A vintage tripod to make pictures of my vintage sewing machines

Two from one instead of two for one.

What with all the stuff I’ve been doing with my sewing machine and its motor control lately, I’ve had occasion to make several short demo videos to include in my blog posts.

Making the video clips has been something of a drag: hold the camera, work the sewing machine, try to sew a straight seam, keep the interesting bits centered in the video. Since I don’t have enough hands (or attention) to do it right and I’ve gotten tired of pretending to be an octopus, I decided to get a tripod.

I could have just ordered one from Amazon and gotten a piece of plastic and aluminum cheap, or shelled out some bucks to get a better made, more expensive one.

What I did instead was to by a used, vintage tripod from eBay. What I found for a pocket sized tripod made of good materials was an Injecta Steinach model Ines tripod. The Ines was produced in the former East Germany, sometime between 1950 and 1990. It is made of brass, steel, and (I think) aluminum. It isn’t as old as my Adler sewing machine from around 1926, but it is probably as old as my wife’s Pfaff 262 sewing machine from 1965.

Vintage Injecta Steinach model Ines tripod

There are two tripods there. I bought the one with the swivel head on it first, then found that one of the snaps on one of the legs was broken. The only thing that kept it from collapsing at full extension was the friction of the sliding metal rather than the locking pin.

Broken leg

Try as I might, I could not get the locking pin back in place.

I bought the second tripod with the plan to make one out of two. The second tripod (in the the leather case) doesn’t have the swivel head with the adapter for standard camera mount screws. Both together make one complete tripod, and leave me with two extra legs and other pieces in case I manage to break something.

Both together cost about what one cheap tripod from Amazon would have cost.

To go along with the tripod, I bought a new smartphone holder with a Bluetooth remote.

Smartphone holder

With all the extensions pushed in, the Ines is just the right size to set on a table or desk.

With all the extensions pulled out, the Ines is just about tall enough to stand beside a table or desk.

Full height

Future videos will be less wobbly and more focused.

I’ll be making a new case for the Ines. The tripod won’t fit in the original case when the swivel head adapter is on it, and I want to include a belt loop and pockets for the phone clamp and the remote control - my wife and I go hiking sometimes, and it’d be nice to make good photos of ourselves instead of the squinched up, funky angled “selfie” pictures you can make holding the phone at arm’s length.