Geoff Owen

I've decided that as I can't guarantee this old rig I think that I'll withdraw it from being for sale. I think I will make it a display in the warehouse, it really is a very cool looking rig with the old green screen and original battery. I may also put up an old Preston DM1 System for sale, but I don't think there will be much interest in it. Still works well, It's unfortunate that this old kit has about $5000 (value at the time it was new, 1995) of old remote start cables for mostly old film cameras. If anyone has suggestions to whether these old cables have any value, could they be repurposed? Please let me know. Many thanks to all who showed interest in the old Master series , and what these old cables and DM1 may be worth. Geoff Owen

SOLD.

Pending sale.

For Sale 1995 Master Series Film Sled, Master Series Vest and Master iso-elastic arm for sale. It still works. Has Marshall HD monitor, V-Lock adapter, a Sled to 12 vlt XLR power cable, HD Cable through Sled, Long and short dovetail plates, a few mounting screws , old teletest monitor mount that fits onto the spud on the electronics box. Marshal monitor has electronic level (currently being repaired, we may not be successful with the repair), hill docking bracket with 2 collars. Stage remote is with it but it never worked very well, will need a battery made to power it but no guarantee that it will work. Arm has reducers to help it carry lighter loads which can be removed. All is we used and shows it's age. Gimbal is smooth. Old green screen is somewhere in storage and can be included but it needed repairs, I can remember what the issue was , capacitors or transistors , but it wasn't worth repairing at the time. Open to offers. Located at Gold Coast , Queensland Australia. Looking to sell for $7000 usd . For possible Australian buyers $10,000 aud plus GST. Thanks Geoff

Full Tiffen Ultra 2 Volt Steadicam Kit for sale, $40,000 USD Ultra 2 with 3 stage post and Volt (sled/arm/vest purchased 2014, Volt added 2019) 7 inch Bon HD monitor ( this monitor has been on the rig since new and shows 77 hours of use) 2 x docking brackets (Hill style bracket with collars, Volt style Bracket) Spare monitor bracket G 70X Arm Ultra vest 4 spare ratchet buckles 2 spare lower harness straps 8 x 155 ah Dynacore V-lock Batteries and 4 bay Dynacore Charger ( not included for Overseas buyers, sale price will be adjusted $2 K usd lower) Batts new in Sept 2022 used on one 8 week job. Tiffen 3rd battery adaptor (V-Lock ) 2 x 10 inch dovetail plates 1 x 18 inch dovetail plate Allen key sets (imperial and metric) ¼ Inch T-bar allen for socket block 1 X J bracket 1 X F bracket ( locally made) 3/8 and ¼ inch camera mounting screws Cat Griller (similar to SOS plate) 12 inch mounting post, 6 inch mounting post 1 X Mitchell to Scaff receiver 1 x scaff hard mount ( uses the socket block from the vest) Wet weather : Arm cover, Sled base cover, battery cover (home made) , monitor cover (home made) , Volt cover (home made) Stiffening cord Cables : 1 x Sled to DXL, 1 X Sled to Panaflex, 2 x Sled to 24vlt Arri, 2 x Sled to Sony F65, 1 X Sled to 4 pin XLR, Spare Volt cables , Light weight BNC’s , RGB cables, 1 X D-tap to 4 pin XLR, . Equipment Cases Tiffen Sled box and Tiffen Vest/Arm box , Pelican box for batteries, Aluminium accessories box. 3 Boxes with equipment weigh approx 26 kg each, battery box approx 10kg. Docking Stand Can be included (10 kg approx ) . Price for the Ultra 2 kit is $38K usd with no batteries and charger as the batteries are bigger capacity and not good for air freight. The equipment is located on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia. For local Australian buyers the batteries can be included for $2k usd (total price $40k usd) . At the time of writting $40K usd = $62,867.42 aud plus GST for Australian buyers. Shipping can be arranged at the buyers expense. I also have an old 1995 Master series "Film" rig (sled w/ marshall monitor / vest /master arm ) that I will be hoping to sell as well for about $8,000.00 usd. I'll put a separate post up for it but you may be interested in both which I could do it with a discount for the old sled.

Sold.

