Frederic Sturm

Hi Mikko, and welcome here =) Strongly seconded, a good jumper cable is worth a lot! If you don't get a jumper in quickly enough though and need to improvise, use a small clamp above the gimbal to hold the cable right next to the gimbal, let it drop down with ample room and loop it back up to your vest. That way it will least influence your sled. It's what Larry did on Hugo with a ridiculous bunch of big cables. A half inch Triax really is a bit on the big side of cables though...

Thanks Juan, Chris fitted it to me in person =)

Hey Rob, yup, shortening the vest seems to be a general consensus, Chris agrees, and adds that the front pads should be spread further apart. For those interested, Chris seems to have nailed it in his first response, this seems to be the cause, as numbness starts in the pictured area: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/meralgia-paresthetica/multimedia/meralgia-paresthetica/img-20007749 Setting it on a table / docking / whatever doesn't really work as they constantly want a picture to start off a steadi session from or just to use it in position. So I just made what I will call a "SteadiPort - Dock & Fly" (or something :lol: ) - which is like an airport for your Steadicam to land on an fly off from even while you're live. It's a little bracket, here pictured for an arm with a 5/8" post, that fits on a C-Stand or the like, where you can rest the underside of your arm post on. Set the C-Stand a little higher than the floating point of your arm and rest the arm on it, it will hold it fixed and most of the weight is now held by the stand while you still operate the gimbal as usual and can now hold a perfect lockoff without doing much work. As soon as you need to move, you lift the rig a few mm and off you go. Steadiped still sucks, it just won't hurt anymore (if it works like I imagine it). First prototype is in my hands, will try it and report back. What do you think? To me this became so obvious that I still can't believe nobody makes these yet, so if somebody does, please excuse me - I really looked but couldn't find anything similar.

Hey Osvaldo, thanks for your input :) I, too love to give the rig to people who don't appreciate what it's like, works all the time. This however is a kind of TV show where producers, directors and video mixers (is that the right english term?), who are most responsible for telling the camera operators what to do, change all the time. Actually it's not an issue that they wouldn't care or appreciate it, they really do. But it's not even a problem for me to deliver what they want in this case - 3 hours are really not too much with 1 hour breaks between each hour. The Exovest is actually awesome enough that there's almost zero stress in my upper body after it - I'd have been pretty well beaten in my former front mount though. I just need my legs to stay with me... I'm talking to Chris about the blood flow, he's the great expert on anatomy as far as steadicam goes, I'm sure we'll figure it out. I'll let you know how it goes. But what I will do in any case is make that little stand adapter I have in my mind and see if that makes life easier. And I'll try a pedometer :)

Thanks for all your comments! Chris is in touch with me on the anatomical side already, cool! For the rest I'm happy my ideas are much like yours , i.e. a quick dock and some pauses, and thus not too wrong and I didnt miss or screw up anything important. Thanks

Hey James, thanks, I will take a pic next time. However, this is not my rig, I only use my own vest, the rest is a rig that belongs to the network and stays there, built up, all the time. It's basically just the body and a 2/3" Fujinon HD wide angle lens with focus motor, and a remote focus receiver plugged directly into the lens, so nothing too heavy there. It does however have 3 V-Mount batteries attached, and since it's a triax cam, those only power the monitor, so I might remove one or two next time. Don't think that will make life easier though, as it is a heavy old SD triax cam and the post will be quite long without the extra counter-weight. (On the plus side, it does have the coolest thin triax jumper cable I've ever seen)

A question for you experienced live Ops: I recently picked up some live TV studio work, sharing a set with a pedestal and 3 remote operated cams. Its about covering 1-2 built up sets for takes of 1 hour each. Most of it is offering anything from a full shot to a bust shot from next to the other cams, and then moving in and around or showing a special part of the set when I go live. However, I don't have too much experience yet with jobs that involve standing in one spot for a longer period of time. The problem is, after a while of standing in a spot and not moving much, I found that my legs start going numb a bit - without me noticing until I try to move actually. So I tried avoiding this by keeping up some movement all the time, and really concentrate on good posture - but at the very end of the third hour it caught me (feel free to laugh :wub: ). After a while of standing in one spot, the last planned steadicam take came up. After taking the first step my knees gaves out and I found myself falling on them without being able to stop it. I think my own cable may have been in front of me, too, but I could not lift my feet high enough to step over it. So a few hours later, after I quit being embarassed like hell (Still embarassed, this was live... :wub: ) I started thinking about the causes and a solution for the next times - and of course your input will help. By the way, this was using my Exovest, which apart from this issue was a life-saver. 3 hours in the rig in one morning and my upper body feels no real strain whatsoever. But since the hip pads are actually designed to keep blood flow going, maybe I need to adjust something on the Exo, too, I'll talk to Chris about this. One obvious thing, I think, is to just keep moving a bit all the time to stop any block of blood flow forming from the vest, but that's not easy when you're live and being used to follow the action from a fixed position every other 20 seconds and only have moving shots every few minutes. Since this also means that during the 1 hour I don't really get a chance to dock the rig and hold a frame for longer, something like a dock and roll which came to my mind is no real option either. So one thing I will do is build a kind of "quick dock" - an adapter to rest the underside of the Arm post on a small steadistand to take the weight for a bit, but where you can seamlessly lift off and start moving. Havent found something like this, let me know if it anyone knows one that is availabe somewhere. Have some of you guys experienced something similar and what did you do about it? Your great tips are much appreciated as always :)

