New project: iPhone hotshoe holder

I like useful gadgets, my iPhone is at the top of my list. Mostly for the fact that I always have it with me. There are a lot of good apps to help with shooting. For instance Pocket light Meter or PanoTool. I have and use both. The only problem with using an iPhone while shooting is holding it. So I decided to make a holder for mine. I wanted it to fit the case that I use so there is no risk of damage, or the hassle of removing it. It was also importnat for it to be more useful then just that, and could also be a tripod mount. Since I have some PC link safe hotshoes ( when you don't know your sync voltage limit ) that also have a tripod mount. So a hotshoe mount seemed logical.

Since my go to material is hobby plastic, I made some measurements and started planning my cuts.

Here are rough cut parts.

Here is the base inserted for a test fit.

Here it is glued together. Hopefully, you can see that the cut out for the hotshoe goes through the base some. This is to stabalize the front of the holder when on camera.

Here you can see the foot that slides in to the hotshoe. Later I shaped the sides of the foot with a hot screwdriver so that it would slide in easier.

As you can see in this photo, the rear panel is slightly angled to have slight pressure for holding the phone in. Granted this is at the cost of loosing some of the screen. Although I would rather be safe.

Here it is mounted on my Nikon D1 and displaying the Pocket light Meter app. I do have a rubber band around to keep it in place and would suggest the same if you decide to make one.

The project has turned out well. I am considering making a new version out of aluminum plate in the future so that I could mount an iPad and use Photo Soft Box Pro. But that is a whole new project. As it stands this is only useful for tripod work and I would never suggest using this for handheld shots. I hope that if you make one that you send me a photo, especially if you make improvements!

-update-

Well there has been much more popularity than I could have ever imagined for this idea. I am working on a second revision, and I am looking into a kickstarter project. So stay tuned! If anyone wants to help or has any ideas please feel free to use the contact link in the side bar.