eric ramahatra

Could you attach this monitor on a Flyer ?

this is certainly one of the most difficult thing to do : focusing while flying or focusing live. I'm using Zeiss lens usually at 2 or 2.8 and rarely past f4. it's challenging but really looks great. I've already filmed with a Redrock kit with my jvc hd200 shoulder mounted and always done the focusing myself with the rig below. After few wedding with the Canon 5D i really can't go back to HDV ! http://www.vimeo.com/8529079

I'm usually filming weddings and I'm using a Flyer with Canon 5D2. I'm very frustrated of closing down my lens to get the maximum depth of field so my picture does not look like the other shot handheld or on tripod at f2.8 . Because of the kind of shot, without any possible marking, it's almost impossible to get a remote follow focus working in a puller's hand different from the steadicam operator himself : it needs a very accurate sync impossible to get on live events. So I'm looking to attach the remote on the gimbal and I can Fly and Focus at the same time but the emitter is too big to stay there in a correct manner and it's pretty uncomfortable. May be with some wired follow focus ? Any advice ? Regards Eric

in my case i shoot without any marking steps because i shoot weddings 80% of my time. So i need to anticipate more than with marks where you already know where will be the actor at any time.

i was working few months ago on a remote follow focus device. Here's something i might come up with in few months : edit: pricing would be under $7000 for a complete device : emitter, motor driver and motor

hi all i was asking myself why there was no video receiver on a wireless follow focus device... Something like this may be great to help getting sharp focus. is this useless ?

i would like but in 'normal' mode i think it could happen to when it is time to adjust the drop time and you have to let the camera 'fall' from 90 deg horizontal. It is the worst case because the clamp would fully support the camera weight. in this case do you also have to support the camera weight "by hand" ?

i didn't got this problem before yesterday: it was the first time i flew in Low Mode and the camera setup was a bit heavy. When the camera is at the bottom side, the dovetail is reversed and seems not to "grip" on its rails ! No matter how un tightened the knob, it was slipping. But this problem occured only when the rig is reversed because of the low mode setup ! So it was nearly impossible to balance. Would like to solve this problem too, i was very frightened the first time it appeared !

hi Marty, i followed exactly what you said and it's working great ! i had to do it few times because i turned the small screws too much "inner" and i had a lot of play. So adjusting those small screws the right place made everything ok. My side to side knob is smooth now. Thanks everyone. God, i had sometimes to use some tissue to turn it to avoid hurting my fingers !

hi I have my side to side adjustment knob very hard to turn. It's not like the forward/backward one wich is very easy once unlocked. It's soo hard so i now have some hurt on my two fingers. May be there is a way to get his knob more "fluid" ?

i've just started "steadicaming" few days ago and never before. I held the rig a whole day and never felt any hurt in my back but in my feet and my legs. Hope this won't change as i'm just 110lbs for 5'8 !!!! I hope this is not a bad posture, or not too bad ?

thank you Robin, Sorry for my late answer, it helped. Now it is perfectly aligned.

I went one week ago to L.A to buy a Flyer (special thanks to Fabrice Morel, i came from Paris so i had to ask a lot of questions before, but he was very helpful, took me at the airport, we had a good trip in L.A ... He also took lot of time to show me how to setup the Flyer from scratch, adjusting balance... it was really a half-day workshop :P . Thank you so much Fabrice, i will come back. ) to shot a wedding last saturday. I've never used any steadicam except the Merlin before so it's sure there are lots of wrong things... Better Quality. My main problem is that i can't have full view of the monitor : the arm is hiding it half the way ! What's wrong ? I also tried to used to flyer fully weighted with a redrock M2, a 35 and 85 f 1.4 nikon lens (heavy), the bartech receiver, and a drhd100 drive attached a the bottom part. I had the bartech remote focus device attached on my chest and pulled the focus myself. I found it not difficult as i thought ! the worst thing was the weight, i couldn't hold it more than 10 minutes so i decided to remove all parts and just fly the camera without every 35mm accessories. I've done it for the whole day and didn't feel any back problem. I also noticed that slow moves (steps) are more difficult than fast ones: it implies more vertical "bobbing". But this problem seems to be already discussed on another thread. Comments are welcome

anyone ?

Hi, just got my Flyer and i have my Sled (so also the camera) slightly twisted (tilted) horizontaly from the monitor Arm so they are not aligned. Do everthing have to be aligned ? Shall i just twist it the other side with two hands to achieve perfect alignement or do i have to unscrew something ?