that stuff. With a little bit of practice you could form something around a piece of wood maybe? Or, if you want something smaller, you could attach it directly to your camera. That's what I did.
check it: sugru.com
cheers

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Hello again , AgX , You are right , I have contacted with a sculptor and he said I have to come his place to learn to mix correct clay. I think I will go to one of art school to get help from them. May be I could get a life copy of my hand and work around it. I learned from ergonomy journals that the real trick is to create a form where your hand muscles grip but apply the least pressure and strain to your muscles.

Well , I think these handles made by very talented artists or drawing guys. You can draw 3 views of your desired handle and load to computer and it forms the correct 3d handle from 3 or more drawings. Well , I could produce one with 3d printer also

Sugru is polymer plastic and I dont feel about it well. I want wood , clay , or drawing to start to work.

 

[jeffreythree]

Sugru pattern(or maybe clay) and then find a woodworking shop with a duplicator. A bit of final sanding and adjusting would be needed as well. I am just about done assembling my small diy router duplicator, but a bit far from you.

 

[mgb74]

I would suggest you take into account the angle at which you hold the camera as it would change the geometry of your grip. The grip that has most impressed me is the Linhof Anatomical grip.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I think I have spent enough time to note few topics on surfaces that we found at for example linhof grip.
There are few pdf files at google from japan which describes what is western art , what is eastern art and what is aesthetic surface and how we can program a cad software to cover the skeleton with ferrari or say michelangelo or lets say opposite toyota surface rules. I am interested in to alembic the art and get rules but not chance factor. For the sake of APUG readers , I can say the scandinavian design is based on super elliptical , super ellipsse rules for the past 45 or more years. When you look to the google for S.E. you can find , its formula changes its curve strenght. When I was researching submarine near field wakes from 1960 , I found the same super ellipse there. I think it has shape where the fluid flow is the most regular , peaceful around the hull. I dont know how Scandinavian design firms learned that formula but the most interesting thing is to find that they never changed that formula for anything. This is Scandinavian brand and you can find it at all ikea products.

Now its time to find the similar rule for linhof grip. That research is better feel than anything else.