The evidence

In order to experience using a tripod, you have to shoot some film. Here's some of the data for my tripodology study.

Occasionally my bike rides take me on the Wiowash trail next to Highway 41 on the causeway over the Fox River and Lake Butte des Morte. In the center where it opens into a bridge, there are trails that lead down to the water's edge. I'd been down the one on the north side but until now had never gone down the one on the south. I discovered that it goes under the highway and over to the other side.

There was a boat full of fishermen just off shore sitting relatively still. I started with the PinRui flexible tripod wrapped around my bicycle handlebars.

Turning around, the view of the bridge itself.

Between 1980 and 2011, for state projects that are primarily for access by the public, there was a Wisconsin law which mandated that a small percentage of the construction budget be used to commission art work. Apparently they felt people accessing the bridge would be going by boat. Although the bridge has some decorative railings on top, I never knew these graphics were down here.

Walgreen's has decorative plantings around their parking lot. I had walked over so no handlbars to wrap the tripod around and nothing else handy. I had to put it down on the ground to capture this burning bush.

Another autumn show-off, again from about seven inches off the ground.

I switched to the ProMaster when I went out to rake leaves. Here I'm holding it against the trunk of our large pine.

Still held up against the pine tree but looking the other way up Central St. I thought I felt the camera slip around so I tried three exposures to hold it still. They all look about the same. This is the last one that I thought wasn't moving. The slight movement does give it a little extra pinholiness.

A view with the tripod on the ground, so no camera movement here.

An unsuccessful attempt at Footography.

I went on a bike ride with the Amazon. Can't wrap this one around my handlbars. Here it's held up against an oak tree.

Held up against a fence at the Yacht Club.

This happened to be on Halloween. It may look like the tripod is on the floor but it's held up against a column on the porch to get it just a little higher in order to look this guy right in the eye. The fluting provides some nice bracing to keep the hard plastic feet from sliding around.

This summer the arbor was covered with morning glory vines, although few morning glory blossoms. The first frost gave it a bit more of a Halloween appearance. The tripod is sitting on the gazing ball.

It is possible to hold the camera motionless held against a smooth wall but it takes some concentration.

I suppose if it were listed in a cooking supply catalog it would be called a counter top tripod.

It doesn't make any difference what the tripod is if you bump the subject during the exposure.

All with the Populist. .15mm pinhole 24mm from 24x36mm frame on Kodak Gold 200.

Omnia Pinholica est sustinetur in tres pedes

January 2024. When my university retiree account disappeared in 2019 with a new change in policy, the pictures I uploaded to this blog while logged into that account disappeared. I'm replacing those original pictures pictures with some current documentation of the fate of the discussed items, with new comments in the picture captions.

An infamous subject of the crown has assailed the assertion in my manifesto espousing the empowerment endowed by a tripod in the full and free expression of stenopaeic photography. I reaffirm my insistence on the inalienable right to point my pinhole at and from where I find it to be self-evident and to provide secure freehold for all film.

When in the course of a holiday's events, the resources to maintain stable practice became insufficient, it became necessary for this pinholist to go a little mad and to thrice seek to right this deficiency in the marketplace.

[picture of three tripods]

I got the ProMaster TRM-1 Mini Tripod on the left at Camera Casino. From the internet, I got the Amazon Basics Lightweight Mini Tripod in the center and on the right, with a name longer than the tripod, the PinRui Flexible Octopus Style Mini Tripod Stand Kit Universal for Cellphone Smartphone and Sport Action Camera. (Hmmm. PinRui. I wonder?) It also came with a phone adapter, a bluetooth shutter remote and another clamp that I can't quite figure out.

Of course I was doing this to get over my grief at the loss of my little ProMaster folding tripod. It was a workmanlike little support and its defining feature was that it folded into a flat little slab about the size of a TicTac dispenser. It would fit in almost any pocket. You could sit on it without discomfort. I hadn't realized it until it was gone, but it's rubber feet were a critical attribute.

