# And now for something totally different: Redneck macro photography



## scrimman (Oct 28, 2012)

'Lo y'all
I'm weird, so I just had to share this.
I've been trying to do a stop motion video of a guitar I got commissioned to do by a family friend. Its an Epiphone 'Beast', and it's been dinged up quite a bit. So he wanted me to carve it. Well now I'm down to the detail part, and I ran into a prob...I've got 3 camera tripods, and none of 'em work. The big usual one puts the camera way too far away, and the short and shorter ones get the camera waaaay to close and everything is blurry, or the stupid thing overbalances and winds up 'taking a nap' on the intended photographic subject. 
[attachment=12770]
Whaddaya do? Well, I remembered my almost house fire from about a year ago. My hot water heater decided to spring a leak right where the electrical connections are. Thank God I'm an ex-submariner who had it pounded into me (sometimes literally) 'know how to secure the power to something so that if it catches fire you can put it out'. So I ran to the breaker, killed the power, and got to enjoy the smell of baked insulation for the next 4 months instead of the sight of a burning house.
So, you say, why in the hell did THAT come to mind? The silver lining, of course! The dead hot water heater yielded two items I kept; the copper tubing!
[attachment=12772]
(seems like a long way to go to look for silver linings, I know....but I've been kinda in need of that lately. I imagine some of y'all might be in the same boat)
So I could take my dinkiest tripod
[attachment=12771]
Shove it in to the tubing
[attachment=12773]
And with the application of a little duct tape 
[attachment=12774]
(is there anything duct tape can't do? Its like the force; it has a dark side, a light side, and it binds the universe together)
You get a tripod that reliably holds the camera at precisely the right angle and precisely the right distance from the work every time! 
[attachment=12775]
Isn't redneck engineering great?


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## woodtickgreg (Oct 28, 2012)

That's just too funny! And it works, Red Green would be proud!


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