Leaderboard

Patrick, Please please do NOT become dependent on the Volt. If you have as much passion as you seem to have (referring to your first post on this thread) you should learn to be a good Steadicam Operator without it. You seem to have great respect for Garrett and Jerry and the entire world of Steadicam, to learn without using the volt (as they had and most of us had to) would be a great way to express that respect, IMHO. Your fellow op, - Kat

I think the thing that is maybe not clear is that the side drop test will get you into DB no matter the height of the monitor, so long as both conditions are met at the same time. (ie. the sidedrop balance and static balance). This is what happens to me. After making battery adjustments to the balance your sideways drop, you obviously have to counteract that adjustment with the top stage to get back in static balance. BUT this will definitely throw off the sidedrop test slightly, so now so you have to do it once more, and then again tweak out the top stage. It shouldn't take more than two or three times back and forth to get into DB. Each time the adjustment to the batteries should be smaller and smaller, if it starts getting bigger you've overshot the sweet spot. Another tip I like is to deliberately decide to only make adjustments your battery since you usually want the monitor in your fav spot. This helps reduce the variables. In a nutshell, I think both conditions must be met at the same time. It's not unlike setting the back focus of an ENG lens where you have two variables to adjust and two conditions to satisfy.