Hey Alan, It's actually 3D-Printed, but on a really expensive high precision professional machine. Thanks for all the positive Feedback and comments! :)

GIad you like the idea, I had a pilot for a long time and never liked the tiny diameter. Actually I have planned a sort of friction knob to make adjustment even quicker and easier, after all it only need to hold the grip tight, not the weight of the sled as the gimbal has its own lock. But yes I had thought about the same size allen as kind of a last resort if my other idea doesn't work i.e. gets too much in the way of your hand. I'll keep you posted, but please have a little patience, my pilot needs to make it's way from the U.S. to me first ;) Have a great weekend Jamie and everybody!

Hi Jamie, The base on the pilot is very similar, and for the purpose of mounting this, the same, so yes it does fit the pilot! And you are absolutely right, all the advantages it has on the Zephyr will transfer right to the pilot, and even more, it weights next to nothing, so it's well suited for the Pilot. Also, I am happy to adjust it to your monitor of course, I will look at the swit and the oddysey and get back to you via message next week. The real difference will be yokes for the different widths, so for 200mm or 192 (while I think that 8mm could easily be bridged by some kind of washers actually, so that should be no problem at all). Both monitors you mention already have 1/4" mounting holes right where you'll need them for this, so thats awesome! The yoke is currently tested and some final refinements are made with the help of a few people that are using it so far (thanks so much guys!!), and will be fully ready as a final product soon! Actually, talking about the pilot, I will have a pilot in soon to work on a gimbal wrap grip like the one for the Zephyr, too. I think will be an even better upgrade for the pilot, as that has no grip whatsoever =) All the best -Frederic

My gimbal wrap grips for the Steadicam Zephyr have been battle-tested by several users around the world now. So far, all feedback is highly positive, so they are now available as the final product here. I really love my Zephyr, one of its shortcomings however -I think- is the small diameter of the gimbal grip. When I use bigger rigs it always fees like the larger grips allow better control and more precision. So I thought I'd give it a try and develop a wrap grip specially for the Zephyr. You can find more about their development process and some feedback of the first happy users here: http://www.steadicamforum.com/index.php?showtopic=19778&page=2 Features: new diameter of 2.2 inches gives much more control and a more precise feeling screws and nuts are well hidden inside the grip easy installation very rugged yet lightweight your name can be embossed in it The Wrap Grips are made from extremely stable ABS plastic. They are designed to a tight fit with virtually nogap between the 2 shells, so it feels like 1 smooth surface to your hand (0.1mm accuracy). Tought and testing went into every detail, down to making the knurl pattern the perfect size for your fingertip feeling. The new diameter of 2.2 inches was decided on by various tests with Operators and different diameters. It comes complete with a fitting wrench and installation manual, so all you need is in the package. One of these is yours for: USD 120 / EUR 90 plus shipping (plus VAT if you're in Germany). USD 15 / EUR 10 gets your name printed on it (preview pics soon). DHL traceable shipping to US: USD 25,- Europe: EUR 15,- Germany: EUR 5,- Payment can be done by Paypal or bank transfer. Please send me a message if you're interested :)

Hey Kevin, if you actually did consider breaking up the package sometime, I'd possibly be interested in the arm. So in that case, please let me know :) Thanks! -Frederic

Congrats Kevin (and thanks for stealing it away under my nose :lol: ). Have fun with it and let us know how you combine it with steadicam and how that works out! I wanted it to try some combinations, too - well there'll be another one for sale sometime ;)

Why not luis? Some of us might have an interest in trying one out at a fair price, or to experiment with combining it with a steadicam. Just to save Greg having to answer more inquiries from here: He told me it was sold soon after posting ;)

Hey John, Don't know the weight range you need, but maybe you could ask Tiffen about the price of one of their lower weight model's topstages such as the pilot / scout / zephyr ... as a spare part - I could imagine that might fit your needs. Or if you prefer something quick and dirty, yet rugged on a real tight budget, maybe a Manfrotto 357 Plate (or two, mounted at a 90* angle) might be something for you? No fine-tuning knobs, but adjustments are fast and depending on what you need exactly might be fine enough (or not =).

Stephen, that looks very cool!

Hey Robin, apart from possible centering issues with your gimbal (the PMW-500 sounds like putting quite a load on a flyer, so your gimbal might not be too happy about doing so regularly either), you said you used different drop times on the 2 rigs you are comparing. A 1.5 second drop time will make for a way more pronounced pendulum effect than a 3 second drop time. Like way more. So for a first start, after proper balance maybe try experimenting with drop time. Of course with more practice you'll learn to keep your horizon level with any drop time, but it sure sounds like the different drop times might have something to do with what you are experiencing. Happy practising =)

Hi Marc, happy to help =) For details and pics of the monitor yoke please see my new thread in the monitor section, (But yes, it's more than strong enough). Tom, that sounds interesting. In my case, the original way the cables plug in on opposing sides work out very well, but interesting to hear they've changed it. Totally agree with you on a higher resolution mode!

