Elliot Gabor

Janice, thanks again for trying to help. I would just suggest being more careful of language you use when communicating online is all. We can forget about everything else and move on. Thank you everyone for the responses. I agree with what the general consensus is that if you feel chest pains you should seek medical advice first and foremost. Even though I mostly fly a lightweight rig, I've been flying for over 5 years and thousands of hours so I know how my steadicam is supposed to feel. The reason i fly a pilot is because I mostly shoot events and require a rig that I can wear for 5+ hours without a break so even 26lbs really begins to take it's toll after a while. As Mark mentioned the pilot vest is not comfortable as bigger rigs I've flown. It might not be a design issue with the steadicam or improper form or wearing of the vest but rather an inherent reality of wearing a restrictive vest for such long periods of time in the summer heat.

Janice, I appreciate that your taking the time to respond and in a way being motherly, I really do. That being said, you aren't really listening to what I'm saying and it's portraying me as someone that would seek medical advice from a steadicam forum, and calling me "crazy", I could have done without that response. People often discuss back issue on this forum. Granted less serious, it's still discussed with the understanding that back issues could have been the cause of various other pre-existing conditions or a mixture of steadicam and having a weak back. In both my posts I've said that I'm not relying on anything said in this forum to diagnose what I've experienced. If I got responses that indicated it's a common injury among steadicam operators then I would have talked about the possibility of that with my doctor. More than anything, I'm posting in order to see if perhaps I'm wearing my vest wrong, after all I wouldn't want to injure myself again. You also assume in your post that I had this problem for days and haven't taken care of it. I actually don't have the pains anymore but it happened for a couple of days after my shoot. that being said, I still intend on seeing a doctor in the very near future but that's neither here no there. just as a side note. I fly my rig slightly above the 10lbs specs on the stage and I have a 2.4lbs vmount on the bottom along with some additional weights. I have found that the pilot gives me the best results this way. In total with the vest, arm and everything (and I just weighed it) it's right around 26lbs.

Thanks Janice, Don't get me wrong, I'll definitely be going to see a doctor but just wanted to understand if this is a common injury among operators and if I was perhaps doing something wrong. I'll report back if it's steadicam related.

I fly a "relatively" lightweight rig (steadicam pilot with a stripped down FS7 and v-mount on the bottom. In total I would say it's about 30lbs of weight that I'm carrying when you factor in the arm, vest and sled. That being said, I'm only 160lbs so 30lbs is plenty for me. After a very grueling shoot I started noticing chest pains/pangs for the next couple of days. It comes and goes every 10 minutes on average...a dull shooting pain in the middle of my chest from within. This of course could be unrelated to steadicam and I'm not relying on a steadicam forum for medical advice but I just wanted to know if anyone else has heard of something like this being caused from excess vest pressure. The pilot vest is not padded in the middle chest area and can sometimes bruise the chest bone after extended use but maybe I'm wearing it too tight and is causing pressure on my lungs or heart. I probably sound like a total hypochondriac but want to see if I can rule this out or not. Thanks!

An excerpt from a wedding highlights...one of my favorite spontaneous Steadicam shots: Bride's Entrance Steadicam Pilot BMPCC Metabones EF to BMPCC speedbooster Tokina 11-16 II Shot in Prores HQ

I've always been unsure about the weight limits of different rigs. The Pilot for instance says it can handle "cameras" from 2-10lbs. Does that mean that the total weight you can put on the stage is 10lbs? How much can you put on the sled in total including monitor, batteries etc.? I've definitly put more than 10lbs on my rig in the past. The arm can handle up to about 13-15lbs before it starts sagging. What is the total wight I can put on the sled and can I damage my gimbal by going over the weight limit by a couple of pounds?

It would only be helpful to me if I knew which vendor you were referring too. Seems like it's obvious to some of you but I'd like to avoid or be cautious when upgrading my rig. You can PM me if you don't want to post it here.

