The Canon A650 IS is significantly larger than the Nikon 5600. It's also significantly heavier. With two AA batteries installed, the Nikon weighs in at 185g. With its four AA batteries installed, the Canon weighs in at 388g. This bumps the overall weight of my KAP rig by just over 200g! By far the heaviest component of the rig is now the camera itself. So much for lightweight rig design!
The tripod socket on the A650 is plastic, which doesn't endear it to me. I've already broken out a plastic tripod socket on an old Nikon Coolpix 950. I later replaced the broken socket with an aluminum one I manufactured in the shop. But it's sad that I had to. Since the Canon will be subject to a fair bit of stress in the air, this is something to keep an eye on. It's also a good reason to have a safety tether on the camera (which I did with the Nikon 5600 as well!) and to have additional support in the form of a Velcro strap to hold the camera firmly into the cradle.
Early on I made a lens hood for the Nikon 5600. Initially the idea was to keep stray light off the optics in order to reduce lens flare. But the real utility of the hood is that it protects the camera's fragile optics barrel from impact damage. Hard nose-down impacts are a very very real risk with KAP gear. The barrel, which weighs in at just over 10g, was cheap insurance.
The Canon Powershot A650 IS has a really neat feature I like a lot. It has a removable bezel around the lens that can be replaced with a hood similar to what I made for the Nikon. I've ordered a hood that ends in a 58mm filter thread. Since I don't really use the UV filters I've got in my DSLR bag, one of them is going to find a new home on my KAP camera. I doubt I'll fly this rig until the barrel arrives.
One of the other features I really like about the A650 IS is the reversible LCD. In the air, an LCD really doesn't do much but drain the battery. So for flight the LCD will be turned off and folded flat against the camera for protection.
I didn't want to have to make massive changes to the whole KAP rig, so I decided to only make changes to the cradle itself. This is what I started with.
And this is what I ended up with.
In addition to the change in camera, I had a few requirements for the design:
- I wanted to be able to access all of the camera's top controls easily, without obstruction.
- I wanted camera removal and installation to be dead-easy.
- I didn't want to increase the overall weight of the rig any more than was strictly necessary.
- I didn't want to modify the Brooxes BBKK hardware more than necessary (if at all!)
- I didn't want to do anything that would risk damaging my new camera!
With the camera removed you can see the felt lining on the cradle. The bump on the back is there to keep the camera pointed straight forward. There's a slight bulge on the hinge side of the Canon's LCD that makes it not lie perfectly flat when the LCD is closed. The bump in the felt touches the camera only on the flat areas, and lets it sit straight.
All of the controls on the top of the camera are accessible when the camera is mounted in the cradle. Most notably, the power button is very easy to get to. This was not the case with the rig setup I used for the Nikon 5600. It's a welcome change.
One of the real surprises was how much mass is in the optics barrel assembly. When powered off, the balance point of the rig is slightly behind the pivot points of the cradle. When powered on with the lens extended, it shifts the balance enough to make the rig almost completely neutral. The bayonet-mount lens barrel should just about make things even out completely.
As I indicated earlier, I'm planning to wait for the lens barrel to arrive before hanging my rig from a kite line. So for the moment I'm grounded. But once I get airborne, the fun will really start!
Tom
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