Have you ever gone plane spotting and wished you could take stable video of that Airbus A380 right along side your DSLR photos? While most modern Android phones have the capability to take still photos while shooting video, most DSLR cameras do not yet have this feature. Holding your phone in one hand to record video while holding your DSLR in the other really is not a great solution, unless you want shaky video and pictures.
While there are some expensive commercially available product that exists to attach your phone (or other video recording device) to your DSLR, it is simple enough to come up with a DIY solution on the cheap. The solution I came up with uses the hot shoe mount on the top of your camera, which you are probably not using during spotting anyway. The first product you will need is a “hot shoe to 1/4″ convertor,” which can be found for just a few dollars on Amazon. The converter allows you to attach any 1/4″ male post onto the camera.
The second product you will need is a Joby GripTight Mount, which sells for about $20 on Amazon. The Joby mount simply screws into the hot shoe mount, securing it to your DSLR. The Joby mount arms life, and then securely retract to keep your phone steady. The specs say it will hold any phone with a width between 2.1 and 2.8 inches, ranging from the iPhone to Galaxy S4 (but not the Note 2). The arms of the Joby mount fold for easy storage.
Real world results are quite impressive, as the video will be as steady as you are able to hold your DSLR under normal use. The only real downside is that your video will pick up every sound your DSLR makes. This may be a bit of a roundabout solution to a problem that may not really exist, but if you are at all interested, it is well worth the $25 to upgrade your plane spotting!