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The Geo arms


Mikko Wilson

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don t worry Ben,

 

The g70 won t come out for ages! you ll have made your money back by then.

 

The weapon of choice on cheap bread and butter promo s at the moment seems to be

 

varicam

gekko ringlight

downconverter

singlechannel bartech

2 lightweight pags

 

on a recent promo i weighed it and this comes to a grand total of 55lbs on my sled. So I figured forget the g50 and bought a nice workhorse master and now I am confident!

 

in a year and a half, when it comes out..... ill get a g70

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I have yet to have the pleasure of trying the new G-70, G-50 but continue to hear nothing but great things.

 

The two main things I love about my PRO arm are:

 

-the modularity. I can completely dissassemble the arm and clean and lube every washer, and joint / trunion etc. I love this. With my old Master Arm there was always that niggling feeling in the back of my mind that I would have to find a time to send the arm in for servicing after extended time in dirty / windy / humid / sandy / salty conditions. You (I believe) still cannot dismantle the Tiffen arm and are therefore bound to sending it to Tiffen for an overhaul. Unless you have a 2nd arm you are therefore at the mercy of Tiffen's workload before getting your arm back. And certainly if you are working out of the country in adverse conditions where service isn't an option, build up of foreign matter in the arm may result in having to actually replace the bearings and trunions if you can't service the arm yourself within a day or so of being caught in such conditions. I have found myself in this scenario on several occasions and have been so utterly relieved that I can take care of such problems myself right away, rather than needing the help of a busy company. Of course the spring canisters themselves are totally weather / dust / dirt proof.

 

-secondly. Hats off to a greatly increased working range on the new arm. But that still doesn't cover the 9-14 lb weight range for super-light applications such as my video finder that I use for extended blocking on certain jobs. The video finder on my back up PRO lite running sled comes in at 11 lbs. With my PRO arm i simply remove 2 black spring canisters, leaving 2 blue spring canisters dialed down about halfway each and I have the slickest, lightest, most responsive light-wieght arm I could hope for. When it is time to go back to the full 35mm XCS sled I simply re-insert the two black springs (about 20 seconds total) and off I go, no trimming the arm to find the sweet spot etc. It is all pre-set in this manner. Beyond just the video finder, even on a full 35mm movie I have sometimes had to fly just a consumer DV handicam as coverage within a scene or some such thing. Much better to have an arm that can go super light, than have to create more mass for a light camera you want to fly.

 

-and of course if there is ever a problem with a spring canister you can send off just that canister and still have a fully working arm (if you have a full canister package 4-blue 4-black). This can be the difference between being available in a pinch and adaptable to unforseen circumstances, and being unable to take or continue a job. This you can't really put a price tag on.

 

Again, hats off to Tiffen, Garrett, and Jerry for their undying quest for improvement. But I'm undoubtedly keeping the PRO arm as my primary arm. I might consider switching out my Master Arm to one of the new ones as a back up.

 

Will

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  • 2 weeks later...

We've had the chance to extensively use the new G70 arm at our workshop. What a treat. This new arm is nothing else but fabulous. It is capable of dolly shots at the slowest speed. We used it for Garrett's shot upstairs, which started with a slow creep into a makeup room. No matter how slow we got, it never showed anything on screen.

 

Garrett was also very impressed with it (and would hand out 50? banknotes to anyone who would say good things about it :P ) and I must say that the Ultra sled with the G70 arm was just fantastic, with tilt-head and electric trim on the sled.

We were able to test it against the lastest Pro arm and it holds the comparison, with the benefit of on-the-fly adfjustments. It is light, yet thanks to its coaxial springs design, it will accept up to 70 pounds. Again, the "ride" is amazing. And at way less than $20k it should be a seller.

 

But then a lot of people also got very surprised by how good the Glidecam Gold rig actually is, including world-class operators... :lol: :ph34r:

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Since when money is a consideration in our trade ? :P

I haven't been impressed by the G50, honestly. It's a good arm, fairly light and all, but nothing tremendous, where the G70 is absolutely incredible.

Then it is at least $5000 cheaper than a Pro and it delivers, baby, it delivers.

And last but not least, cheap and Steadicam, these are words that don't go together well :ph34r:

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I reckon the g70 will be an incredible contender, but as stephen murphy and will arnot pointed out;

 

How easy is the g70 to clean ? can a monkey like myself simply take it apart and clean it or do I need to spend $2000 on a service ?

 

Will I need to wear arm covers in the rain?

 

I just bought a master arm, but I would be wanting to make a decision to buy one or the other next year when the choice/funds are available. Really it is still a close call.

 

I would love it if some pro veterans would try it out and review it.

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I think that the lesson learned here is that you probably can't have everything. Its difficult to have a great arm at a price that is less that what GPI is charging that is field servicable and is as flexible as the PRO arm. However, you have to acknowledge that Tiffen is now making strides in an equally admirable direction, namely, in making an arm that is responsive and of overall good quality at a very reasonable/affordable price.

REALITY CHECK...... Before the PRO arm, all arms had exposed parts, and there was some marvelous photography made with them. Infact some of the best shots in Steadicam history were made with arms of far less technology.

Yet another way to look at it...... How many cleanings would it take to equal the cost of the PRO arm if one were to buy the 70 arm? If the answer is more than say 10 then you are looking at a good deal. I have owned my Masters arm for 8 or 9 years, and have had it cleaned and maintained 3 times, at the cost of about $500.00 per time.

If you are shooting in the desert all of the time, then I would agree, you might want to/ BETTER DAMN WELL get the PRO arm. It only makes sense given the rigors of your environment. If you live in a metropolitan area and a vast majority of your work is done in that environ, then either arm is probably a great choice. Hell a good 3A arm would probably do just fine for the type of shots most of us do on a regular basis. How about that Rig Engineering arm for that matter?

Its good to see another arm out there stirring up the interest of the masses.

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Thanks for all your comments/reactions.

 

BTW: Both the G-50 and the G-70 can be user-disassembled... the spring backs off easily to zero tension and the trunnions unscrew giving access to all parts... We'll look into providing a manual that describes the procedure. The G-50 doesn't even have any spacers.

 

GB

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