Camera Holder Mount 2.0

A large part of design is the Process in which a thing is designed. There are several strategies for design process, two commonly used in engineering are a Creative Design Process and a Conventional Engineering Design process

Conventional Engineering Design Process is goal oriented and looks for a specific outcome to achieve a specific task. 

Creative Engineering Design Process is explorational and allows for trial and error usually through the use of prototyping. Additive Manufacturing such as 3d printing has made this method of Design much more accessible to industries of all types.

The Process I am using in the creation of the Camera Holder is that of the Creative Design Process. I have created an initial Version(V1.0) displayed above that achieves the overall goal of holding the camera but it has short comings that I wasn't able to identify until the product was in the physical world. My next version that I have created is a more radical departure from the original design and has thus been bestowed the title of being a new Version or a Version 2.0.

Improvement goals for V2.0:

• Not be constrained in its operation by the size or type of lens on the camera.

V1.0 achieved the goal of being a good platform to rest the camera but it suffered in it's ability to be secure in place when different sized lens were used.  

• Create a more secure attachment for the camera to the holder.

V1.0 is about as secure a holder as a football on a tee, in other words it's not very secure.

• Apply more aesthetic appeal

With these Main goals in mind I began work on a V2.0.

I started with the goal of creating a mechanism for securing the camera body only and not having any portion of the lens be involved in the support of the camera. With this goal came the realization that this holder was now going to become model specific to the Sony Alpha 7 instead of being a universal use product. 

In order to do this I measured the diameter and spacing of the lens mount in relation to the body of the camera. I then created a platform that had a mount for the camera body and a cradle for the lens mount.

At a certain point I thought to try and find a model of the A7iii camera online to aid me in my design. Fortunately/Unfortunately I was able to find a model, unfortunately though the model was missing key details on the bottom of the camera body that didn't match my measurements. Regardless of this I was able to use the model to see some other crucial interferences that my initial design had and was able to fix.

Because there are a variety of lens available out there I wanted to have as little of the front of the holder be an impedance to the variety of lens, so I gave it a low profile sloping forward. 

Finally, I wanted to address the aesthetic appeal. I only really intended for this to be a 3D printed object and in my experience I have found that curves translate better to a finished 3D print than hard edges and straight lines. So I curved and filleted as many ofthe corners that I could.

The end result is a very attractive looking mount that gives the effect of a floating camera.

Sustainability Creating a product in this genre is probably down to the manufacture process and how it can be produced. This Version didnt have the intended goal of being sustainable, this being said, this product has attributes of sustainability in that in its production their is considerably less material being used.