3D Printed Tripod Phone Mount (with Some Hints Too)

I take a lot of photos. For my projects, for my Etsy shop but now also for my Instructables projects, I used to take so much photos that I can tell you how large is the storage place on my Hard Drive. Most of them are just not good. Blurry, bad quality, bad light... They don't really worth to be posted in front of you.

All of us have a smartphone those days. Did you know that your smartphone has a really great camera build in and can take great photos?

I have a brand new smartphone for a couple of months now and I am really amazed about the quality of the pics I take with it. If editing is still necessary and good quality photo techniques mandatory, I gathered good hints from the net (including "Basic Photo Editing" and "How to take great photos with an Iphone" on Instructables).

However I was still missing a point. If I value the digital camera with tripod for my Etsy products pics, I like the smartphone for on-the-fly photos but I had no solution in-between...

It is really easy to get blurry pics out of a smartphone and I don't want to set up the whole photo booth each time so I decided to design and 3D print a stand for my smartphone in order to adapt it on a tripod and take photos that would be in-between digital camera and on-the-fly quality.

Enjoy!

I designed the stand for my Samsung S7 but I guess it will work for most of the phones. The hole to fix it on the tripod is standard for Europe. I used TinkerCAD to design it.. I mount it on my tripod while using a large rubber band to avoid gliding.

I printed mine on a Witbox and then process the thread. You can see the full design on TinkerCAD.

I used the tricks explained in the 3D printing class incl. the blue duct tape as a sacrificial surface. According to my settings it took about 2h30min.

I then used threading toolset to proceed the thread. Take care at that stage as the quality of your thread is key for the safety of your smartphone ;-)

You're done.

Once your stand is done, mount it on your tripod.

Use a rubber band to avoid your smartphone to fall down and break!

I personally use the voice activated picture on Android to take my photo. That's definitely the best trick ever!

Take the best pictures of your projects you have ever seen!

Once you have printed your stand then it's time to take great pictures.

To do so, here are some hints I have gathered from several sources over the net and, of course, on Instructables.

• Use brightness at full power!
• Clean up the photo area (I really often now use a blank blanket as background or a piece of white foam)
• Light, Light, light. (and preferably indirect, natural)
• I am not a photographer so I use the AF/AE options and HDR mode but I also use the manual focus functionality to point out some objects or area.
• Don't zoom (close up)
• My favorite: Use the voice to take picture. With ANDROID you can do that. On Iphone one can use the headset to do it. It will avoid a blurry photo due to the force you apply while trying to press the buttons ;-) See the wonderful Photography Class for more info

Ready to take pics for your next I'bles?

The pics presented here are all made with the stand and are parts of other I'ble I have made. Please take a look at them ;-)

Thanks for reading!

If you liked it, Take 5 sec and vote for it!