Jess Haas SOC

What are your needs? Are you looking for free hosting or paid? How often do you need to update it? If the answer is paid and that you don't need to update it very often I can host it for you rather cheaply. ~Jess

As far as harnesses for vehicle work I am a fan of simple positioning belts. Something like this: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/TITAN-Body-Belt-3RZX9?Pid=search They are more comfortable than a climbing harness and actually OSHA approved (simple climbing harnesses are not. For fall protection they require full body). Its no good for fall protection but great for keeping me from being thrown off a vehicle. Also the side loops are actually rated for anchoring too while the ones on most climbing harnesses are not. ~Jess

I would say that the dangers of using a daisychain for our uses are even worse than for climbing. If clipped properly the daisychain is strong enough from end to end. The problem is that when you use the daisychain in a shortened configuration the loops could break leaving you with a leash that is long enough to drag you. If clipped improperly it won't hold you at all. Either case your screwed. I use something like this instead: http://gearx.com/metolius-ultimate-daisy-chain.html?googlebase&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=GoogleShopping&gclid=CIGpqNC-1rACFWQKRQodsBj91g It is a bunch of individual loops allowing you to adjust the length with full strength. I got mine at REI. I have two of them so I can anchor both sides of the harness which is often necessary to keep positioned well enough to avoid dragging. As far as the strength of a daisychain being enough I wouldn't count on it. The inside loops are NOT rated for a fall. Under normal braking they should hold but shit happens. I have been on a process trailer when it was hit by a nice big truck. Luckily it wasn't that bad and no one was hurt but shit happens. I also don't want to be worrying about my harness giving way as I take a fast corner when hardmounted to a vehicle, ive got enough other shit to worry about. ~Jess

Be very careful to make sure that your leash is short enough that if you were to fall or be thrown you couldnt be dragged. i am also not a fan of the climbing daisychains many people use as the inner loops are not rated for fall protection meaning in an accident they could break leaving enough slack to drag you.

The problem is that when it loses signal(which will happen) it takes a very long time to reconnect. From what I saw it seems that their stated reconnect times are actually best case when you are within arms reach. At a distance it was taking way too long to reconnect. I can't say how often you will get disconnections in real world use but as is its a bit of a dealbreaker for me. I would not expect any major changes(such as a quicker connect time or hd-sdi) to this product that aren't updates to the amimon reference design. ~Jess

Good to know. And this is why no one responded sooner. Different markets have different standards and the rates are set accordingly.

I didn't notice a channel selection for the Iris on the remote. Can multiple of them operate in the same space at the same time? (a 2 camera show for instance) Also whats the status on zoom control? The idea of a full FIZ option at such an attractive price point is awesome. ~Jess

In the markets I work in it seems to be rather standard to give a 3 day rental week. Technically that should be 5 consecutive days billed as 3. So a 6 day shoot week should be billed as 4. 7 as 5. -Jess

That's strange, ive never found the controls slow to respond and think the framelines are easy to adjust. It is a couple of menu items down but its easily done in 15 seconds or so. Definitely get the 6.5" over the 7". It is one of the best monitors out their as far as sunlight goes while the 7" is horrible outside. Transflective isn't a coating on the screen, it means that behind the screen in addition to having a backlight it reflects sunlight back out through the screen. That is why the viewability is so much better than other monitors which have much higher NIT ratings (and draw more power). Main drawback of the 6.5 is lack of image flip(I flip my monitor arm when I need this). ~Jess

Cinematic immunity has always worked for me (although it works a lot better when the cops are on the shoots payroll) ;-)

Upgrade is $965 not including labor: http://www.steadicamforum.com/index.php?showtopic=16140&pid=76930&st=0entry76930 Also looks like the ability to plug a digital microforce in to the bartech to make it a full FIZ is coming. Pro is doing a whole line of lower priced components to make the lower priced sled. They are bringing back the DB2 as a lower priced donkey box, as well as a fixed post, a 2 battery battery holder and the lightweight arm.

What makes this different from the other WHDI sticks on the market?

