PRO-GPI ATLAS arm short review

[Frederic Chamberland]

My first PRO arm, bought the 2 blacks, 2 greys and chassis package (serial 013) .

•The boom range is fantastic

•operation is so smooth under load, it's difficult to translate in words. My smile on set was worth the money spent on this arm.

•beautifully crafted

•5 star service from GPI

 

From now on, every camera package that weights less than 45lbs will be flown with this arm. I will use my trusted Sachtler Artemis for anything bigger.

 

I have flown Sachtler Artemis for 11 years now and still very satisfied. I am keeping my Artemis arm for 45lbs + packages.

Very lucky to be able to have both in my kit.

After 10 years of operating , I got myself a new arm. And I'm happy I went with the Atlas.

 

Frederic

[Mariano Costa]

Hi Frederic,

 

why didn`t you sell the Artemis arm and go all the way with a Titan?

I`m not criticising, just curious.

 

Mariano

[Frederic Chamberland]

Good question . It came down to money invested and reliability.

The Artemis never failed me in 11 years, not once. I changed the springs 3 times over the life of the arm just to be safe (every 3/4 years). But cosmetically , it had better days, it's full of scuffs and the anodizing is fading out... which I could not care less but I would have never been able to get 4k for it... So I decided to keep it as a backup.

Going with the Titan would have meant trying to get 4k for the Artemis, and raise another 2k to get the Titan. While I spent 13200$ on the Atlas, It now gives me 2 arms instead of 1 and I saved a couple of dollars.

I also want to fly lighter setups from now on and I'm always trying to shave some weight when I can. A 35 to 45 lbs setup is an ideal weight for me, I mostly do tv series and the days are getting longer.

Curt Shaller at Sachtler always gave me stellar service and the same applies to GPI so it's not the service I'm worried about.

But I have to admit, I almost went the Titan road....almost....I bit my fingers on this one.

Cheers.

[Mariano Costa]

Ah ok, that makes total sense - I was wondering of the weight, though, heard here and there that the Atlas is even a bit heavier than the Titan but never saw any numbers.

[Karsten Jaeger]

Hi Frederic,

 

your last post is almost 1 year old. when i check your website now it seems that you upgraded to the Titan arm in the meanwhile. is that right? did you change your mind? if yes, why?

thinking about switching to the Atlas arm at the moment. ...just curious about your descision...

 

Karsten

[Frederic Chamberland]

Hi Karsten ,

 

You are right , PRO GPI had a sale last summer on a few Titan arms . I sent them back the Atlas and they credited me the value at the time and applied it to the Titan. No hassle and easy transaction . I realised the camera setups I still use mostly consist of alexa , cooke lenses ( s4 and 5i) , cinetape, preston ... Just too much for the Atlas . The 2 gray cans were maxed out and I still needed some juice .

And so when PRO GPI annouced the few arms at the special price , i jumped on the occasion . And i never looked back . This titan arm is the most magical piece of equipment in my kit .

Cheers

 

Frederic