My broken tripod

No one seems to make tripods that fold flat like that any more. When I dropped my film off at Camera Casino, I thought I'd found a replacement, the T2 Mini, again by ProMaster, although it's a little longer than my old one. (I took this picture to use up the film in The Populist before I dropped it off.)

When I got home I discovered that although it was nice and flat, it's head only tilted back and forth, no swivel, no tilt to the side.  Not going to work for me. I also got one of their little gag keychain tripods that might hold one of my 35mm cameras, but the head doesn't lock and it falls right over. 

I went through the pile of the keychain tripods and found one with a head that's stiff enough to hold a 35mm Populist. I carry it as a back up and it occasionally gets used. It's really easy to fit in your pocket.

When I went back to pick up my developed film, I exchanged the T2 for the TRM-1. They only had two colors in stock - red or blue.  Red would attract more attention so I got the blue.  

A leg came off pretty quick and I got a new one, but it's never been my favorite.

In between the visits to Camera Casino, I had already bought the other two on Amazon.

So what peculiarities maketh the vision of the pinholist stir and ease the trembling of the illuminated plane? 

General Pocketability

It seems like an odd place to start, but I carry one of these with me almost all the time, all year round.  It's an easier business when it's cold enough to wear a jacket but pockets in Levi's are not made to be particularly voluminous, probably for visual reasons, which I admit to noticing in the mirror.

  

It's about a tie between the ProMaster, a little shorter, and the Amazon, a little smaller circumference.  The PinRui just barely fits in a back pocket and it makes a more noticeable budge, although with it's mostly foam covering and conformable shape, it's not that uncomfortable to sit on.

Weight is a factor in this pocket game. This time the Amazon and the PinRui tie at 54 and 55 grams. The ProMaster is a distant third at 98 grams. That's still not a lot of weight though. They're all almost unnoticable in my pocket. The heft of the ProMaster could be an advantage on a breezy day.

Durability and strength

I'm going to be pressing these things against hard surfaces and frequently sitting on them. It seems a little premature to evaluate durability, but I think we can make some assumptions. The ProMaster wins hands down. Except for the handle on the socket clamp and the feet, it's All Metal. A lot of the Amazon is plastic. It's legs are held on a metal plate with screws so someone thought about it. I'm a little skeptical of the PinRui. It's covered with foam. I've seen foam tear and deteriorate into crumbly bits leaving an ugly and sticky residue. I don't know anything about metal fatigue but how many times are those legs going to flex before they break? Let's say its going to get it a good test. One of its legs came out of where it attached to the top but it pressed right back in and seems to be staying there. That flexible wire probably won't maintain a thread to screw it in with.

I've had generally good luck with the folding-flat tripods. I've only had two break in the last ten years. My old little ProMaster was 7 years old. 

They're cheaper than most sandwiches so cost comes before utility and life span in their design. They're between 5 and 10 dollars on-line. Not a significant investment to replace but it's irritating to have something come apart in the field very often.

Maximum height.

I like to get the camera at least a little off the ground or a table's surface. The ProMaster has three section legs, the Amazon two, and the PinRui's legs are just one piece.  

The ProMaster wins, even though it looks like I pushed two of it's legs in a bit futzing with it. I can handle that as long as I get the camera level. The PinRui comes in second, but at the expense of narrowing its base, ergo stablility. The Amazon has a greater angle of extension and is really spread out when extended like this. Stable, but covering a lot of real estate.

Minimum height

Yes, Justin, I know I can put the camera right on the ground. I usually want to get this low to point at something on the ground and occasionally to point up and into a plant. The ability to keep from falling over when the camera is tilted 45° down without getting its legs in the picture is also a consideration, which they all passed.

The PinRui squashes down to the surface the closest. It also gets points for being continuously variable on those bendy legs. It's pretty spread out and stable. If your surface isn't that big you can bend the legs down to clamp over the edges. Notice the angle of the ProMaster's legs. That knurled band just above the legs screws up and down, changing the maximum angle so there's some fine tuning on that one too.

