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Camera Plate Missing Fore/Aft Adjustment on Zephyr


Adam Brown

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Hi everyone.

 

I recently purchased and received my Zephyr after taking one of Peter's workshops. I rigged up a camera for a job and began to balance with my fore/aft adjustment knobs and my plate won't move. Obviously my center post adjusts side to side but I thought I remember the fore adjustments actually connecting onto a ridge piece underneath the plate which is responsible for making those subtle adjustments front and back.

 

I don't have any access to another Zephyr to compare, but there are no such ridges underneath my plate. Can someone please clarify if I'm missing a part or just cluelessly overlooking some other element to this matter.

 

Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much!

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HI

 

Your Zephyr is fine!

 

The ridges or "geartrack" are on the older style of plates like the ones on the EFP/3a or upto and including the Flyer. The Flyer topstage is actually a modified and updated design based on same topstage as on the older provid/SK rigs.

 

The newer rigs tend to have a "Drop and Lock" type topstage and use a geartack and gearing (probably actually wormdrive but not 100% on that) system built into the topstage itself. So does not need the for and and aft gear system on the dovetail anymore. I think the Zephyr uses a locking screw clamp to hold the dovetail vs the "Drop and Lock" on the more expensive systems. It is basically the same thing though.

 

So you lock in your dovetail adjust your course for and aft by losening the clamp a little and moving the whole camera and dovetail back and forth manually. Lock it down then finally use the for and aft and side to side to fine trim the topstage.

 

It is far quicker than the older geartrack system I find. Plus it is less likely to fly forward or backward on the geartrack and give you a minor heart attack should you be triming balance on the arm between takes (assuming you remembered to lock the safety screw down, otherwise smashed camera). The fine trims can be adjusted without having to undo any locks unlike on the Flyer etc. DON'T undo the main lock when on the arm though!

 

Hope that makes sense

 

Anthony

Edited by Anthony Graham
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Hey, thanks so much guys!

 

Yeah, I had been adjusting by sliding the whole system back and forth which definitely worked. Having used the Flyer in the workshop, I thought my Zephyr was likely and regrettably missing some components. But, it's great to hear that everything's intact.

 

So, thank you both very much for your help and advice!

 

- Adam

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