Aero 30 paired with an Alexa 35

[Winston Cely]

This is gonna sound strange, but I am a high school film instructor, and have been teaching how to use a Steadicam® Aero 30. I took the week long camp in Georgia a couple of years ago before I started teaching my students.  I've never operated outside of the classroom except for high school sports.

I've been offered the chance to use my system on a job that will be using an Alexa 35 and shooting with Atlas Orion anamorphics for the glass.  Questions:

1. Depending on recording media and wireless communication to the video village, I should be within the operating weight for this arm and sled, correct? 20 lbs being recommended, and 30 lbs being the max?

2. Power to the camera; do I need an adapter for the camera to the sled?  

Obviously, it's on the lower end of the budget spectrum, and what's most important to me is that I'm not wasting time for the filmmakers by setting ourselves up for failure. Any help/advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

[Paweł Traczyk]

About the weight - with lightly rigged camera package you should be close to, but within the limits of you sled. The 20lbs limit is for everything you put on the sled - so the camera, all batteries, accessories etc. 30 lbs is maximum the arm can carry. So stick to the 20 lbs limit for safety. Atlas Orions are 5-7 lbs each, camera body around 7-8 lbs. But your issue will be power, as Alexa 35 needs 24V that Aero 30 doesn't provide. So you will need to run onboard battery for the camera, and that will of course increase the weight of camera package. Also keep in mind that you won't be able to use the batteries provided with the camera (B-mount 24V) for your sled (AB mount or V-mount, 12V), so make sure you can balance the camera with the batteries and counterweights you have access to. It would be best to test everything beforehand. Weigh the camera package + sled battery, then weigh the whole sled with the camera and batteries to check if you are withing limits of the sled and arm before proceeding. Also keep in mind that your options of  extending the post for low or high shots will be limited if you are close to maximum weight capacity of your sled.
And make sure you are properly insured before putting the expensive af camera on your sled 🙂

[Kirk Pflaum]

I'm pretty new to the game myself and I recently flew an Arri 35 with it's b mount battery, focus motor, transmitter, and cinetape horns, but was only using the very small Remus anamorphics. Was about 8.2kg all up and just flew ok - I made up some longer posts to get the camera height up to eyeline for some actors. Also did a arri mini with a g-series anamorphic, which only just worked. 

Your could try see if they'd be willing to fly with a different/lighter set of lenses?

But another thing to think about - I talking to another experienced steadicam op after my job and he mentioned than even if you get balance ok and still enough lift in the arm, it's the gimbal you need to worry about - it's much smaller on these smaller rigs and the bolts/bearings in them smaller too - so while operating keep your hand ready to catch the sled/camera if the gimbal were to fail.