Steadicam For iPhone. What’s A Steadicam (Merlin), Anyway?

Tiffen Steadicam (Merlin)

Tiffen, a company that makes lots of different things for photographers ranging from filters to camera bags to steadicams and so on, recently announced a steadicam for the iPhone.

A steadicam is a device that you attach your camera to, in order to achieve better looking video. The quality of the actual video footage doesn’t improve, but it will be much less shaky and will actually look like you’re “floating around” when you are in fact walking and video recording at the same time, using a steadicam. It’s really cool.

I would love a steadicam for my videocamera/DSLR camera, but not for the iPhone. I almost never record any video with my iPhone 3GS since it’s only in VGA resolution (640×480). There’s no information on what the iPhone steadicam will cost, yet. Here’s how the Tiffen Steadicam Smoothee for iPhone looks:

But, but, but. Tiffen also makes the Merlin steadicam, which is in a completely different league than the iPhone steadicam Smoothee. The Merlin is an amazing steadicam, but it comes with a price tag of $800 !!!

Take a look at what the Merlin steadicam can do when used with a DSLR such as Canon 5D Mark II. It’s amazing!

You see now, why I’d love one of these?!

Here’s a guy who couldn’t afford the Merlin, so he made his own steadicam. For me, the video looks just as good as the one recorded using the Merlin steadicam, though the actual steadicam of course doesn’t look as fancy as the original one. Pay attention to the mirror at 20 seconds into the video, it shows exactly how it looks:

And finally, a zero-cost DIY steadicam, also known as “poor man’s steadicam”. This one is made out of a tripod and doesn’t “float” as good as the Merlin does but it’s still better than nothing. Click inside the video to watch part two of it: