I have been involved in a very long, very difficult shoot collecting stock footage of New York City. 25 days, 3 terabyte drives of footage, and only about 4 hours of sleep a night.
The conditions were not idea, as the entire contents of my kit, lights, Glidecam V16, 2 hvx200 setups, one with Chorziel MAttebox flags etc, the other with the full SGpro Rev2 setup, 2 tripods, 1 pelican case of support gear, and three big guys in a small car for nearly a month...
Needless to say you can imagine how cramped, and valuable spae becomes when youre driving around with a grip truck of gear in a 92 Grand Am.
I reconfigured my Sgpro for this special project. I opted out of my custom soft mount and changed it to a hardmount like Wayne Kinney intends. I removed the stock rails, and used a Zacuto plate for added strength and stability, as the camera was going to be knocked around, beaten up and roughly treated during the long run and gun shoot.
We were permited, and legal in all locations, however the schedule was grueling and demanded at least 5 locations around the 5 boroughs per day. So rushing to get the shot was neccesary, and we all know that rushing leads to inevitable small accidents.
Before the shoot began i sat and very carefully, and painstakingly setup the SGpro and Zacuto to line up perfectly, the acromat is so well aligned that the threads actually thread in to the HVX lens with no friction. When tightened, it is as if the whole unit is one piece. No wiggle no wobble, and extremely secure. I was not worried about damage, or misalignment. The system performed like i expected it to. Razor sharp, no vingetting, and all my lenses were optically centered, including, the fish eye. ( this is a very important thing that gets over looked the optical center of the lens should be at the place on the GG where the HVX/DVX/A1 is also optically centered) The batteries, simple AA batteries, which are very efficient in this machine, were only changed 5 times during the whole shoot, depite beig used 14-18 hours each day. (perhaps not continuously, reality more like 6-8 hours per day, on and off).
My over all fears were laid to rest, for the system stood up to an extended professional situations and passed with FLYING colors. It was no more trouble than an HVX200 itself, and operated like part of the camera, not an attachment.
I would have no qualms about taking this device on a long feature shoot.
The conditions were not idea, as the entire contents of my kit, lights, Glidecam V16, 2 hvx200 setups, one with Chorziel MAttebox flags etc, the other with the full SGpro Rev2 setup, 2 tripods, 1 pelican case of support gear, and three big guys in a small car for nearly a month...
Needless to say you can imagine how cramped, and valuable spae becomes when youre driving around with a grip truck of gear in a 92 Grand Am.
I reconfigured my Sgpro for this special project. I opted out of my custom soft mount and changed it to a hardmount like Wayne Kinney intends. I removed the stock rails, and used a Zacuto plate for added strength and stability, as the camera was going to be knocked around, beaten up and roughly treated during the long run and gun shoot.
We were permited, and legal in all locations, however the schedule was grueling and demanded at least 5 locations around the 5 boroughs per day. So rushing to get the shot was neccesary, and we all know that rushing leads to inevitable small accidents.
Before the shoot began i sat and very carefully, and painstakingly setup the SGpro and Zacuto to line up perfectly, the acromat is so well aligned that the threads actually thread in to the HVX lens with no friction. When tightened, it is as if the whole unit is one piece. No wiggle no wobble, and extremely secure. I was not worried about damage, or misalignment. The system performed like i expected it to. Razor sharp, no vingetting, and all my lenses were optically centered, including, the fish eye. ( this is a very important thing that gets over looked the optical center of the lens should be at the place on the GG where the HVX/DVX/A1 is also optically centered) The batteries, simple AA batteries, which are very efficient in this machine, were only changed 5 times during the whole shoot, depite beig used 14-18 hours each day. (perhaps not continuously, reality more like 6-8 hours per day, on and off).
My over all fears were laid to rest, for the system stood up to an extended professional situations and passed with FLYING colors. It was no more trouble than an HVX200 itself, and operated like part of the camera, not an attachment.
I would have no qualms about taking this device on a long feature shoot.
ok ok.. yo utwisted my arm.....
