Going to build a dolly that looks down for a tracking birds eye view...

hoarp001

hoarp001

Veteran
Hi,

A film I am doing requires a dolly shot where the camera looks down and tracks along. Its going to be suspended over a desk and it tracks along over the desk.

My first thoughts were to mount the camera actually looking down, but its fairly heavy, about 5.5kg - Its an FX1 with an SGpro + flip lens adapter, and I think the forces and leverage action of the weight will probably constantly try to turn the dolly carriage over, so my new thought is to mount the camera in its normal location, just flat against the dolly platform but to use a mirror at 45 degrees so the camera can look downwards, periscope style. I know I will loose abit more light like this but its a studio environment and I can compensate for this.

You reckon this will work or weather I should just work out a way to mount the camera looking straight down?

Thanks.
 
Erik Olson said:
Underslung jib?

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Click to expand...

Im confused, is that a suggestion or a question? Id quite like to keep the platform solid with a tripod bowl on it. The plan is to take the bowl off, and stand the camera on the platform and screw it down with a standard camera screw then use a superclamp and a bendy arm thingy to hold the mirror...
 
The mirror, most being mirrored on the back side of the glass, will introduce some amount of refraction. I was suggesting that an easier method would be an underslung jib. Nothing between your lens and the subject.

bracket.jpg


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Ah I see, I do have my remote head that I could hang like this, but my main worry is that its a heavy camera, too heavy for the head and I will only have about 4-5 feet head room over the desk to run the rails, so an understand head would bring the lens height too close to the desk to achieve the effect I need...

When you say refraction do you mean you get an image and a sort of ghosted second image that ghosts the first as you get an image reflected off the reflective coating and one off the surface of the glass?
 
Yes. With the natural motion blur in your shot, you might not notice the refraction much.

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The mirror is pretty thin, bout 3mm. I just had a quick experimentation with the camera and the lens. Seems pretty clean, ive only looked on the little screen so far, im going to have a go on the 42inch HD tele in a bit just to check. Maybe the shallow DOF is throwing the ghosted image out of focus or something but I cant see it....
 
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