Sale Pending.

price drop $5200 USD

Price drop $5300.00 USD

Zee Gee kit for sale. Lightly used but in mint condition. 2 sets of handles, motor bike style and round disc. Docking assembly. SOS plate 2 spare handle attachment screws. Adapter insert for use with either GPI pro sized arm posts or Tiffen sized arm posts. Box dimensions 650mm x 650mm x 350mm Packed weight 21 kgs. Freight can be organised through Fedex or TNT couriers at buyers expense. Price $5500.00 USD ONO PLUS FREIGHT plus taxes if applicable. if sold within Australia GST applicable Located in Australia. Many thanks Geoff Owen email: geoffowenis@gmail.com

Hi Osvaldo, thanks for your input to this thread. Great story. I'm curious to the cost for the surgery, naturally it will be quite different over here in Oz. I imagine that it was a few thousand dollars. With this Covid thing I might not be able to get to Miami for some time, plus the lack of work over the past few months, spare funds for a trip and surgery may be some time off as well. I'm now into a few months of using the multi-focal contacts and they seem to be working really well. As you and your wife would have discovered, not having to put glasses on to see is really worth the Cons that come with contact lenses. As mentioned in the earlier posts, the contacts I have can stay in for a month at a time, So far at the end of the month I wear my old glasses for a day or two to give my eyes a break. The cons are my eyesight is not as good with the contacts as with glasses, depending what I'm looking at. Some times a lens will fall out during sleep, bad dream I guess. I was lucky that I found it in the basin when I washed my face in the morning. At times if I look up it will feel as if the lens gets caught in my eyelid and seems as if it will fall out. I might see if the make them slightly bigger for the next batch I buy. As mentioned eyesight is mainly pretty good, particularly during the day when my pupils are fully closed, night time vision is not great with a dilated pupil as the lenses are set up in concentric circles, hence multi focal, so the brain has to work hard to work out clear sharp vision. Wearing sunglasses can have a similar effect. Night driving with them isn't great but ok. Still a laborious job putting them in, as I only have to do it once a month I don't get practiced at the task. I'm so relieved when I get them in I'm not tempted to take them out and try again, plus my eye is sore enough at that time. I contemplated just getting single vision contacts similar to you, however I would need to have lenses for both eyes as my distance vision isn't great anymore. I thought that with dependence on one eye or the other I would loose some of the inherent 3D effect that seeing with both eyes gives us may be an issue. But over all I'm glad I've gone down this road and perhaps in the future I'll explore the Lasek procedure that you had. Thanks again for your post, good to know there are other options. best Regards Geoff Owen