Just saw a Bartech FIZ setup today. PLC has the Bartech addon Iris slider on their website already: http://www.plcelectronicsolutions.com/products/BarTech-2-Channel-Iris-Slider-Handset-Upgrade-kit.html I also saw it setup with a Preston digital microforce plugged in to the bartech but I don't see it on the site so I don't know the status of that. Anyone had a chance to play with it? The price definitely seems right. ~Jess

I find both the handle idea and the tucking the fingers in totally useless. They can try to push and pull you all day and you will barely notice. Instead tell your spotter to poke you in the side to tell you which way you need to go. I would like to try this vest but im not really sure what problem its solving. I can breath just fine withe my rig on and with my pro vest there is no need to tighten the straps until I am picking up the rig. At the end of the day my legs are whats sore not my back and I don't see a solution for that here. As far as isolating hip movement goes that's what the arms for. Not saying its not a good vest and it may be an improvement over current designs (especially the ultra vest), just doesn't seem revolutionary or anything. $5475 -Jess

I know how to make one and its next on my list but imy wifes on a job so im doing the fulltime dad thing at the moment. if no one else meets your needs I should have that as well as a bunch of other fun cables in about a month or so. -Jess

I was thinking hydraulics and a motion sensor so whenever someone sets a drink on my cart it launches it at them.

How do you ger your speedrail contraption out of the way? I also have speedrail handles. Mine are setup to swing out of the way.

Actually I believe he said he wasn't happy with it and went off to design yet another completely different cart made entirely of cases. Of course that isn't necessarily a negative as he is simply the type of person who can't stop fiddling :-) I am one myself. My cart is a custom creation. Same basic design (sled inside of the cart) but made mostly of what I had lying around in my garage. Of course many of those parts were simply blocks of aluminum before I machined them into proper form. If anyone is making a custom cart and wants a good docking riser the top riser of a steadicam stand happens to be just a bit too small to fit over a piece of 1 1/4" speedrail. A little work on a lathe and it becomes a nice beefy docking riser that fits in a speedrail fitting. Might work well with a Yaeger cart. ~Jess

The backstage cart is steel. Because of this the shelves are thinner than on a yaeger but probably weigh more. Would actually love to see the weight comparison for shipping. ~Jess

I know of atleast one insurance company has an online system that producers can use to generate the certificates themselves. Of course I am sure their validity is dependent on the producer entering all of the necessary information correctly.

I generally send an itemized list but I have had insurance agents issue the cert without an itemized list just "Steadicam Package" and a dollar amount. Do you have any experience with this leading to things not being covered even though the insurance agent said it would be?

I made up some Bartech Run/Stop cables for Canon DSLRs. They use a flat IR transmitter that you tape in front of the cameras IR sensor. Ive used it on a few shoots now and it has worked flawlessly. They will work with both the original Bartech and the newer BDR. Price is $175 plus $5 for shipping anywhere in the US. Let me know if you want one. ~Jess Haas

The different BNCs on the camera have different menu settings. Also the settings having to do with outputting the downconverted composite signal and greyed out until you switch the output to SD-SDI..

In order to get a composite signal out of the video out port you have to set the side port to SD-SDI. The two ports are tied together and it will only convert to composite when the side SDI port is set to SD-SDI. So it can downconvert. The problems I had with playback and slow mo output were on a different shoot than with the external recorder. The camera did have the dual link firmware upgrade(not sure if it makes a difference). When the side port was set to SD-SDI and I was using the composite video out I could not get HD-SDI out of the top HD-SDI port for playback or when shooting slowmo. The rest of the time it would give an HD-SDI signal it would just go black during those occasions. I would have to switch the cable to the side SDI port and switch the menu setting to HD-SDI in order to get HD-SDI output in those situations. This would disable the composite output so I couldn't leave it that way and keep the modulus. ~Jess

The problem I ran into recently is that one of the outputs doesn't work for playback and slowmo. I believe it is the top one so if you have the side ones set to SD you cant do HD playback and you cant monitor in HD when shooting slowmo. The conclusion I came to was that this camera needs a downconverter if you want to be happy. This is unfortunate because I like to keep my Modulus on camera for off steadicam work but putting the downconverter as well really adds a lot of mess.