For some reason it's not letting me update my last post. I wanted to say that its more accurately a 1/4"-20 thread size

The thread size is a 1/4" inch. Sounds like your current tripod plate's screw might be too long/deep. This has happened to me with some other gear (trying to thread an audio recorder to a tripod plate), however, it shouldn't happen with a DSLR, it must be your plate. I recommend the long manfrotto plates since it will give you more room to find the center balance of your camera and will help get you rig balanced quicker. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JLK5Q4/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

All that guy knows how to do is slide tackle things...hes a barbarian that was just trying to humeliate the operator for his own ego. That being said, people aren't educated enough about steadicam. to the average person, it looks like steadicams are lightweight toys because good operators make it looks so easy. If he knew how dangerous it could be or how easily an injury could ruin that guys career he might have thought twice about it.

Don't mean to sound harsh but everybody here is going to give you the same response and if you had read any posts in this forum before posting yourself you would have realized this. You and your employer are misguided to think its a good idea for you to have purchased a steadicam for a shoot when you have zero experience operating. You wouldn't buy a 6K voilin and give it to guitarist to play would you? In case you are feeling defensive now remember, this has nothing to do with your ego as a camera operator, Steadicam is an instrument plain and simple. While you can follow insturctions to get it initially balanced, It takes hundreds of hours of practice to achieve acceptable results and to even have a feel for what a proper balance is. You could also easily wind up in a situation where something goes wrong and you won't know how to fix it on the fly. My advice would be to hire a steadicam operator, watch him/her, ask questions, and practice on your own and on projects that aren't important enough to go out and purchase a steadicam for. Also take a steadicam course and buy the books that are recommended in almost every thread in the steadicam newbies section. More specifically answering your questions: Assuming your vest is setup properly no your back shouldn't be hurting after 5 minutes, especially with a lightweight rig like the scout with a C300. Your technique is most likely flawed which is causing uneven distribution of weight in the vest. Proper posture is something you would be practicing and will get more of a feel for how the steadicam is being distrubited over time. Operate with the rig close to your body (not stretched out) and practice standing and walking slowly without even holding the steadicam, trying to not let the rig get away from you. This will give you a better feel for how your posture effects the steadicam and soon enough your body and legs will naturally support the weight as apposed to you fighting the weight with your back. If I recall, there might be a setting in the C300 that has to be enabled for SD output. Try hooking it up to a different SD monitor that you know is working to see if it's the camera or the monitor itself. It's going to be hard enough for you to operate as a begginer let alone be tethered, however, normally you would use cable that is as leightweight as possible. Tie it down to the rig so its not shifting while you operating and feed it down and off the gimbal, holding it with your right hand. Don't tape it down to the gimbal since you will need a little slack in your hands for when the steadicam is turned or tilted. You should have a PA that can unrival and wind up slack as needed so that it doesn't effect your steadicam operation. Practice working like this beforehand.

Could be my own percpetion but I felt it their positivy was very on the surface.

Yeah, it looks like vibrations in the post which is common when extending too much...unfortunate but common. The wider the focal length you use the less apparent it will be.

Thank you. I actually reached out to Tiffen and they provided me with the below Archer 2 gimbal centering insturction manual. As previously mentioned you need #6 spanner for the pilot. www.eliecreative.com/transfer_2/Archer%202%20Gimbal%20balance.pdf I haven't had a chance to do the repair yet but it doesn't seem too complicated.

Brett, that's a good point. It would suck to have sent it in if it was just something loose.

It looks like my gimbal screws also become loose and I'm assuming (hoping) that my issue is also due to the gimbal not being centered. Is there a way I can center the gimbal myself by tightening the gimbal screws or should I send it in to have it professionally done?

