Frypod

I have for ages wanted a better method of supporting a camera at low level, the equipment that is available seems only to be in the USA, or very expensive, but I have had the idea of using a frying pan for ages. The major problem was finding one that would work in the way I wanted, most have ridges either turned or cast on the bottom of the pan and I felt they would not slide on the ground too well, however ASDA came to my rescue, a nice cheap pan in their sale for £12-99.

I had to turn up a solid mounting to suit a ball head and my Wimberly head, this was a 100mm diameter billet of Aluminium about 50mm high, through the middle I cut a 3/8" Whitworth thread, and turned it on a lathe to a top-hat shape, the main body being 50mm diameter and 40mm long then there was a 100mm diameter section that was 10mm making the "brim" of the top-hat, around this I drilled 3 holes 6mm diameter at equal spacing that I could use to enable it to be bolted onto the pan, I used silicone bath sealer to make the joint water tight too.

The main use of this will be for photographing waders etc, the idea being that with the pan being sealed I can use it to put spare batteries and memory cards in whilst I crawl about in the mud. It is I should add very effective for waders.

As you can see in this shot it is very useful and easy to set-up, this Wheatear became very tame after being fed on mealworms, the Frypod made it very simple to change the camera position as the sun moved around.

Although I removed the pan handle, I now think it would have been best left on, as it might be easier to move the set-up about when using longer lenses for stalking birds when laying/crawling on the ground.