Andrew Stone

Hi Oscar, Really nice modification! Hope you are doing well. -Andrew

Jay, Did you get enough people for the workshop to go ahead? Hard to believe that you're having trouble getting new operators to take a course with Garrett & Jerry. To those sitting on the fence between whether or not to do a 2 day or a 5.5 day workshop, you should seriously think about the later, even if you are thinking about flying a smaller rig. The exposure you get to the thinking behind operating cannot be underestimated. The course will save you a TON of money, in the end, by jump starting your information and knowledge on the craft and art of operating Steadicam. Also, buying the wrong rig or accessories can cost you big, big bucks and slow down career jumps to a significant degree. This will do a lot to set you on the right path. Finally, food is awesome and someone there has a penchant for good Scotch. The registration page on the Steadicam Operators Association website can be found [ here ]. Jay, any other instructors going to be there that the students should know about? -Andrew

Tom's suggestion is a good one and hopefully you have the time to order a DM plate. Unfortunately the way the holes are placed on the DM plate are not optimum for attaching the dovetail plate but once you determine the center of balance of the camera with all the stuff on it, obviously, find the nearest place to the center of balance to attach the dovetail plate. It may be a big screw or a small one, as Brian says. EDIT: I see the original poster is talking about an EX1. All this talk about EX3s got me a bit confused. The EX1 has a flat bottom although plates are available.

Excellent tip Peter. Thanks for that and your enthusiasm.

Given your obvious passion for filmmaking, I would strongly suggest that you go to the SOA workshop in Pennsylvania. It's close to a week long, steeped in Steadicam history, great instructors & operators will be there both scheduled and drop in, big rigs. They spent a day having students use alternate Steadicam applications: steadivehicles from ATVs to trucks to Segways as well as crane walkoffs. There's more but given you are a Canadian, travel shouldn't bother you. I believe they offer 2 sessions a year. Worth the money. I would hazard a guess that Mr. Abraham will be there as well. Cheers.

I have a nanoFlash. It's great but I use it for redundant recording, capturing at a higher bitrate, doing SD capture on an HD camera, slomo while the camera's internal recorder is doing standard capture, etc. If it is for strictly reel capture, not sure if it is worth blowing $4,000 (when the smoke clears) but if you have other production uses for higher bitrate capture or alternative format capture from what the camera's internals are doing then it would be worth while. And of course wait till IBC is over. There may be some new product announcements in the external recorder market. My hunch is there will be more external recorders on the market in both the lower end of the market and the other tiers... now that the genie is out of the bottle on this. I will say though, a huge benefit of the nanoFlash to Steadicam Ops is the weight and size. It is less than a pound and the footprint is small. A little industrial velcro, a couple of cables and you are set.

It will be interesting to see what comes out at IBC in less than 2 weeks. Marshall apparently has a monitor or two of interest. There was a fellow, a few weeks ago who was shilling these here on the forum from a company named BON. The feature set is pretty remarkable for a monitor in the $1,500. range (USD). BON is going to be at IBC at booth 11.A60. It may be worth heading over to check out their daylight viewable (or so they say) BPM-071S monitor. The product page is here for the interested. The Marshall is pretty good bang for the buck at $1700 and change. The BON monitor has a centered battery mount (A/B or V-lock), scopes, image flip, audio meters taken from the SDI feed and transreflective. Pretty compelling but I am concerned about the housing and the daylight viewability. No user reports yet.

You want to get more weight on the top of the rig behind the camera. Try 10 pounds or thereabouts for starters. EDIT: 10 pounds total.

Hi Gary, With the weight of the gyros you would be getting into a +$20,000 setup once you outfit it with gyro mounts, wiring, batteries and the rig that can support both the gyros, batteries and the camera. TIFFEN offers 2 day crash courses that will help you get jump started into basic operating techniques and you could try on some of the rigs you will need to consider purchasing or financing. Last time I checked the courses were in the $500 to $600 range. There is also the Steadicam Operators Handbook by Focal Press, Holway/Hayball. In my view you should get the book now and hope a course is offered soon. Best money you will spend this year is taking that course.

If you are in the LA area right now, Terry West can probably have you set up with your y-cable or maybe even your bigger plans, assuming he is around right now. He jumps to the pump when called into service. I wouldn't be messing with soldering Lemos unless you have done it before.

Response from a Marshall Sales Manager... The flip situation is not just software but it needs to be in the DNA of the manufactured LCD panel. If it was as easy as just writing some code, it would have been done last year. We are continuing to bring out more features and improve the product. The best I can say is to keep an eye on out web site, we will be making some announcements for IBC that might be of interest to you. Thanks for the inquiry. Cheers, Bernie Keach Western Regional Sales Manager Broadcast Division Marshall Electronics, Inc.

Sent an email off to Marshall Electronics to see if there was any appetite on their end to create a sales juggernaut by making (what would be to them) an inexpensive firmware update to this monitor providing "image flip" capability. -Andrew

Looks pretty darn good for the money along with an almost centered battery plate on the back and decent inputs. Hopefully this B&H search URL comes up properly... http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=V-LCD651STX&N=0&InitialSearch=yes In the B&H listings you will see they offer almost every possible battery plate option including A/B and V-lock. An image from Marshall's website...

You don't. Embarking on a career as a Steadicam Operator will cost you WELL in excess of $100,000. Well in excess, yes. If you are not comfortable with dropping $3,000 to $10,000 on a regular basis, you aren't ready yet. Taking a $3,000 course can effectively save you $30,000+ dollars should you decide the career isn't for you, right at the start rather than selling your rig, accessories and larger vehicle (that you need to haul the gear) 2 years down the road. It is clear to me that you have not properly digested the material on this forum and that you need to take a course.

Ramon how do you think the Flanders monitors compare to the Panasonic's (or other monitors) of equal size in terms of color fidelity, scopes and such? -Andrew

If you haven't seen this thread, you should read it. It gives a good bit about successful field experience with the Transvideo unit. It costs more than the Camwave but it looks like the signal is consistently better for live work. I assume you have read the threads on the Camwave. There are quite a few and the unit is not without issues. -Andrew

Mike hit the nail on the head. In most instances you probably want the ballast of a battery on the back of an EX3 but if you throw a lot of stuff on the camera, you will want to put the weight at the bottom of the sled requiring to power the camera from the sled. If you use an EX3 on a Flyer say with a wide-angle zoom through (which is probably more common than a Letus these days) and a few other on camera accessories, like the ones mentioned, you will probably want your battery ballast on the bottom of the sled. I run my Flyer about 70% of the time powering from the sled in order to get good weight distribution, drop time and to get the gimbal the right height just below the top stage. It's also good to have different sized batteries. I have Dionic 90s, Hytron 50s and Trimpacs to tweak the weight distribution.

The power connector to the EX3 is a EIAJ-4 connector. What I did was go from the lemo to a 4 connector power tap multi and then powertap connectors to the various devices including an EX3. When it comes to the lemo connectors I leave it to the cable specialists like Terry West to do them. The lemo connectors are super fincky and expensive but I can see why some don't want to pay to have it done as it is expensive compared to stock cables or DIY.

Most of what I would say has been covered off. I would suggest taking a course first. Buying a Flyer or a used Flyer is a good idea in my books even if you don't use it for hire but on self-produced freelance work where you can control what goes on the rig. You would also want to become familiar with the cost of things, what stuff is considered good, what is industry standard and what is sub-standard. This all takes time and longer than one would think at the outset. There is also a spate of used gear on the market. A lot of it is good but again it will take time to get to know the gear and the relative importance of the accessories that may come with a used kit. In time, you may also have the opportunity to try out different rigs to see what suits your operating style and physique. There are some operators that frequently post here that hire themselves out with a Flyer pushing its limits. Frankly I think you would be backing yourself into a corner or a regular basis flying those cameras as you would be putting on motors, video assist stuff, rods, a mattebox, maybe a bigger lens... exceeding the stated limits of that rig. You will get divided opinions on this. If you search the archives there are a few detailed and recent threads around this matter. The Steadicam Operators Handbook is available from Amazon. The longer courses use the bigger rigs and there are 2 day courses offered by TIFFEN that utilize Pilots and Flyers. As Mr. Puli has stated it is a lot harder than it looks to do it well. -Andrew

Good to know. Thanks for the info Mark. -Andrew

Colin, I would contact TIFFEN directly. You are in California so there is the plant in Glendale. Maybe a "tech" can give you an answer based on knowing the weight limits of the bearings and the top stage. Some of us would be very interested in knowing that information from a technical source... You should also, in my view, hook up again with your contact as TIFFEN has given you the rig, I would think ostensibly knowing you are going to be flying something in the +20 pound range. If the gimbal caves in TIFFEN should be made aware that you are flying a rig that well exceeds its stated limit. You are also going to have to load up the bottom the Flyer to get the right gimbal height unless you can extend the post so it will work. In that case the rig will be heavier than 23 lbs. -Andrew

Found a place that has the required "bench gear" to recell Dionics. You can find it here.

I can't definitively answer that. Seen a lot of conflicting info on that question. However, things do point towards "no". EDIT: The fellow who does recelling, the one who posted up recently, his name is John Ritter.

Hi Tom, There is a fellow who posts up in the "Steadicam-Marketplace" forum here. He has an eBay storefront as well. A quick peruse through "Marketplace" and you will find it. He posted, I believe, about a month ago. I have spent some time poking around locally and have found one that will do it. There are several that come up in Google as well. If they recell NiCads, they should be able to recell them. Things like TrimPacs and Hytrons are candidates for recelling. There appear to be quite a few veteran ops that recell their Hytrons and such. Hopefully they will chime in with some of their experiences particularly with the problems some of the recellers may have with some of A/B proprietary "Logic Series" stuff they have in the batts.

I'll watch out for it as my daughter watches the show. Glad it worked out.