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Zephyr questions


Stefan Baltz

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Thanks you for your answer

 

I've been also cheking next step as a Archer 2, and as i understand it correctly first it was with g 40 arm and then the weight limit differences were only about 1 kg, so the Zephyre felt better deal but now if the Archer is with g 50 arm, witch can hold up to 50 pounds, then i start thinking different ... of course this means 3 times bigger budget, but then i can skip this outgrow and go straight to bigger full camera sets, without worrying can it hold up that much ... ?! or what ?!

 

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Zephyr system is all engineered together so that the arm, vest, and sled all reach their maximum capacities at roughly the same weight limits. No advantage to trying to work around this. If you upgrade the arm, you may max out the sled and/or vest. If you upgrade the vest, it is wasted capacity. Alternate bigger sleds are generally heavier so you lose camera-carrying capacity with the existing arm/vest, etc.

 

It's a system that you sell if you outgrow.

 

Also, you will be asked by a mod to change to your real name, it's the rule here.

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Archer2 is up to 26lbs because of the limit of the sled!

 

Tiffen's latest systems configuration document specifies "net camera weight" for an A2 with G50x arm to be 30lbs. Same arm on a Clipper rig is rated 35lbs. Assuming that the Clipper sled weight is similar to the Archer sled (or probably slightly heavier) it seems safe to infer that the Archer2 gimbal is the limiting factor. It also means that you could probably lift 35lbs of camera/AKS on the A2, at the possible risk of damaging the gimbal.

 

Looks like Tiffen has started using the "net camera weight" method of specifying system capacities up to their pro rigs (they've been doing it in the consumer/prosumer line for awhile).

 

For an apples to apples comparison, the G50x total arm lift capacity is 50lbs, the (discontinued) G40 is 40lbs, and the Zephyr arm is unofficially around 36lb (Tiffen doesn't publish the total arm lift for the Zephyr arm).

 

Just a guess, but I reckon the A2 sled weighs about 4lb more than the Zephyr sled.

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Hey Fellas,

 

Couldn't thank you enough for the wealth of knowledge you share here. Been operating for a little over a year now and don't know how I could be where I am without such a supportive and informative community.

 

I started out with the zephyr knowing that I would upgrade eventually and wanted to save the money to buy all of the other bits that would transfer over to a bigger rig (matte box, BFD, etc.). I'm mostly shooting C300 and RED at the moment, but the Alexa has come up and it's got my gears going about an upgrade.

 

I know it's not recommended to upgrade the individual parts incrementally to increases performance (such as upgrading just the arm to get more weight capacity) because everything is made to work together. I'm thinking of doing just that, upgrading to the G50x only, but not for immediate weight bearing improvements, more as a strategic investment. Now that I've got the zephyr paid off I would love to buy each piece and pay them off individually rather than sitting underneath a $30K investment all at once. This way I could wait and see how things shake out in the next 6 months or so and decide which sled to go with.

 

What do you think? Foolish approach?

 

Joe

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Hi,

I own a zephyr, and I also feel like I am sometimes reaching to the limit of the rig. But the bottle neck in my eyes is not the lift capacity of the arm, but rather the dimension of the centerpost. I get more and more vibrations in it with a heavy load. And it's not a loose piece, it is the post arching and bending under the weight of the top and bottom stages. Have a look at a Pro's package with the atlas arm, or look for a used rig + arm + vest. That's what I will do.

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