Informational

Here's my break down and impressions on the v1 dolly prototype. Keep in mind this was only the first stab & learned a LOT from it. It's also a bit on the expensive side so we're pushing the value engineering as we move into v2 & v3. Stay tuned... =) Test videos are here

Stats:
about 15lbs total
72 inches long with about 60 inches of travel x 8 inches wide
bout $900+ proto cost (+ shipping and various little hardware store bits)

Positives:
-Have to credit Chris for hitting the motor selection on the nose. Perfect match for power consumption, accuracy and torque. Love this little beast!
-Vertical and/or upside down? no problem!
-Extremely smooth from close examination of the raw files. Any doubts/questions I had going into testing were quickly erased. I think the feathering 'between' moves built into the OMTLE really helps here too.
-Didn't see any hiccups even under 100 steps per move. (400 step ballpark seemed to be the 'sweet spot' with a wide lens)
-Relatively simple to put together with only a few eccentric 'ikea moments' (if you know what I mean!).
-Quite compact...

Negatives:
-I didn't really like the looped belt arrangement and motor position at the end of the rail.
-Couldn't disengage quickly, try out a setup and 'slide preview' the results on cam.
-Lots of connection wiring hanging about and I had to get a 6' shutter extension cable to go to the camera on cart
-Too many custom parts...
-Rail is on the long side for trekking. (but I'm confident it would fit in a ski bag)
-I'm thinking not the best bang for buck at the end of the day.

When building a motion control rig for timelapse, gigapano, or other photographic motion control, it is important to first establish which type of motion technique will be appropriate for your project. You must know which technique(s) you wish to employ before beginning motor selection and overall system design.

While some of the techniques described here will be well-known and agreed upon by the time-lapse community and others, some are purely hypothetical and crafted to encourage experimentation and thought on the subject.  Please feel free to add any additional techniques, or discussion as a comment to this article.

The term 'Moco' is short for 'Motion Control' (wikipedia).  In general motion control is precise mechanical movement of objects, in our case the object is a camera.  The basics of photographic or cinematic motion control are to achieve predictable accurate camera movement and thus smooth changes in point of view.  Moves can be made up of a pans (horizontal turn), tilts (vertical turn), dollys (linear travel), rolls (circular camera movement), booms (long arm cantilevers) or any combination of these movements.  Photographic and cinegraphic moco can also include control of lens functions such as zoom and aperture.  The apparatus that makes all these automated movements and adjustments possible is typically called the 'rig' (which can also refer to non automated or hand driven camera apparatus).