Richard Browne

Thanks very much for the info, Alan and Jerry - very useful. Based on Alan's instructions, I've probably been making the mistake of putting the camera on too early in the proceedings then playing around with the bottom pole to attempt to counterbalance.

@Evrim always a fair question! I've read through it and watched a couple of the different on-line tutorials. One thing which they all seem to be light on, though I suppose there's no easy answer to this, is if the camera weighs x, weight the stage and bottom pole with y... is there a way of figuring this out or is it really just what feels good at the time? We wound up getting this piece of kit in to the company with the desire to use it but not the expertise of ever having used similar before. I'm trying to figure it out to up our production standards and also prevent this lovely piece of kit from gathering dust...

2.5-3 seconds, Alan. I've got 2 medium weights, 1 large and 1 small and I've weighted the base with 1 medium behind the v-lock and the rest to the front. Perhaps I'm extending the sled too quickly - feels to me that, if not extended, the gimbal's ridden up to nearly under the stage. I tried shooting the NX3D1 on it and I felt much happy with the balance achieved... still not great but closer to what I thought it should be. Is it worth having a look at a training course to learn how a properly balanced rig feels?

Hello folks, I have a Steadicam Pilot and a couple of different cameras to use with it - a Sony NX3D1 and a PMW EX1. The EX1 would be the preferable camera to use on it but so far I've had little luck getting it balanced (certainly in the way that all the pro users get it balanced!) While being a newb with this piece of kit, I've spent a good couple of days tweaking gimbal height, mounting on the cheese plate, setting balance points with the bottom post and the stage and different configurations of weights. I'm thinking that I'm missing something obvious to do with how to set it, or perhaps I'm just being too impatient with the process of setup. I have found that I can tweak and adjust the sled to the point of getting the cameras rested upright and balanced but as soon as I touch or move the camera, it fails to right itself back to that perfect point. I am also finding if very difficult to get the camera balanced in such a way as to avoid the pendulum effect of stopping when wearing the rig. I was wondering if any of you EX1 users out there could share configurations of gimbal height and weight-placement that you find give you a nice static/dynamic balance? Any advice and tips would be greatly appreciated! Kind regards, Richard