Hi Guys thanks for the replies. Addressing the comments. Stephen, glad your bi-focals work for you, as I mentioned above, I found these good for every day use around the house etc. I did have some issues with stairs, going down in particular, we tend to use our peripheral vision I guess to gauge the stairs and the junction of the two powers of the lens seems to be around the 45 degree down mark, that's about the angle stairs are set at. So if you simply look down as you approach the stair you look through the magnified section of the bi-focal and the image is totally blurred, very hard to be confident with that first step. once on the stairs then your muscle memory takes over for the most part. But for the judgement of that first stair you have to consciously look down with your head to see the stair clearly. Often our use of peripheral vision is seeing the stairs and our brain makes its judgement from the peripheral image but if your peripheral vision is seeing through the higher magnification (reading section) of the lens, which results in an blurred image to the brain, our brain can only have a poor judgement of where that stair is etc.. Hi Alex, as john has added below your post, these are called a progressive lens. John, thanks for your comment. I have tried these progressive lens glasses too, I chose the cheaper option which has a narrower field of vision. I can't remember exactly how it worked, a bit like an hour glass shape in the way the different powers of magnification are transitioned. The more expensive lens gives you a wider transition. So again for me I found that looking around with just my eyes without moving my head gave the world a bit of a wobbly sensation. So up to now I have found that single vision glasses have been a good option. I don't have any real problems of astigmatism or more complicated eye dysfunctions so although not perfect I can use off the shelf reading glasses, and have several powers to suit particular situations. My distance vision requires about 0.7 diopter and my reading is about 2.5 , so mostly I tend to use a 1.5 magnification reader for the Steadicam work. These give me pretty good vision/focus for my surroundings and pretty good focus for my monitor when in high mode, low mode not very good focus. Another point regarding the bi- focal and progressive lens glasses, for regular camera operating, these days we're all blessed with field monitors on the camera, a great tool for operating in those physically difficult setups. But with the bi-focal and progressive lens with the reading (close-up ) section at the bottom of the lens if the monitor (generally mounted on top of the camera) is above your head you have to tilt your head back a lot to view it through the reading area of the lens. Naturally this can be quite uncomfortable even after a short time. Anyway, I've recently have been to the optometrist for a checkup and have explored again contact lens. Since last trying these some dozen years ago, mentioned in my first post, technology has advanced and you can now get them as a "Progressive" lens and you can now leave them in your eyes for a month at a time, you don't have to take them out each day. So I have now got what they call a "tester" pair. These have been set up as, both eyes have a distance prescription and one eye has a close up reading prescription and the other eye has a mid distance prescription. The Right eye is close up reading/ Low mode operating, so 2- 3 feet focus plus distance and the Left eye is mid distance, 3-5 feet focus plus distance. These are not perfect as yet and may need a bit of refining, additionally they say it can take a few days to a couple of weeks for your brain to retrain itself to process the image and to workout which section of the retina is in focus. That being said I'm blown away with the result. The liberation of not having to wear glasses is so good, as said not quite perfect just yet. Not having the frame of the glasses in your peripheral vision is great, not having to look through a specific section of the glasses is just fantastic. Life just seems to be in focus, the distance vision isn't quite right with these at this point but the close up world is really good could be a little better for reading a book with small print. I guess that I could get some additional glasses to wear if I really needed for reading small print. Even if this is as good as it gets I will stick with them as it's pros far out weigh the cons for me at this time. One big pros that I was thankful for this weekend, digging a hole under a house, very hot and humid day, a lot of sweating, normally I'd have drops of sweat on my glasses and having to put up with it or cleaning them every couple of minutes, wow just fantastic, no cleaning required. Digging under a house and sweating as much as I was, I would have had to take the glasses off and dig blurred, it was like being in a rain storm. I can see this as a huge bonus when operating Steadicam on those hot days, nothing worse then drops of sweat on your glasses in the middle of a shot. My eyes in general aren't so bad that I'd wear glasses all the time particularly during the day, night-time is quite different. I've only done a half a dozen Steadicam shoots in full rain or rain effects, admittedly your cap can keep your glasses generally clear but not always. These contact lenses will be a huge benefit in those circumstances. I haven't used the rig since getting these lenses but the confidence I now have in seeing the world more naturally like when I was a young man gives me great hope. To be honest I had been thinking that I would soon have to give up operating as I simply didn't have the confidence in my balance due to not seeing the world in proper focus. For me these are a game changer. Cons, the $400 prescription sunglasses I have are now useless unless I take out the contacts and I'll have to get used to putting the contacts in and out at some point. Not sure of the cost at this time, I don't think they are super expensive, I believe the ones that can stay in for a month are a bit more than the daily ones and it may work out a bit more then regular glasses. I hope that my health fund will cover most of the expense but I think they will be well worth the expense. Another Pros, they're hard to break, not easily lost ( I presume ), I'm not sure about swimming, maybe you have to keep your eyes closed a little bit so they don't wash out, but I don't swim a lot these days. I can always wear goggles. Plus I don't have to have several pairs of glasses around my neck. I've only had these for a few days now so I guess time will tell. I did ask the dumb question at the time of getting them, "how do you know if they're the right way up ?" . The answer is that there isn't a right way up, the prescription is set up in concentric circles, like a bulls eye apparently, the distance in my case is in the center and the more powerful magnification for closer distances is on the outside. I believe that they can create these lenses with more than 2 bands so potentially you can have a few levels of magnification in each lens, so that may be the next tester. Again it will take some time for my brain to reorder itself to process the information. I'm not sure if this technique can be created in laser surgery but I would doubt it. As for people who have cataracts and get their natural lens replaced with a artificial lens I'm not sure if they can do the multi focal version for them, I don't see why not. My mother had her lenses replace a dozen years ago and she has one lens for reading and the other eye for distance single vision for each eye. She does very well for a 91 year old, reads the paper without glasses and drives the car. Yes we would all prefer she didn't, but like Charlton Heston, we couldn't pry those keys out of her dead cold hand. So perhaps they have the multi-focal option for that surgery now. An interesting fact that the optometrist told me about why we need to get glasses after the age of 40. Apparently the lens in our eyes is one of the few things in our body that continue to grow as we age. In turn as the lens grows it become much more difficult for the mussels that control the lens to adjust its shape to focus the image in our eyes. Anyway, I'll post another report in a few weeks time or reply to any questions. Many thanks for your interest. Seeing the world more clearly. Geoff Owen