The head

The ball and socket must be adjustable on two axes and hold the camera in place for the picture. 

The ProMaster and the Amazon have the same general design, a cylindrical enclosure with the clamping bolt at the bottom. The ProMaster's head also rotates when it's loosened. On the Amazon there's a phillips head screw between the legs that holds them to the head. If that screw is loose the head will swivel around but is useless that way unless in a vertical position. In addition, you have to make sure that when that screw is tightened, the gap in the head, which allows you to tilt all the way over 90°, is aligned between two of the legs. Otherwise they'll get in your way when the camera is pointed down or you're holding it against a wall. These heads also seem to be either loose or locked with no variable drag. The PinRui has a plastic cup containing the ball with a clamp in the back that squeezes it tight. Even with the clamping bolt completely loosened, it has enough drag to hold my two ounce cameras in position. It's tempting to just leave it loose but once the nut came off the bolt in my pocket, so best to tighten between photographs.

Holdability against a vertical surface.

Just as often as I set the tripod down on a horizontal surface, I hold it against a wall or light post.  It's necessary to still be able to get the camera level and pointed at whatever angle I want.

It seems they all past the test but it was much easier to hold the PinRui against the wall than it is the other two.  It comes down to two things. The lesser is that the legs of the ProMaster and the Amazon both flop back together when held up like this and you have to adjust your grip to hold them at maximum spread.  The PinRui, while you can't press too hard or it will bend, has legs that stay where they're put until acted upon by an outside force.

The more important thing that makes the PinRui better at this is something that hadn't occurred to me before - the feet. Even though I had dealt with slippery feet on an antique wooden tripod in the past.

My old little ProMaster had feet of hard rubber. This ProMaster and the Amazon have feet of hard plastic. They're almost impossible keep from sliding across a smooth surface, especially when you're putting a little force on it to hold it in place in a clumsy posture. I tried to modify the ProMaster by wrapping the feet with a couple layers of black duct tape, which helps a little but it still takes concentration to get it to hold still. The PinRui's feet are medium hard rubber with a high coefficient of friction that doesn't slip and combined with the light weight is easy to hold in place even for a long exposure.

Span

This one is rarely used but sometimes, the most stable place is spanning a gap, between two branches or over a bumpy surface.

The ProMaster can bridge a slightly broader expanse but something tells me the feet of the PinRui are going to make it sit more stably in that kind of a situation.

In summary, each of these has unique advantages and I'll probably use them all at some time.

The Amazon

The lightweight Amazon's major advantage are it's good looks. You could pull it out of your Chanel handbag at the gala ball and it would fit right in. It's small and light and probably the least likely to create an unsightly bulge in your suit jacket pocket. It's good enough and if I could fix the issue with the slippery feet, it would be adequate in most situations.

The Amazon turned out to be the only one of these that survived. It was my go-to desktop tripod for several years.

The ProMaster 

It's noticeably stronger and better engineered and with the rotating head and the variable angle legs, a lot more adjustable than a lot of desktop tripods.  

I wouldn't recommend it but it's just strong enough to hold this N50 with a body cap if you don't try to tilt it too much. It falls over with a lens on it.

The PinRui

The flexible legs make it completely different from any other tripod I've had, and I have to admit I'm having fun fooling around with it.

The legs of this one couldn't stand up to the use and came off several times until I couldn't get them inserted any more. I repurposed the head attaching to a clamp with rubber bands.

I've always been tempted by Jobo's Gorillapod for the capability to attach to things but it's too big and heavy for everyday transport in a pocket. This one does pretty much everything a regular desktop tripod does, plus everything you could possibly imagine. Those legs wrap around things and clamp to some really odd shapes.

