Non UK-readers will have to forgive the reference to 'Blue Peter' in the title. It's a kids programme on TV in which the presenters make all sorts of things out of cardboard, old plastic bottles, etc. All very worthy in this green age though....
...So in the spirit of the show, and also because Nokia PR wanted their official DT-22 tripod back and it seems you can't actually buy them yet, I present the Blue Peter Nokia N93 tripod stand, made from cardboard and gaffa (duct) tape. I don't mean the tripod itself, of course, but the widget that holds the Nokia N93 upright in order to film video without needing an extra camera person or even a steady hand.
The DT-22 (see my review) was well made and in metal and plastic, but the widget top bit (apologies for the tech language....) had a traditional camera tripod mounting thread drilled in it and the actual ball joint and leg assembly was a bog standard mini-tripod and screw from the mainstream camera world.
Now, most of us have a full size tripod at home, for use in the past with a SLR camera or a camcorder, so my aim was to make a homemade widget that could hold the N93 securely and 'fix' it to the tripod. The main keypad section needs to be held vertically, as you can see in the photos, and the N93 needs to be instantly removeable and replaceable.
Being green and a bodger at heart(!), I looked in my recycling pile and spotted a small cardboard box of fairly high quality. What if the N93 were to nestle snugly in one corner, I thought, and I started cutting away the cardboard. Most cardboard boxes have enough supporting doubled-up cardboard at the bottom that it was merely necessary to trim the height of the box and then its width, as shown, folding one of the sides in and round to create the right space to hold the N93.
As I said, I'm a bodger and after all this is just cardboard, so I used duct tape to hold the bent over side in position and to strengthen the bottom of the box and make it a little more rigid. The next step is to make a thread for the tripod's mounting screw, so I made a hole big enough for the body of the screw and then wound it into place, cutting its own thread into the cardboard and duct tape. Perhaps not the strongest joint in the world, so I supplemented it with some double-sided adhesive tape before winding the screw gently finger tight. (Of course, if you're going to keep swapping back to a traditional camera, you'll not want the extra adhesive!)
With several of the box's natural right angles, the holder is pretty rigid and up to the job when used carefully. One useful enhancement is adding an extra piece of cardboard with a slot cut in it (as shown), as a shield against direct sunlight hitting the lens (at least when the sun's off to the right) - this looks a little ungainly but works well.
The tripod's swivelling and elevation controls still work, of course, though I wouldn't recommend taking such a homebrew solution into a rough or really windy environment. Not only would you risk the N93 mount falling apart, you'd also er.... get laughed at. Quite a lot.
Until such time as Nokia finally manage to get their DT-22 tripod into mass production though, the 'Blue Peter' solution may well save the day and help you use your N93 or N93i to its full potential!
Steve Litchfield, 13 Jan 2007
PS. I'm sure some of you DIY wizards can do a better job than me - feel free to send in your own efforts and I'll post the pictures!