Andrew Stone

Mark, have you found a set of iris rods that work with the wedgeplate without additional machining?

Is the wedgeplate for the Zephyr the same size as the Flyer... are they interchangeable, at the very least?

A couple of evenings ago Convergent Design, the makers of the nanoFlash recorder, announced their follow up product, the Gemini recorder. It is essentially a milled aluminum box about the size of a 6" monitor but a bit thicker that houses an onboard recorder with a 840 x 480 pixel touchscreen that outputs 800 NITS. The recorder has dual HD-SDI ins & outs, records to uncompressed 444 10 bit in all manner of HD pixel ratios & framerates, Does 1080p60 but at 422 uncompressed. It records the data to 2 internal SSD drives. I think that some operators will be very interested in this.

The screen size is a bit on the small side but if some here could function with tiny greenscreen monitors, I am presuming that people who can find a use for this will live with the smaller screen, if you chose to use it as a framing monitor.

The weight is just over a pound, probably without the SSD drives and it uses well under 20 watts under the full weight of 3G HD-SDI capture. I asked if they were contemplating the use of a transreflective layer. They said no.

Those who are interested can check it out at NAB. The unit is slated for release in June/July timeframe. Their history of delivery on product launches in the past has been good. Street price they say will be just under 6 grand. SSD pricing won't be announced till NAB. They say it will be competitive with the fast SSDs that are out there. You will have to use qualified SSDs with this unit to assure the necessary throughput to the drives.

Below are links to the promotional bumpf. Lots of technical info to peruse...

Their website: http://www.convergent-design.com/

An interview which is probably the best piece they have done to explain use and technical stuff:

http://www.convergent-design.com/Portals/58/gemimi/Gemini%20Interview.pdf

A brochure with technical specifications:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/attachment.php?attachmentid=31727&d=1300663705

So what is the weight threshold when things start to get wiggly?

I felt like I was doing ancient Egyptian algebra trying to understand it all.

I was thinking more like Chinese metaphysics. Good to have the catalogue on your computer rather than relying on the internet to study the arcane system of coding and tabling of data.

Another code is:

TF06

To register online go here!

Chris, I am guilty of not thoroughly reading Darren's post. The screw on weights obviously have benefit for pan inertia and will add a bit of weight but when you are 4 to 5 pounds shy of the proper weight for decent drop time, a good chunk of battery is what you want, at least in my view. The cost/benefit of a big refurbished Hytron is worth having sit around idle and have to be recharged every now and then, if it means you are going to have a really well behaved sled. Those of us that have been using the older Flyers know the benefit of having a bunch of different battery weights around to get the sled just so.

Hi Darren,

Before you resort to non-functional ballast, I would look into different sized batteries as well as an additional battery plate square on the bottom of the rig.

For anyone who is a Steadicam Op this shouldn't be that much of a challenge. We all know what is required to get drop time for an approximate weight. Simply make it so. It is not as if we have to do a bunch of machining to get it done. The solutions are either bolt on or darn close to it.

I think it would be prudent to wait for Mark to report back before spinning too much more on this.

Hopefully the existing battery plate & rod on the lower spar is robust enough to take a heavy battery thrown at it.

Darren,

I thought the same thing. I'm guessing that TIFFEN based their lift specifications around using a Tango and not a standard Steadicam setup. The marketing they have placed around the Zephyr has largely been in the context of it being used with the Tango rig. It would explain a few things like the lack of sufficient battery hanging points and what is probably and overstated camera load capacity if they based the figs on only Tango use.

I believe you are going to need approximately 6 pounds of battery or ballast at the bottom to get decent drop time on a relatively short post, if the package weighs 22 pounds.

Hi Mark,

Curious what you have discovered about the shortcomings of the dual-swap plate.

Without having a Zephyr, on paper, what I would do is put a battery plate on the bottom of the rig. The 1/4" 20 makes it relatively easy, dual-swap and replace the monitor with something decent that has a battery plate on it.

There is a spare 3 pin lemo for power. It should be relatively easy to get one the cable making individuals to do what should be a relatively simple mod to get your 12/24v power happening. The wiring may already be in place for full 12/24v operation and may be as simple as swapping out to different pinned lemo cables.