I don't get it...unless my configuration is dramatically unevenly distributed below the gimbal, I can always static balance by just adjusting where the camera sits on the stage, why would I bother with the extra step of a mickey if all I cared about was static balance. All I know is that at one point my rig fails a spin test and then after I "mickey it", the rig spins evenly. To me that has always meant dynamically balanced. The title of the video is even "dynamic level". The video you shared (while informative) takes a hot/cold approach to getting the rig balanced which feels imprecise and definitely not a quick way of achieving dynamic balance. When Chris talks about the monitor height throwing off the dynamic balance, he doesn't actually demonstrate/prove it just illustrates it. Once I get my gimbal centered I'll move my monitor very high and keep my batteries low and do another test to see if it’s really changing things.

I know people will disagree, just stating what has been working for me. Back on the topic of static balance and my gimbal...I'm afraid I will have to send it in to be repaired. I wonder how this happened and would like to avoid it happening again in the future.

I hate to get into this discussion in a non dymamic balance thread....but dynamic balance is too intersting of a topic to resist =) I use the mickey approach even when I change monitor height. Notice how in the below video the operator levels it for front and back weight distribution and then levels it for side to side distribution. The monitor is not along the same plane as the batteries. As long as the mickey is being balanced from above the monitor it seems to work from my experiences.

I use a mickey type setup for dynamic balance without the camera, it does indeed work. As you mentioned, its not the topic of this thread, however, I was wondering if having an improper dynamic balance would effect the static balance once rotated. Based on your response it sounds like your answer would be no.

Something Similiar is happening to my pilot. I do a dynamic balance before anything is on the stage, I then do a static balance and then do a spin test. At first I thought maybe I wasn't dynamic balancing properly but then I realized that my static balance wouldn't remain in the same position once the rig was rotated 180 degrees. Could this be at all related to not having proper dynamic balance? or is it definitly something with the gimbal? Thanks!

Nice work! What rig are you flying?

John, which 5D are you shooting on? I know the 5D II disables the onscreen LCD when going out of the composite or HDMI. I was pretty sure this is also the case with the 5D III. If I invested in a small HD monitor that I kept on the stage then I could use the output of the Small HD and convert it composite. I've seent this done before, just wish I wouldn't have to complicate the setup.

I should also mention that once the steadicam solo is available, I plan to sell my pilot and switch to that for DSLR/event work (it's essentially what I've turned my pilot into accept cheaper) I can put the money I save into a an eventual purchase of a bigger rig that won't need out of the box modifications to fly great.

Alan, I appreciate that you aren't trying to get me to change what I am doing but rather you are discussing the specific drawbacks of a particular setup choice. On the flipside, Victor, I'm a little torn by the demeanor of some of the things you said in your last post. You seem to be judging me based on the look of my setup and failing to understand that I am a competant steadicam operator and over the years have customized a lightweight rig to be better suited for my needs and the type of work I do, I don't care what it looks like as long as it improves my work. For my purposes the pilot is not a perfect solution out of the box in it's "intended" configuration. I'm happy to continue discussing my decission making and do value everyone's input but I see the direction this is starting to go in and want to nip it in the bud before arms start flaling. With this in mind I'll reiterate a few things: Even though I have customized my rig when I'm shooting events, there are still drawbacks to it which have been mentioned (i.e. having to use the camera's LCD and having a longer post which can cause microvibrations if not carefull) I have decided a long time ago that i'd prefer those drawbacks in order to achieve more tilt inertia and to be able to focus easier on the fly. Ideally I would have a larger rig that I could just stack on weight instead of extending the post (I've maxed out the weight of the pilot already and without extending the post there still isn't enough tilt inertia) If my DSLR could output to an external monitor simeltaniously then that would also be appealing to me (I'm not in love with magic lantern for events). The rig fly's great and really feels like a big rig. Once I figure out a way to power a monitor that is clamped to the center of the post then I will be able to operatate properly and the only issue I will have is that the pilot is, at times, suseptible to microvirbations. Unfortunatly there is no solution to this that I am aware of (aside from not extending the post).