That ability to come out of my pocket and quickly wrap around the handle bars is something I will use a lot.  Strapping and unstrapping a full tripod to a bicycle is annoying and the rails, benches, trees, signs and tables I depend on aren't always nearby. This gives me some good height off the ground and it only takes a second to deploy it this way.

The foam covered, segmented, bendy legs are kind of odd looking and impossible to get perfectly straight ever again. My anal-retentive inner graphic artist wants to try to straighten them but I'll get over that.

I eventually got the smallest version of the Gorilla Pod. The joints are a little iffy and it comes apart if you try to wrap it around things, but the part can be popped back on.  The magnetic feet are really great if you're on an iron or steel object. Not really something I can depend on.

Our lovely models for this pageant have been the PrePopulist on the ProMaster, The Populist on the Amazon and lately made just for these photographs, a new Understudy for The Populist which is now loaded, in my pocket with the PinRui, continuing our investigations in tripodology.

And yet I can exercise my free choice to place the camera directly on terra firma.

My current favorite, and likely to be for a while is this little Dorr which nearly duplicates the features of the ProMaster whose loss started this whole thing, but made out of a little better material and solid screws.

Roadtrip: Art is what you can get away with in Western Pennsylvania

The evening after we returned from the Blue Hills Reservation, I took my little Promaster tripod out of my pocket and one of the legs had broken off. It has been almost constantly with me since 2011 and has been the support for half the photographs on this blog. Farewell, trusty old friend.

I had brought a spare along, the foot of which you can see in the lower left hand corner of the image above.

I had two 35mm Populists with me, The Populist and The New Glarus Populist. Both were loaded so when one ran out of film, I could just switch to the other without everyone having to wait for me to reload. This occurred while we were visiting Cape Cod.

We went back to Wisconsin through Pennsylvania.

We spent a day in Philadelphia. I had great fun photographing some notable sights including interiors of Independence Hall, a sunbeam in Betsy Ross's bed room and lunch at the reproduction of the historic City Tavern. I finished the roll at the Philadelphia Art Museum on their evening hours night. Can you see where I'm going with this?

Exhausted after a day of history and art appreciation in 86°F temperatures, we sat down at the bottom of the famous Museum steps to call an Uber. Since I had been on the prowl for opportunities, I had the camera on the tripod in my back pocket. When I sat down on the concrete step, I took camera and tripod out and set them down beside me. After clicking Confirm Pick-up on Uber, it said the driver's arrival time was one minute! I looked up and saw him waiting in the drop-off zone rolling slowly ahead looking around for his fare. Fearing he would drive away, I jumped up and ran toward him. When we got to the hotel after a 15-minute, 2-mile drive through bumper-to-bumper traffic, I noticed I didn't have the camera. Or a working desktop tripod.

I have this fantasy that someone will find the New Glarus camera, discover pinhole, and submit a picture with it to Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

The next day we drove through the mountains in copious falling water for about four hours.

Our first destination on the other side was Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece of domestic architecture.

We purposely arrived early to have a snoop around the grounds and get some photographs at our leisure. I took along the medium format cameras and the big Manfrotto.

On our way to the Classic View, we accidentally went to the Bird's Eye View instead. Despite being partially obscured, it probably gives the best look at the general layout of the place.

The Classic View, which the guide later described as the image on the cover of every book about Fallingwater ever published. It's about the only view in the steep, winding and heavily forested Bear Run Valley. Everyone expected Wright to build the house here to get the view of the waterfall, but he thought he could get away with hanging it above the stream. I love that the trees form an opening that seems to perfectly frame the house and then turns to follow the creek. It's probably managed to look that way, but a nice touch.

We returned our cameras and tripod to the car. Camera bags and tripods were specifically discouraged from being carried on the tour. I'm not complaining. You get to walk right into every room. No velvet ropes. I've had to manage a tripod among precious artifacts and it's not my idea of a vacation. Photography is allowed on the grounds but not in interiors and not on the terraces. I'm sure people would fall off taking selfies. Inspired by Wright's structural and design uses of the environment and Andy Warhol's cheeky quip, which I saw on a book cover in the gift shop just before we started, I went ahead to see what I could get away with by resurrecting my little recently created bipod and making do with whatever surfaces I could find to support The Populist.