My only concern is that the tie-down area will obviously need to be avoided for motor placement, which could become limiting when in a pinch--you never know when you might have to mount the motors on one side or the other.

I would throw a bag of zip ties into my Pelican that has all my camera support jazz in it. When done a shoot for someone without gear rings on their lenses just clip off the zip ties and take the gear straps off at the end of the gig. If you have to move them just cut them off and zip tie them down again. Impractical in some situations but others not.

I'll order a catalogue.

Alan,

I am sending you a PDF version of the LEMO catalogue. Much quicker than ordering a dead tree version. Used the email acct listed through this forum.

Cheers.

I like Ron's idea. Throw it right back at them in the same manner they are approaching you.

I got it from an email box that I set up exclusively for use on the SOA site.

I am James Brown,a consultant/events organizer.I need your service as

a Steadi cam operator for an event coming up very soon.I would

appreciate if you would tell me your exact location since the project

is taping place simultaneously within the states of the federation.

 

The project will hold at a rented studio in your location,so you don't

have to worry about traveling,the name and address of the studio will

be forwarded to you before the date.please if interested you can

contact me via email jam19brown@gmail.com.

 

Regards.

Hi Alex,

I know this is going to sound like a broken record but take one of the 6 day workshops. There should be an SOA workshop coming up in May if the enrollment warrants it.

6 months of jonesin' around this forum is not actually all that long to get a sense of the Steadicam biz. Asking the questions the way you are indicates you aren't quite ready, at least in my view, to make some big decisions about how to drop your investment into gear, training, marketing, etc.

Buying used certainly is the way to go. Frankly, if you don't have a smaller rig yet, I think you should seriously entertainment your entrance with one of those but first and foremost is taking a course before you drop money on a rig and then spend some time assimilating what you have learned and then think about serious investment.

You will read this kind of recommendation time and time again in the archives.

What the seasoned Ops before me have said about entering into the big rig Steadicam world should be taken very seriously. Spending $25 grand on what you outlined will have you scrambling to make more big purchases should you start to get big rig work.

Thanks for the reply Jens!

Daniel Stilling posted up a sound clip a couple of weeks ago demonstrating how quiet this motor is. Here's his post for those who are interested.

I suspect people will be flying Zephyr's with a battery mount off the back of the monitor and 1 or 2 dionics off the rear mount with a hotswap device, so two power points. You also might want to run an external recorder off the bottom of the sled to move weight down. Those extra "blank" ports in the top stage give you some easy opportunities to customize your power and video feeds.

Mark are you getting some custom work done to it, additional wire drops, etc?

I would go with John if you can. He has made you a very good offer on those Hytrons. His stuff arrives fast. Mine came cross border in a few days using his standard method with the US Postal Service.

Daniel, thank you for going to the trouble of doing up a sound clip. Answers a question I have had for months.

EDIT:

I know the BDR is lighter. Can someone tell us the weight?

If you have an original Flyer make sure you have the battery on the plate that faces to the rear. That is the plate that is wired to power the sled.

The Rock Steadi bag has lots of padding and is affordable.

Alan,

From what I understand running the cable out of the composite channel has to make it's way to the TC link on the other camera which won't be an AF-100 as it doesn't do Genlock, so if you want to mix and match cameras to another camera with a TC link then fine. I don't think you are going to be able to fly two AF-100s with lenses, AKS and a beamsplitter on your Pilot.

Hi Pedro,

You could use a pair of AF-100s with a nanoFlash 3D setup to get your genlock that way but I would assume most of your gigs are for clientele that would want 10 bit 444 output. A naked AF-100 spits out AVCHD at 24 mBit with the nanoflash setup you get 422 up to 220 to 280 mBit but the colorspace is 8bit 422. Sony's to be launched S35 NXCAMs will spit out 10bit 422 through the HD-SDI jack and will be small bricks when stripped down like some of the rigs you have been sporting recently. The S35 NXCAM is slated to come out in summer of this year... or so they are saying. Finally both cameras will take PL mount lenses and the S35 will have a bigger sensor... the same one as in the PMW-F3 that is being released next month.

-Andrew

What is the noise level like?