It wasn’t too long after my last stroke that I began to think about recovering some of the skill sets that I had lost. I was particularly anxious to begin photography again – it had been a key aspect of my life for more than 60 years. It soon became obvious however that it was very unlikely to happen. The hemiplegia that began with the stroke was proving very likely to be a permanent condition. That left me with only one side of my body actually functional, and that happened to be my left side. Having been a right-hander all of my life, that left me in an almost hopeless position – no one makes a left handed camera, and most high-quality models need the use of both hands to be functional! That meant I had to pin my hopes and dreams to a cell phone, and I knew from previous experience it would be hard-pressed to meet my needs and demands. Nonetheless I went forward hoping for the best.
My first rig consisted of an iPhone 11 and a Zaedio iPhone camera grip mounted to my powered wheelchair using a homemade web-cam arrangement. It went on the right hand armrest of the wheelchair and was flexible enough to be suitable in certain circumstances. My son and I took it to Billy Frank Junior National Wildlife Refuge and gave it a trial run (lead photo above).
I was much encouraged by its performance, but soon recognized there were some serious drawbacks from a performance standpoint. Some of these were obviously due to the camera’s limitations, particularly with regard to how well it could operate in the zoom mode. It simply couldn’t handle the quality demands placed upon it, so it had to go. I made plans to get a new iPhone 13 as soon as possible.
In the meantime I shopped around for a better gimbal and settled on a Zhiyun Smooth 5 model, which is designed to be used only with cell phones. A single column mounted to the front of my wheelchair provided the overall support for the rig. I played around with this set up for quite a while and managed to take some halfway decent images. But I constantly came up short of the kinds of imagery I hoped to be able to produce. (See below.)
Declaring myself “done” with phone cameras, I began studying the dozens of contemporary digital cameras that might meet my needs, no easy feat. In the end I settled on a Panasonic Lumix ZS200B, a point-and-shoot type of rig that has plenty of strong points, but also its share of weak ones. I also moved to a different platform, another Zhiyun product, the M3 Crane. This gimbal isn’t exactly compatible with the camera’s electronics, but it has some workarounds that make it passable for what I’m up to and lets me take advantage of its diminutive size and modest price tag.
I’m only a couple weeks into a pretty steep learning curve. As if the new gear and a new body weren’t stretching me enough, I decided to take on a couple pieces of new software the same time: ACDSee, a file management/photo development program, and Affinity, a complete photo editing/manipulation program. For the moment I haven’t much to show in the way of product, but stay tuned!