Introduction

On most of my shoot so far I’ve been so crunched for time that I usually forgo dolly shots even though I’ve already brought the dolly. The time it takes to set up tracks is just too much and I’m usually tucked into tight spaces or severely uneven terrain so it would have been a difficult task at best. I’ve been looking into sliders as a quicker alternative, but one thing that turns me off is that most of the commercial units out there require you to set up additional support for the slider aside from the tripod, which I thought kind of defeats the purpose of a quick setup. So when Kessler announces that their Pocket Dolly paired with their Hercules 2.0 head is capable of handling a camera rig without any support stand, I was intrigued. As I had a shoot coming up where I knew that setup time would be even tighter than normal and there would be no space for a dolly, I decided to give pull the trigger and bought the Pocket Dolly and Hercules head combo.

The Pocket Dolly

The dolly itself is light, very light. It’s basically premade Igus parts that were discussed in the thread in the DIY section, but Kessler had added a belt drive system and a detachable rotating handle if you’re looking to do slower movements. There are small rubber risers on both ends so you can set the dolly on the ground or tabletops for low shots. It comes with a Giottos quick release assembly that attaches to the carriage by an Allen screw, which I’ve since replaced with a Manfrotto one. Overall it’s simple but effective construction, but I do have a few complaints about the build. One is that I wish there was a lock on the handle as it currently just fits on the knob and can easily fall off during transport. I would also like a brake for the carriage, since it tends to slide and slam down to the other end of the rail when I move it. The drive belt seems to be made of a thin rubber, and as it’s basically exposed during the shoot I was worried about potentially getting it snagged on something and snapping it.

Other than that, the dolly works very well. It’s glass smooth, no issues there. I was curious to see whether it could support my 15 lbs 35mm adapter rig (HVX, Letus EX, V2 support rod & lens) without any additional support and the answer is yes! With the dolly mounted flushed on the Hercules head on a Varizoom tripod, the dolly held my entire camera rig on either end. I could see the rail flexed ever so slightly, but movement remains completely smooth. Presumably it would be even more solid on the Kessler K-pod. When I tried the same thing using a Manfrotto hi-hat however the dolly would tip if I move the camera too far to either ends. To be fair I wasn’t expecting it to work that low anyway.

By its nature the dolly still has a few weaknesses, of course. You can’t really do shots that dolly in or out on a subject (parallel to the rail) unless you have a mounted tripod head on the carriage and even then you risk seeing the rail itself when the camera moves. 36’’ is not a long length to travel, but it’s adequate for most shots. I’ll probably be carrying this around now instead of my regular dolly since it’s a lot quicker to set up. Take my tripod head off the leg, screw the Hercules on the 100mm bowl and I’m ready to go. All my QR plates are standardized so there’s no need to waste time changing those. The weight of the Hercules head itself is an issue (see below) but the whole setup remains fairly compact.

The Hercules 2.0 Head

The first thing I noticed about this is that it’s HEAVY. The whole head is basically one solid block of metal, with adjustment knobs to tighten pan/tilt drags on the side. One thing I don’t like is the way the handle attaches to the head. There’s a hole for the handle and a separate knob secures that to the head. What this mean is that there’s virtually no degree of adjustment on the handle. You can rotate it, but that’s about it. I’m used to being able to fold the handle downward parallel to the stick for transport, and having it always sticks out is a huge inconvenient, especially since you can’t adjust the length of the arm either. On my unit, the handle can actually be twisted loose no matter how tightly I adjust the knob. Not sure if this is a flawed unit and I’ll be contacting Kessler about this. As is, this makes it trickier for one person to secure the head. The Hercules head also came with a bunch of different size screws, which I’ll probably misplaced soon. The Pocket dolly attached to the head via 2 Allen screws (supplied with the dolly).

The head handles fine, everything remains smooth even when the whole rig is on it and it’s obviously made to handle a ton of weight. I didn’t really test how it handles when used as a traditional tripod head, but it seems smooth enough so that I wouldn’t hesitate using it as a second tripod head. Just have to take off the QR assembly on the dolly and put it on the head.

Final Thoughts

I like both products and I love that I can have a working dolly setup within minutes. Most of my gripes are with the Hercules rather than the dolly. It’s fairly heavy and with the handle on it’s bulky to lug around which is the reason I ended up setting the dolly on the floor and table tops for most of the shoot. Not a huge deal but if Kessler can improve on that handle design that would be great.