The Visitor Center, designed by one of Wright's students, echoes his intention to make sure you notice that you're out in the woods.

The tours meet their guide on a little bridge across Bear Run, which offers the second most photographed view of Fallingwater. Wright used semicircles as accents in many places including the tops of the railings on the bridge which makes it an unstable place to try to hold a bipod against. In addition to the pinholey movement, the not quite parallel camera results in some classic wide angle stretch of space which gives a little instability to Wright's geometric arrangements.

After the tour, I of course took a picture of the back of the house. What got me about this scene was how Wright used a big native rock outcrop to support some of the structure of that terrace.

There are many woodsy paths to wander through the grounds. About half the trees near the house are rhododendrons. It must be crazy in the spring.

Going back to the Visitor Center over the bridge, I got a little more rectilinear, but still pretty shaky, version of the cantilevered terraces.

Now on to Pittsburgh for the giant retrospective of the quipster himself, The Andy Warhol Museum.

The presentation is mostly in chronological order which begins on the seventh floor. This is the top of the stairway.

There are three large galleries per floor, plus a central hallway.

The stairs on the rest of the floors are different because they have to go both ways.

One gallery contained his piece Silver Clouds, a black room with a dozen or so large pillows of silver mylar filled with something to make them neutrally bouyant, being moved around by a fan with spot lights shining on them making really bright highlights, occasionally escaping out into the hallway. Do you think he thought of pinhole photography when he designed that?

Otherwise he didn't do much sculpture, and he didn't do this one. It's by Keith Haring, probably inspired by Warhol's Elephant series.

To get the camera to tilt up a bit, I was leaning it against my jacket, another sort of unstable support. In this gallery, trying to be gentle, I didn't quite get the shutter pulled out all the way, and blocked part of the pinhole.  But it works pretty well graphically, so let's see if I can get away with it.

Next, sandy shores in the Midwest.

Pinhole To Go

June 2019. When my university retiree account disappeared with a new change in policy, the pictures I uploaded to this blog while logged into that account disappeared. I'm working on fixing that but it's going to be at least a summer long project. 

I do a lot of my photography while riding a bicycle around Oshkosh.  

This is the kit I've been going with recently. The back pack is the one that I carried to, from and sometimes around work for 10 years, usually carrying an iPad, several folders, often a laptop and a book or two and occasionally bits of audiovisual gear like mics, cameras and cables.  And of course, pinhole cameras. (I have a different back pack for groceries.)

It has two compartments.

In the small zippered compartment on the front (which always has this stuff in it) is: a Nikon body cap with a pinhole carried in a Sennheiser headphone case, a level that I should use more often, the extra bushings that came with my quick release plates in case I ever want to mount a VHS camcorder or run into a 3/8 inch tripod mount, a pen, a little pair of pliers if it happens that I need a little force turning a film winder, a roll of the divine 3M #235, two extra rubber bands, and a Swiss Army Knife I found in the gutter on Cherry Street one morning riding my bike to work. It has the initials PTG engraved on it which I'm just going to think of as Pinhole To Go

In the main compartment recently I've been carrying: a Manfrotto Compact Advanced Aluminum Tripod, the Moderately Telephoto Pinhole Camera in a Plain Brown Wrapper, the new Evil Cube, the Oshkosh Populist, and the slightly-too-small-first-attempt of the interior assembly of the Evil Cub template which I thought might come in handy as a preview device but which I haven't used. I'm pretty habituated to composing in my head and using the finders on the camera to get it where it needs to be.  Each camera has a quick-release plate attached.

I've learned a few things having all this stuff jumbling around on my back.

