What made you buy a Back Mounted Harness

[Benjamin Treplin]

Hi All,

I'm curious about this question for some time now.

It started with the discussion "Why a Backmounted Harnass works.....". I shifted this back and forth in my mind until I saw the pictures of Walters and Garretts front mounted / back mounted Harness. Thank you David and Will.

An Integrated low profile arm. That's what Walter and Garrett invented.

So why does it work? Jerry, Alec, Mitch and Jamie are right. It is not because it is back mounted. It is because the waist pad/door and the chest pad/back support is one piece. There is no flexing, bending or what so every your back has to compensate. It is possible to distribute to the load to your hips and over the entire back and freeing your chest.

To get back to the poll.

Is there a greater demand for the back mounted harness from operators that used to have a front mounted vest without additional back straps or is there no relation at all?

 

Best

[RobVanGelder]

Hi Benjamin,

As I started that discussion, I feel that there is still more to discover about why it works.

It is not only the total rigidity that reliefs the operator from the stress in the back.

For sure, the position of the body relative to the rig is changed too, making a different weight balance.

I do not want to fire up this discussion again, someone else with fresh ideas can do that.

 

Being backmounted is in my opinion definately a different situation than frontmounted with the same harnass, but probably only Garreth can give us a final answer to that!

[Mitch Gross]

I've been wondering about that front mount on the backmount Klassen harness for Garrett ever since that photo was posted. Seems to defy much of the physical logic of the backmount design, but then again in the end the weight is still distributed to the hipbone and the spine fully supported by the rigid back. Garrett is far, far more clever than I, so I would never question his judgement!

[Benjamin Treplin]

Hey folks,

over 240 views and only 12 votes? Where are all the op's with a back mounted harness? There have to be more than 12.

Come on, this is not an election only a poll.

I had a chance to see and fly Garrett's new Klassen front mounted back mounted vest (don't know a better way to describe it) at the Tiffen party the other night.  Not owning a back mounted harness (and only having flown one a few times) it's hard for me to say if I prefer the back/front mount over the back mount.  What I CAN say is that I like it!  I think it takes the best of both syles of vest/harness and combines them.  I'm looking forward to hearing what operators that already own a backmounted harness think of it.  I believe Garrett's vest will be at the Steadicam Guild get-together tonight for any attendees to try.  Plus, there's free food tonight, which is another reason to go.

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Any experiences? Comments are really appreciated.

 

Best

[PaulEdwards]

Hi Benjamin,

 

You are right to question the difference in terms of Physics between a back and front mounted vest. The attachment point of the arm is irrelevant. Rigidity and contact area , however, is very important.

 

If you want to search back, there's a lengthy set of postings on the subject from Jan 2004, but the analogy in the pic. below might help.

 

You are the truck (toes are front wheels; heels are back wheels; the arm is the ladder; weight M2 is the sled/camera; M1 is your weight). As you can see from the pic. the attachment point of the ladder (arm) ie. if it attaches to the back or front, does not change any of the forces.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Paul