https://toobnix.org/videos/watch/7c96978d-89ed-4aa4-94f2-ffc89cb23a3a This is the latest evolution of my 360° camera tripod. This one has a heavy base in which the telescopic mast can rotate. If you've used a 360° camera, you know the tripod is visible in the nadir (the very bottom of the photosphere). It's usually desirable to make the tripod as small as possible, so as to be as unintrusive as possible, and/or easy to airbrush out in still pictures. This "tripod" isn't a tripod at all, but an upside-down monopod with a small base attached to it. When it's fully deployed, it positions the camera at eye level, which is ideal for POV shots, and the base is quite far down on the ground so it's small in the resulting image. The base I used before was a 140mm-diameter plastic disc, which was rather lightweight. It was fine indoors even with the monopod fully deployed, but it tended to be quite tipsy outside when there was any wind, or when the ground wasn't smooth or level. To prevent the camera from tipping over - which is almost a guaranteed disaster for the lenses - I usually weighed down the base with something heavy in the vicinity like a stone, or staked it to the ground with camping tent stakes. I replaced the plastic base with a heavy 4x100 wheel hub for automotive trailer. I turned an adapter sleeve in the lathe to fit the larger end of the monopod inside of the axle bearings without play, and the monopod's original camera mounting plate serves to lock the whole assembly in place. The wheel hub is the same size as the plastic base I used to use, but it's a lot heavier at 2.2 kg / 5 lbs, so the camera is a lot more stable. Better: even if I want to pin it down for safety, the monopod's shaft is free to rotate thanks to the bearings, so I can easily orient the camera if I want to point the front or rear lens toward the main subject of the scene - because it's less grainy than around the stitch line, or to make sunbursts appear straight instead of all curvy due to the fisheye projection for example. Finally, the hub has ready-made holes that are normally used to mount a wheel onto, but are very useful to drive tent stakes through, for high-wind situations. The entire "tripod" still fits smartly in my backpack. But of course it's quite a lot heavier now. Still, I'd rather carry the extra weight around than get scratched lenses again, because replacing a lens on a Ricoh Theta X camera is a lot more expensive than the 35 euros this wheel hub cost me (180 euros if you're curious). Sun, 14 Jun 2026 19:55:24 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://toobnix.org https://toobnix.org/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://toobnix.org/videos/watch/7c96978d-89ed-4aa4-94f2-ffc89cb23a3a All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://toobnix.org/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.