Hello everyone! This is my first post here. I apologize that it will be horrendously lengthy, but I have a few questions about my particular situation learning Steadicam of which I wanted to give some context first.
I am from a small-medium sized town in Texas and there are no Steadicam operators or even any film professionals located anywhere near me to my knowledge. I caught a production bug years back so i've been learning film and photography in addition to the professional audio skills I have been making my living with since I graduated from my last college. I'm pretty much learning anything film related on my own so anything niche like this is a large task to face with only online resources. Steadicam operating is something that I have just tried to pick up recently as I caught my first opportunity to be the DP on a student film and I am fascinated with Steadicams. After pulling out an old $160 Flycam 3000 I bought a year ago and purchasing the vest and arm for it, I realized that I was going to have to hunker down because this was not an easy skill to master.
I bought the Steadicam Operator's Handbook, scrapped everything I thought I knew, and started over. I worked diligently after finishing the book to do the first walk the line exercise with the proper technique, but after frustrating results, I searched this forum. I knew I wasn't going to be good right off, but the balance issues I was having were absurd and inconsistent. I am about to graduate with a physics degree so the concept of balancing the unit statically and even dynamic balance, which is normally confusing for other beginners, makes complete sense to me. The Flycam however was behaving in a completely nonsensical manner to me and so I diligently searched the forum and tested some things I heard mentioned. An advanced user had mentioned a gimbal could be out of alignment and to test it by panning the camera after balancing to see if it then loses balance again. After balancing my Flycam and watching it fall completely out of balance after I panned it around 180 degrees, I had an answer to the unpredictable behavior I was experiencing and finally learned that my gimbal was out of alignment (which shouldn't surprise me from probably the second cheapest unit on the internet).
This is the point in which I don't know where to proceed. I am very serious about learning this. I may have to save up for months and take a flight out to take a silver workshop, but I want to learn. Where my confusion lies is if currently I should continue to practice with a cheap unit that I can't keep in balance, or stop using it to prevent learning bad habits. I have no reference anymore to tell when I've improved by my footage because I don't have predictable behavior from the Flycam. I also don't have any local operators to ask for advice or let me try out their Steadicam to decide what I should purchase. I want to know if any advanced user have insight on the best way for me to proceed my Steadicam education despite my current circumstance.
For the record, I plan on flying a Canon C200B with the Smallrig camera cage for it, so the way I would rig it up, the camera should weigh about 9-10 pounds with the heaviest lenses I'm going to have on it. I know I want to get my hands on a Steadicam before I make a purchase of that magnitude, but I hoped that would help clarify my end goal.
Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to read all of this!