You may think the rubber bands on the cameras are just paranoia about light leaks, but they also have a function securing a camera in a backpack.  Despite the deliberate camera-design goal to secure the winders, I pulled the new Evil Cube out once and a winder was missing!  I also found a shutter open a couple of times   If you're going to toss one of these in a back pack, you should take some care to place the rubber bands so they're right up against the winders and over those collars, and pulled over holding the shutters closed. They need to be replaced occasionally when they lose their elasticity.

By far the greatest mass, stretched over 19 inches, is the tripod. My older tripod is an inch smaller and lighter, but I've become infatuated by the 12 extra inches this one gives me at full extension, not to mention that it's really strong.  It just barely fits when the flap is latched and it's important to tie the drawstring closed right around the head or physics can flip it right out at the oddest times or it can swing around and bash the cameras.

If you situate the tripod first and then make some effort to stack the cameras next to it before closing the flap, it's not too lumpy on your back, but on a sunny day it can get kind of warm.  I was out recently and was very comfortable otherwise, but my T-shirt was soaked under the black back pack.

In the past I've attached the tripod to the upper crossbar of my bicycle frame with a triple wrap of a bungee cord attached to the bottle holder on the lower crossbar. If I was only carrying one camera, I left it attached to the tripod and hence no need for a backpack. The problem was that the cameras got kind of beat up and the slightly greater length of this tripod leaves minimal room for a camera. I also got my hands whacked a couple times by that stretched bungee cord when it slipped my grip.

I could go back to this method for transporting the tripod. For the cameras and extras, a rack to attach my backpack to would work. My bike is a 1996 Timberlin Land Rover bought at Recycle Bike Shop in Kaukauna for $60 in 2007 when I realized if I had wide tires I could probably ride through the winter. (I was right, but I also needed a studded front tire.)

I went down to the local bike shop and found out you can't get a rack for a twenty year old bike.  The only options were an expensive one which clamped to the seat post that didn't look trustworthy, and one that attached to the clamp where the post goes into the frame, which on my all-year-round bike is terminally rusted together.

So my next idea was a bag that attaches to the handlebars with Velcro. There's a lot of options on the internet, most pretty small.  I ordered one that I thought, from the dimensions given, would hold at least two cameras. Well, it depends which two cameras. It wouldn't close with the Moderately Telephoto Pinhole Camera in a Plain Brown Wrapper, and the roll of tape wouldn't fit in the map pocket so it had to go inside with the cameras. Not ideal, but I could work with it...until the Velcro on one of the handlebar straps failed completely the first time I detached it. It didn't come off, it just wouldn't stick together at all any more.  I've never seen that.  Back to Amazon.

I had initially rejected the only larger handlebar pack because I thought it might be too big, but it seemed like the only alternative to wearing that backpack I had left. Being a reassuringly boring Schwinn branded product helped and I ordered it.

It is a little big, but it turns out it to be manageable riding with it mounted on the handlebar.  It easily holds three cameras, and on a test ride this weekend, I also got two pounds of Oaks Chocolate in there.  The extra little toolset fits easily in the smaller zippered pocket. I left out the Nikon body cap and the tripod bushings even though I had plenty of room. Maybe I could carry extra rolls of film. The bungee cord can go in the map window on the top. I've got to get a controversial bumper sticker to put in there.

It has a shoulder strap that comes in handy if you venture away from the bike on foot which stashes neatly in a little net pocket on the side.

Looks like I'm all set for some rollin' pinholin'!

The last picture done with the Evil Cube, .3mm pinhole 6cm from 6x6cm frame on Lomo 100.

Pinhole Lab Camera Accessories: A Tripod

June 2019. When my university retiree account disappeared with a new change in policy, the pictures I uploaded to this blog while logged into that account disappeared. I'm working on fixing that but it's going to be at least a summer long project. 

Sometimes you get involved in a project, and because it's interesting and maybe for reasons that could either be described as obsessive-compulsive or religious, you go at it for a little while too long, and then find that maybe it's not worth it.