Thanks for all the kind feedback, have lots of fun and great shots with it! :) As promised, a few photos of the final version with 2.2" diameter. I've also included one showing it from below, showing that it doesn't interfere with the gimbal clamp or anything and is rounded off to look and feel good.

Strongly seconded, Chris will be standing by to help you with any questions - as he sais it's his baby and he is behind it 100%. Bob, if you have any specific questions, I've had my Exo since September and am happy to answer anything about my experience with it you'd like to know.

Some have already seen this posted more or less accidentaly in another thread - but now it's battle-tested and ready to be shown ;) This is a new Monitor Yoke for the Zephyr HD Marshall Monitor, but will of course fit all 7" Marshalls with the similar design. As you can see in the photos your Monitor will tilt on it's cg without affecting balance with this bracket. Also it gives you a much wider range of configuration options, further out, closer in, higher up, ... Switching to low-mode is a breeze - no unscrewing and remounting anything, you don't even need to flip the image on the monitor! It comes with all necessary screws and fits right onto the Zephyr rods, so it frees up the original monitor mount as an accessory mount. It is made from very stable, durable and lightweight ABS, and saves you about 75g of weight versus the original mount, most of that coming from the mounting plate on the rear of the monitor you can remove, which in turn also helps with better heat dissipation from the monitor. Rosettes make the positioning rock-solid, no vibrations or slippage. All you need in addition -if you dont have them- is two Marshall mount adapters to 1/4" screws, which you can order from marshall or directly with the bracket. You can order a complete Yoke for USD 150 / EUR 110 plus shipping (plus VAT if you're in Germany). USD 15 / EUR 10 gets your name embossed on it (will look like the "Sky Magic" logo that's on it in the pictures). USD 27 / EUR 20 for 2 Marshall 1/4" Adapters including screws (this is the same price I pay for it, just that I offer them in a pack of the 2 you need, rather than only 3-packs for EUR 30 that Marshall offers) DHL traceable shipping to US: USD 25,- Europe: EUR 15,- Germany: EUR 5,- Payment by Paypal or bank transfer. Oh, in case you wondered, the Zephyr in the pictures also has the 2.2" Gimbal Wrap Grip made from the same material installed - for some feedback of how people that have it like it, please look here: http://www.steadicamforum.com/index.php?showtopic=19778 :) Looking forward to your feedback!

Hey Craig, I can only recommend getting a pilot, even before taking a workshop if you want. Many of the workshop instructors like people to be steadicam-vorgins at the workahop so they don't need to unlearn bad habits, but for me it was Handbook, EFP video, more videos, lots of forum reading -> hundreds of hours with a pilot -> workshop -> getting a real rig -> many many hours more training on that before taking the first job -> constantly trying to improve. I certainly don't regret having gotten a basic feeling with the pilot before going for the workshop, so I got the most out of it, rather than spending the first three days just wrapping my head around the very basics. Just make sure you alway reference the handbook from the start so you don't learn too many wrong habits. Maybe you can get an operator close to you to give you a little intro? Thats what I did. You will feel a big difference later with a big rig, but only in the good way, meaning the pilot teaches you a very sensitive touch and the bigger the rig, the more stable it will get. Also, your back will appreciate hundreds of ours in a pilot much more than in a big rig. Happy Learning =)

I'll post a few pics of the final diameter soon, apart from being a little less thick, it looks just like in the pictures in my previous posts ;)

Brian, I trained proper posture a lot and I know for a fact that I do not have those issues when I use more heavy-duty arms like a G50x, G70x or Pro. The Zephyr arm (well, my zeohyr arm at least) tends to bend under load (talking only about loads in its official weight range of course), and somehow that changes the geometry of the arm requiring a readjustment of the socket block. I have the same issues when hardmounted to a bazooka, but there I just set the socket block to 0 and adjust the threeway-leveler. But to proove my point I just did a test: I leveled the hardmount to a point where with my usual socket block adjustments it floats the rig in one specific spot, and thus matches my stance. Since its fixed, it has the same equivalent of "stance" everytime. Then I changed the load on the rig and nothing else and the spot changed - dramatically.

Hey Michael, I recently got an R12 and love how it folds and expands from small transport to huge working configuration. Also it's loghtweight and still carries all the weight you ever need it to carry, not to mention it's dirt cheap. So overall, really handy! But as Robert said, I'd never trust the handles to carry a rig, even with a lightweight rig, the way they lock into place is much too fragile to trust it with $$$$$ worth of equipment, that's my feeling anyway. What you mitgh try is mounting a steadistand to the cart platform somehow and supporting it with the handle, then again, a magliner is much more suited and made for docking a rig. Doesn't have the huge range from big cart to tiny storage config though ;) I really love the expanding feature of the R'nR