Dynamic Balance

[Marc Abernathy]

thx for the photo but i cant really see the triax setup. im pleased to hear your show went well however...

[Brant S. Fagan SOC]

Gents--

 

The key to comfortable and reliable operating is how you attach the cables to the sled before they leave and trail off behind you.

 

Almost always, I grasp the cable(s) above the gimbal position and force them to hang in a vertical manner before looping down towards my knees and then climbing back to a velcro catch on my right hip. Back there is a place to attach the house/truck cable without affecting the rig's performance.

 

I have found that the loop must approach the knees to allow for full boom range travel of the arm and sled but must not get caught about the knees!

 

 

Good luck!

 

Best,

 

Brant S. Fagan, SOC

Steadicam/Camera Operator

[Jerry Holway]

Gents--

 

The key to comfortable and reliable operating is how you attach the cables to the sled before they leave and trail off behind you.

 

Almost always, I grasp the cable(s) above the gimbal position and force them to hang in a vertical manner before looping down towards my knees and then climbing back to a velcro catch on my right hip. Back there is a place to attach the house/truck cable without affecting the rig's performance.

 

I have found that the loop must approach the knees to allow for full boom range travel of the arm and sled but must not get caught about the knees!

 

 

Good luck!

 

Best,

 

Brant S. Fagan, SOC

Steadicam/Camera Operator

 

All-

 

Brant's right, it's about how you attach the cables and the kind of cables you attach....

 

I've been working for two weeks with the Panavision Genesis in the "all-in-one-mode" with a thick, stiff power cable and three BNC's... combined with the cold, it's about the worst cable influence I've ever had (plus bloody heavy). For lots of reasons, this was the only way we can fly this beast on the show.

 

Regardless, I had to come up with a better way to reduce the influence of these cables on the shots, so here's the deal:

 

Start with a shortish loop from the camera down through your operating hand on the gimbal. This leaves most of the cable influence in your control, and your hand to camera position does not change much, so the influence is about the same, regardless of how you aim the camera.

 

I've been doing that for years, but it wasn't enough for this job. The new trick for me is to exit the cables from my grip by winding them around my forearm, then having a loop from essentially my elbow to the assistant, and from him on to the village. This completely isolates the cable influence from the outside world, so it's all in my control. The cable could also be looped from my elbow to my waist, or over the vest, and then on to the outside world with much the same effect.

 

It's so much better than other schemes I've tried, I can't wait to try it on a job with a "proper" single, flexible cable and a camera about 16 pounds lighter.

 

Jerry

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Yikes, Jerry & some think this camera is "progress"???????????

 

Good luck.

[Jerry Holway]

Yikes, Jerry & some think this camera is "progress"???????????

 

Good luck.

 

To be fair, the images are amazing.... I'm very curious how it will all look in the theater.

 

It's also a great workout (6-10 hours a day so far, putting it down the instant they call cut). And in other modes (pulling off the recorder and going with cables), I'm told it weighs about like Millenium XL with 1000 ft mags.... but honestly, it doesn't feel all that heavy!!

 

And eventually the recorder will become a disk, and eventally RAM... and

 

Did I mention it draws 14 AMPS at 14 volts when recording; and 6.5 Amps in standby? And it should stay in standby...so it's a real issue if you are called to work with this camera.

 

Jerry

[RobVanGelder]

So Jerry, does that mean that you are always on an external power supply and therefore a thick power cord? Switching batteries would mean in most cases a power-down and that is probably not allowed.

 

You say the pictures are amazing, they must be, but are they better than what we could get with 35mm? That is of course not a steadicam related subject so it is better to move that discussion to the cinematography forum.

 

I believe the pictures are very, very good, however i also think it is in fact a step backwards in CAMERA- technology, because it does not give you MORE than what we already had, it limits possibilities like framerate, ramping, and possibly more stuff we can do with the new generation film camera´s and its size, power requirements and other handling issues are also not any better.....

But it is NEW and DIGITAL , there you have the magic words that blinds the people with the most power in this business, the producers.

Just my opinion.

[Marc Abernathy]

im a simple little cuss and a photo is worht a million words. if someone can post up a real world image of triax on the Sled that would put a lot of stuff in perspective for me. if you guys can even post up an OP in ACTION with the setup that would be ideal and the icing on the cake. ive tried a lot of ways and feel there are better options out there.

 

brant mentioned a velcro gadget.. is this a simple velcro wire loom type or much more sophisticated?

Jerrys explanation sounds sweet but again a photo would be ideal... im using some triax adapters on each end but sometimes i cant use those due to production constraints.

 

thanx in advance.

[Peter Abraham]

Yikes, Jerry & some think this camera is "progress"???????????

 

Good luck.

 

My friend, I have two words for you: TK-76.

 

:blink:

 

Then again, when I started, the hot camera for single-cam remotes was the Ikegami 79EAL with the J-Labs adaptor on the back, feeding to a Betacam-25 deck. ( and, then, when it came into vogue, the Beta 35-SP deck).  That J-Labs cable was a nightmare. I had Jerry LaBarberra of J-Labs make a thinner version for me, with a neoprene jacketing. Helped a hell of a lot. We live the cables we have to live. Sounds like Jerry has crossed an evil threshold though.

 

I remember when Jeff Muhlstock was researching fiber-optic cables for HD jobs that were just the glass fibers- Jeff, ever get those going?

 

Peter Abraham

New York

[Jeff Muhlstock SOC]

I remember when Jeff Muhlstock was researching fiber-optic cables for HD jobs that were just the glass fibers- Jeff, ever get those going?

 

Peter Abraham

New York

 

 

Yes Peter, They are readily available through some of the NY rental houses, I know LVR has em for one. They come with copper and without. I own the ones with copper, the size difference is next to nothing, so I perfer to have the power option. Very thin very flexy..... I prototyped with Mohawk cable 7 or 8 years ago.

 

Jeff

[Peter Abraham]

Did they include a steel wire for strain relief?

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Did they include a steel wire for strain relief?

 

 

You don't need a steel wire for Strain relief, Kevlar thread works much better

[Peter Abraham]

No doubt. However, at the time, I also had a length of Mohawk cable sitting on my desk, and it included the steel braided cable for strain relief.

 

Since I knew that was how Mohawk constructed it's stuff, I asked about steel. Not Kevlar.

[Afton Grant]

I was wondering what everyone's acceptable dynamic balance is. Do you tweak until you get a perfectly flat pan? Is there an acceptable amount of kick out? 1cm? 2cm? I know, in theory, there is a perfect solution to every setup, but in practice that solution can be elusive with certain setups...not to mention the gremlins that show up and produce inexplicable results.

 

Thanks for any insight!

 

Best,

Afton

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Yes you want to get it as close to perfect as possible.

[Erwin Landau]

Most of the time, on the style productions I work on, you don't have time to dynamically balance your rig, and I mostly don't. Every time you change a mag, change a Lens or a filter, move your gimbal, adjust your rig for a shot, the rig will be out of dynamic balance.

 

And again, they barely give the AC time to calibrate... imagine you need another 3 minute to fazz around with your rig to get it into dynamic balance... I used to do it at the beginning of the day... nowadays I barely do it at all... I mostly get my rig into static balance on my arm while I walk back to one...

 

I had the pleasure to spend some time with Greg Lundsgaard last weekend on the PRO workshop, he is known to do and get the shot with a completely out of whack rig.

Even whip pans, with the technic he developed over time, he get's it perfect every time...

 

Don't let the production wait on you... ever... or they will find a guy that won't.

 

 

Fly safe,

 

 

Erwin"Out of whack"Landau