In workshops, I've always found it frustrating not to be able to give everybody a tripod so they could have freedom in placing and pointing the camera. I used to give out doubly bagged sandbags for participants to mush into a surface for the camera to sit on to level it or to point it up or down a little. With the Pinhole Lab Camera with it's rising and falling and left and right shift pinholes, my intention was to overcome that somewhat, but you know, you don't always have a perfectly level surface, and sometimes, you just want to point the camera directly at something and take advantage of that sweet rectilinearity of the pinhole when it's on axis with a flat piece of film.  There's also the issue, also addressed by the rising front of the Pinhole Lab Camera, of having the foreground fill half the frame.  If you're taking a portrait of someone across the table, having the camera six or so inches above it will help a lot with the composition, and the rising front can have a strange effect on shapes like heads near the top of the frame.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could make a tripod as easily as a pinhole camera?  How pinholy!  You could take advantage of the skills and materials used to build (and for me, design) the Pinhole Lab Camera.

Links:  Original Description    Construction    Feeding and Use    Link to Templates   Excusado

So I laid out the template so that it would fit on a tabloid sheet of paper. I tried to make the legs as long as I could on that paper size. I could make them bigger on multiple sheets, but you'd have to do the "glue A adjacent to A" several times and that increases the chance that something's going to get glued down out of alignment.

The forces on a tripod are greater than on a camera, and this model relies more on multiple layer lamination and folds and flaps to get the strength to adjust and hold the camera.  Maybe relies on them too much.  Some parts have multiple folds and it takes six binder clips or clothespins to clamp some of them.

I mentioned I worked for my dad in a plant making feed and fertilizer mixers in a previous post.  He not only managed the plant but he was the designer and engineer as well.  I make these templates on a computer with Illustrator and do repeated iterations to find out what works.  My dad would do it on a drawing table with trigonometry and the parts would fold and assemble together the first time. The feed chutes for those mixers had to fit into existing buildings and come in at some strange compound angles. He gave me the Chemical Rubber Company book of Standard Mathematical Tables for high school graduation.

So, what have I come up with?

It's a desktop tripod about 7 inches tall.  Not too big, but getting it that far off the surface it's sitting on gives you a lot of flexibility with composition.

The tilting head is held by a bolt and wingnut.  I just happened to have the little spring which allows a variable drag to the tilt so you don't have to constantly loosen and tighten it, you can just move it freely and it will stay in place.

It attaches to the camera with rubber bands. I hate to have a roll film camera without a tripod mount, but it's a pain with a single shot camera, especially one that's intended to be used in all sorts of orientations.  So the tripod has a little platform that can be attached with rubber bands. (Carry extras.)

It has a head that will tilt back and forth about 45 degrees.  It's a little steadier if that tilt is toward the single leg side of the tripod, but it's easy to switch from one side to the other if you're tilting the camera the other way.

If you need to tilt any higher, you can just change the orientation of the camera.

The legs are restrained from opening by a piece of butcher's twine (I do this in my kitchen) threaded through each leg through holes big enough to get it through and move, yet small enough to give a little resistance to hold the movement in place. I did this by glueing the end of the twine to a toothpick.

By adjusting where those legs are, you can make the camera level on a non-level surface.

It's admittedly a limited set of flexibilities, but it adds dramatically to the supports you can utilize and maintain a level camera. (You do want a level camera, right?)

It's very light and wouldn't be much use in a breeze.  Maybe if I could find those sandbags.

It's just a hair on the complicated side to make. The template is on-line if you can figure it out from these images.

The problem is that you can buy a table top tripod better than this for under $10.  You can get a 50 inch good-enough tripod from Target for $11 and a pretty decent 62 inch one from Freestyle for $30.  And you can get some real deals on spiffy vintage travel tripods for cheap on eBay. You'll need to make a platform to attach the camera with the rubber bands.

But if you're feeling pinholy some Sunday...