A taut string will act as a tripod or a gun rest!

Believe it or not: A 4 Gram String Tripod: A taut string will act as a tripod! You can tie an approx 6’ (1.8m) length of string to a small bolt the size which fits in the tripod socket of your camera then screw it in to the camera. If you stand on the string with one foot and pull the string taut so that your eye is level with the viewfinder/screen you will be able to hold the camera almost perfectly still just as if you were using a 5’6” (160cm) tripod! Neat, aye? (Bolt size: almost always 1/4”-20 UNC). You can instead tie a loop in the end of the string to hold it down with your toes. This same trick would also work if you want to hold your gun steady eg for a long shot without a rest. My son-in-law, Matt suggested this neat idea

You can attach a couple of snips of velcro to the bolt so that you can roll up and attach the string so your tripod is just a second away from deployment. I ordered some plastic thumbscrew bolts off eBay which I cut down (as shown) with side cutters. I also added a plastic line tensioner here from an old cheap greenhouse guy. This little tool fits in your pocket with the camera and only takes seconds to deploy when you have a long (steady) shot you want to take.

Now that you can buy pocket cameras with 30X zoom such as the Sony HX80 (18.2 megapixels, 30X zoom, 245 grams  http://www.sony.com/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-hx80) you may think you need a tripod for those really long shots you can now take (in good light). If you use hiking poles you can make/buy a gadget which attaches to your pole so it can function as a tripod. You can do the same thing with a gun (See:http://www.theultralighthiker.com/camera-glassing/)

Below you can see a reader (Mark’s) suggestion for another lightweight  alternative to this:

Here’s the camera sling thing: this only stabilises relative to the body of a person, which is going to be slightly less stable, but the stability is only an unforseen side benefit for me: I made it so i can’t drop it while filming climbing mountains, or when using the camera on a moving bicycle.

the D ring is 16 grams by itself, it’s all i had. the whole thing weighs 25 grams, but could be under 10 with plastic hardware. a D ring is needed for full range of motion so it slides on the sling. the whole thing is fairly comfortable once I got used to having a cord on my side.

apologies for the terrible background and motion blur and the silly faces. you can publish them if you want to.

you may notice another thing here, which is the “cage” made for the camera out of 2 mil wire flattened on a vice. this is so i can remove the camera from the case one handed, biting on the wire, and it also gives me a nice tie-in point on the odd occasion I lash the camera on top of a pole.