Hi folks, particularly the ones over 50. I'm now in my mid 50s and like many of this age have been suffering the eye condition called Presbyopia ( needing reading glasses, lose of close up vision) my distance vision isn't that great anymore either these days. Oh to be young again. Younger ops may get some benefit from this too, even though now your eyesight is 20/20, in the years ahead many of us combat this problem. So I'm posting this to find out what other older ops have employed to combat this situation outside of giving up the rig altogether. I have tried multi focal glasses but found that as our eyes are constantly darting left and right, up and down whilst navigating the terrain as well as watching the monitor the different powers of the lens can make one feel a bit disorientated. I haven't tried bi-focal glasses for Steadicam work, I guess I'd need the similar magnification as the mid distance single vision lenses I use. but still the situation of eyes darting around and seeing through different powered parts of the lens can be off putting. I have a pair of these reading /distance and find them sometimes dangerous particularly going down stairs (not operating). Mostly up to this point I've been using single vision reading glasses, generally less magnification than what I need for reading, this gives me a pretty good focus on both the monitor and my immediate surrounds. They give you a similar visual result when looking through all area of the lenses. This is fine for "high mode" operating but not very good for "low mode' operating as the monitor is much closer to ones eyes. For low mode I need to go to stronger magnification but naturally this means that my surrounds are pretty fuzzy. I haven't tried mounting a 2nd monitor below the stage as it would need to be fairly large to be completely useful. I've read that the degeneration of our eyes slows after 60, so perhaps i'm getting to the point where it won't get much worse then I'm at already and I get along pretty well. Some time ago I experimented with different power contact lenses, they seemed they would have been a great solution, I never got to try them with steadicam operating but the worked well driving and seeing the speedo on the way home from the optometrist . The failing came down to putting them in and out of my eyes, naturally needing reading glasses for close focus I couldn't see the contact lens on my finger, often just poking myself in the eye with a bare finger to find the lens on the bathroom vanity. This was a time when you had to remove them each day and re-insert them the next day. I believe that you can get them now and leave them in for weeks at a time. I have an appointment with the eye doctor in a couple of weeks so I might ask about them again. Perhaps I should have persevered and got the hang of it. Apparently this technique only works with contacts, I don't believe that you can do the same thing with regular glasses. But I believe this may be possible with lazer surgery. Has anyone done this? I've seen on Face Book ads for glasses that you can dial in or adjust the magnification strength , has anyone tried these? Anyone come across eye drops to help this condition. I ate lots of carrots when I was a kid, is there any real proof that carrots work? Anyway, you get the gist of what I'm trying to find out. I look forward to read some of your comments. Geoff Owen

Have just spoken to Tiffen about this problem. They tell me that they've only heard about this happening a couple of times before. Apparently these rings are only glued in place if the fit isn't sufficiently tight when assembled. An easy fix with some adhesive. If you have this same problem it may not present itself until you go into low-mode. Maybe the temperature did cause some expansion of the encoder ring for it to become loose so cold weather operators may not encounter this issue. So for all you Volt owners perhaps a quick check of your encoder ring may save you an embarrassing moment on set. Regards Geoff Owen

Hi Lawrence, Thanks for your comment. Yes you're correct, it's supplied as one complete component from the factory that you fix in place with the double sided tape, but it seems that this assembly is made up of 2 components, one is the main body of the assembly and the other is the ring that has whatever technology in-bedded that the encoder/sensor reads. In my case the main body is still in place, the double sided tape has not let go, just the ring of smart material has slipped off the main body. I would expect that they aren't intended to come apart but in my case they have. Perhaps a call to Tiffen is the best bet here. Regards Geoff Owen