My name is Alex, and I'm a 21-year-old (junior) steadicam operator located in Chicago. About 6 months ago, I purchased the original Zephyr Kit (without the A-30 arm upgrade), have been practicing consistently on my own time, and started operating for smaller (unpaid) Student projects in the area. After checking the price of the professional workshops, I thought I might be better off purchasing a beginner rig to learn the basics in a "trial-by-fire" kind of way. 

I'm going into my last year of film school at Columbia College this year, and having the structure of consistent projects has been great for finding low-pressure beginner Steadicam opportunities. Recently, I started picking up some paid gigs on smaller independent short films, and am about to wrap a feature that I've been 2nd ACing and intermitently Steadicam Operating on. 

I'm still very much a beginner operator, but I want to keep my sights set on what the next step is as I'm becoming more comfortable with the rig. 

My main question now is what is worth upgrading to at this point? I think the most intimidating part of accepting work for me right now is that I don't have a volt... I made it a point of learning without one, but at this point, I would be spending 6 grand on installing a volt in my Zephyr, which just doesn't seem worth it. I also know that if I plan on upgrading, I'd need to buy a vest, arm, and sled separately (since I'll need to sell my Zephyr kit altogether).

With the new Elite kit coming out, it seems like a great option for an intermediate weight capacity, which lines up with the cameras I'm normally flying. I've also been looking at upgrading to an M2 sled and investing in a G-50x or G-70x arm, but the price tag of buying those pieces separately on top of replacing the Zephyr vest is a hefty investment. 

I know Steadicam is an expensive career choice, but I'm trying to stay smart with the amount of debt I'm going into (seeing as I already have enough with student loans). If anyone has any suggestions on what to upgrade first, or has gone through something similar, I'd truly appreciate any sort of insight. 

Again, I'm a very new operator, so I know any kind of upgrade is a ways down the road, but I want to keep myself realistic and know what I should be saving for in the long run. 

Thanks, 

Alex

Thanks!

-Dan.

After a year learning steadicam on my own (making indie short films for free with a flycam rig) I really fell in love with it and I decided to try to make a living out of it. So I followed a two weeks workshop last month (Planning Camera, France) and now I'm looking for my first "real" steadicam to buy in order to train properly and be able to seek out jobs with it.

But one thing I can't find a definite answer for is what range of camera weight should I expect in the beginning? For now I mostly worked with my Canon C70 so the full camera rig like 4-5kg top (8-10lbs)...

There are some affordable options for lightweight setups (eg Axis, Zephyr) but I'm afraid to find them limiting too quickly, forcing me to decline jobs. 

Am I better off spending more for a future proof rig without knowing yet if I'll be able to find jobs and pay for it?

As a side question, do you think electronic stabilization (volt, wave, the level) is a must have when starting out in 2026 or is it something I can get later when I start to get more demanding jobs?

I'm trying to make the best decision based on the limited resource that is money 😄

In my previous post I mentioned getting a well-cared for GPI sled, but it looks like it never had a low mode monitor attached. I've found a way to get one on there with some Upgrade Innovations parts, and using Cleans Camera wedges for the GPI T bracket on the front of the DBIII. Is there a cleaner alternative that people who have a GPI sled (I have an upgraded HD top stage) use that I am just not seeing? I don't have a Volt yet, and I've seen a ton of brackets that work with the Volt brain, but I am looking for something that works with the sled as-is, and then can go down that rabbit hole once I buy a Volt.

Thanks!

Just getting into steadicam after coming from doing gimbal and specialty operations for years. I picked up a GPI Pro rig and Walter Klassen vest locally here in Vancouver and I've started getting some practice in.

When it comes times to start looking into upgrades, what are some things people usually go for first? Is it the electronics in the top and bottom stage? Getting a Volt?

I currently have the Pro II top and bottom stage and I believe the Gen II battery rack with an original gimbal (super low serial number). Arm is the Titan with 4 blue and 4 black canisters. 

There are a few things I'm already looking into getting, like a different monitor mount, Hill mounting bracket (with the ring for the Pro centrepost), and a low mode monitor mount.

If anyone has any insight into what I should concentrate my money on I'd appreciate the help!

I've been flying a Steadicam Flyer LE for the past two months, and it's been an awesome experience - great for the cameras my college offers and to practice all the exercises, test shots, and balancing.

What's not great is... the docking bracket is too short. While getting static balance has been okay (still learning how to get it just right), I can't do the spin test to achieve dynamic balance with the rig without hitting the monitor/batteries on the stand. The Steadicam arm is also on the short end, so I was wondering:

Does anyone know if longer docking brackets exist and where to purchase those? Or if there's some hidden arm extension that perhaps I don't know about? Or perhaps I'm just doing it incorrectly?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

What i have concluded with is that the gimbal is touching the bottom of the arm post (The gum looking Circle in the image below)

I have an A-30 arm and a Zephyr. Does anyone know what to do to fix this? Or do i need to consider service?

