Alan Rencher

There's an ad that pops up on the right of this page sometimes for, "The Stabilizer Workshops," by Robert Starling. He does just that.

They just thread together, like a a screw. You might try some lube or heat and some strap wrenches.

That sounds physically impossible.could you post a video of what's going on, both from the AJA, and maybe a cell phone camera of the whole thing happening?

Thank for the post, Charles. There have been a lot of these companies springing up lately. I work a lot in rentals, and there is a site called Visual Net that basically turns bidding on rental contracts like some kind of reverse eBay. My thoughts on these types of things is that they cannot sustain themselves. How many times have you seen small "production"companies pop up overnight, just to start undercutting everyone. Do you know what business they attract? They attract the clients with no money. Clients that would not have paid a professional organization to do great work. Everyone of these little companies after a while realize that they can't consistently get professional results on such little budgets. They run out of favors, people realize that they're getting taken advantage of, and overhead rises. These companies either have to align themselves with the rest of the market, or go under. This site seems like it might be a good avenue for virals, but it's really no different than something like the Doritos Super Bowl competition every year. That paradigm hasn't become the norm, and I don't think this will either. This site might just be for the occasional no-budgets, or for small companies that don't spend money on commercials in the first place. Or maybe it will be to niche to survive. Here's to hoping.

That's weird. I keep hearing about this issue, but mine runs off of any power I throw at it. Maybe they fixed that problem at some point.

I would go with Eric on this. There are plenty of female operators out there, and they can handle the weight just like the rest of us.

Are you looping the video from your monitor back into the Ki-Pro? If the signal goes from camera, to recorder, to monitor, I would think that it would be impossible to record a horizon generated by the monitor.

I don't get why they couldn't have two identical BNC jacks on the sled. Could someone chime in on this?

I keep a 15mm Berkey System rail block in my kit, and I just mount it with one iris rod to the top plate.

You might try asking Terry West of he can make that cable for you, or make on yourself.

Yes, I'm upgrading. I bought one of Marshall's new modular monitors (V-LCD70MD), which has a built-in waveform monitor. I may try to fashion a small "L" bracket with pinholes to keep it from rotating. I just need to swap the front and the back connector, so the HD BNC is on the back. Cheers. I've gotten shit for this before, but I use the "SD" BNC port exclusively for HD... It's just easier, and I have no problems with it. And when I have to be tethered on a camera that doesn't have a redundant SDI out, I loop the signal out of my monitor back up the post to the HD-SDI on the top stage. Video village sees everything just fine. If I had to bet, I would say that Tiffen used the same cabling and connectors for both ports. I haven't taken it apart to verify, but it makes more sense to me that they wouldn't complicate things by having one port that is inferior to the other.

And with my method it literally takes 30 seconds the first time you do it(When you buy the rig) and precisely ZERO seconds thereafter no matter what camera I put on the rig. I must say, I looked up your method, and I'm going to give it a shot. It seems easy. You can't say that the other method is wrong though.

And I and quite a few others will not only tell you but prove to you empirically that the book is wrong. Do a search on 90 degree test it will explain how to EASILY achieve dynamic balance I use the method that I described above, and I usually attain dynamic balance in minute or two. Just sayin'.

The CW-1 looks exactly like the Paralinx Arrow, which is also based of of Amimon's WHIDI Stick.

Are you upgrading from an SD version of the Zephyr? My Zephyr came with a 7" HD Marshall monitor, and it also came with a mount that allows it to work with the sled. Tiffen has all of the stuff that you need. Also, what do you mean when you say that you want to swap the BNC connectors.

Does anyone out there have a Cinetape that I could sub-rent for a job on Monday? Thanks!

NAB is much bigger show, but if you really want to see the Paramount back-lot, Cinegear is the way to go.

If you haven't already, pick up the Steadicam Operator's Handbook. It goes in-depth about dynamic Balancing. This quickest thing I can tell you to start with would be to put the camera's CG over the rear of the post, then adjust your counter balance (most likely your batteries) to give you a static balance. Spin the rig. If you haven't achieved dynamic balance, try moving your camera forward or back, and move your counterweight in the opposite to get back to dynamic balance. Is it better or worse? If it's better keep moving everything in the same direction. If it's worse, move them the opposite direction. Also, make sure that you've spread your side to side weight pretty evenly, and that you don't have any loose items that move on their own. It's all in the handbook, and it's a lot more in depth.