Newbie steadicam operator here! Been purchasing essential equipment for my rig and was curious whether I should get a low mode monitor! So far, I've used my regular monitor for low mode, and it has worked out with no issues, but what are the pros and cons for having a low mode monitor? Is it worth it? Will it be beneficial to my operating? And if it is essential AND beneficial, which ones do you have? Let me know your thoughts!!

Thanks everyone!

I am wondering if anyone could give me insight into why I am having to put my gimbal super low on my post to get proper drop time. I have been previously told that the higher on the post the better. But to get proper drop time I am having to put it almost in the middle. Is it okay to have it so low?

I've been following the Steadicam for a while: In 1997, at SMPTE'97 in Sydney, I saw a Steadicam (ProVid) being demonstrated and I played around with it a bit--it was such an intriguing invention.  Over the years I've kept track of prices of low end Steadicam Pilot kits but I have no professional need of such a thing: I just found them interesting. 

In June 2022, I noticed a local classified ad offering a "Steadicam Pilot" which had an arm significantly different than the Pilots I'd seen offered before.  It was put up for sale for $400, which as far as I can tell, was about half the going rate for a Pilot here in Toronto.  I visited the seller, who pulled out the giant nylon bag and showed me its contents.  As I guessed, it was actually a Flyer.

It turns out he'd had it for his business several years ago but never got much use out of it; subsequent potential buyers would come and look at it, and one even bought it and took it away, quickly returning when they realized the system was not a plug and play gimbal you could whip out quickly when you saw the mother of the bride hamming it up on the dance floor with Uncle Ed.  The seller warned me, this was not a turnkey system.  But I knew what I was buying into: I was purchasing a two year science project.

I wanted to figure out how to restore it and operate it, purely for fun.

The Original System

So $400 later, I came home with the following:

• Flyer "grey arm" with two "bones".
• Flyer vest, complete minus one oval plate
• Flyer/Mini original post/sled, narrow diameter with red trim knobs and Sony NP1 NiCAD battery boxes
• Flyer/Mini dovetail plate
• Flyer docking plate
• A generic NTSC SD analog LCD monitor
• The giant black nylon bag

The bag included a random assortment of objects like a text-adventure video game: One flat 10 pound dumb bell weight, a 14.4V NiMH Anton Bauer battery pack with the property tag of a local rental house, and a pair of brass door hinges, taped together with black electrical tape.  It also included a photocopied excerpt of the Steadicam Operators Handbook and various printouts of Internet websites from a decade ago.

What it did not include was the collapsible C stand apparently it came with from the factory.

My goals would be to:

• Fly a Canon C100 with wireless transmission system for live events
• Replace the SD monitor with a cheap HD monitor of some sort
• Replace the battery system with some sort of unified power source for everything on the rig.=

Washing the Vest and the Padded Case

I thought the first task was to wash the vest, given these items are worn and probably sweated into extensively. There is very little information about how to wash a Steadicam vest, with most posts suggesting you spray the thing with disinfectant or leave it out in the sun.  You can in fact wash it, but you do have to carefully disassemble everything.  The hard items like the metal frame that comes across your chest and plastic buckles can be detached and wiped with a Lysol wipe or similar disinfectant spray.

The soft vest pieces are made of foam padding blocks encased in a nylon cover.  You can unwrap those padding pieces and wash them by hand in soap andwater, leaving them to dry.  Any metal elements attached to the soft vest can be unscrewed and removed--in the case of the Flyer vest, the front brace has a set of bolts which go through the fabric--then the entire nylon assembly can be washed separately.  To wash those nylon fabric parts, I used Lysol Laundry Additive, which kills bacteria and germs without damaging fabric colour, and soaked the nylon pieces for a few hours in a tub of warm water.  Periodically, I would squeeze them to get more liquid through the nylon fabric.  Then, I wrung them out in clean water and let the air dry after patting them down with towels.

The nylon bag I got had been left in storage out in a shed.  This bag also comes apart, with foam padding and durable plastic insert panels in each wall.  If you look carefully inside the case once the foam blocks that hold the Steadicam are removed, you'll see internal zippers and folds where the padding and inserts can be accessed.  Once they're out, the whole nylon case can be put into a washing machine.  To rebuild the bag, it's easiest to roll the plastic inserts into a cylinder, then insert them into the inner folds of the bag and slowly unroll them into shape.