RedRock Shoulder Mount or Zacuto's News Man

The rail locks on just the base plates? It's somewhat of an unfair comparison. The Redrock baseplate currently has one lock per rail. The Zacuto baseplate has two locks per rail. I love the Zacuto levers. The feel of metal is something I like. However... the Redrock levers and the locks are solid as well. Especially for the price point all that gear is sold at!
 
You can get three of these for $100 and you can use them to mount the Zamerican on the rails, anywhere... that piece with a screw is locked in, you can leave it in there to mount thingd with screw threads and take it off for Zamericans, the one thing you do need and I don't know a replacement for is the Zicro mount for use with a Carrion... anyone know a replacement/alternative
 
jstunzi said:
The rail locks on just the base plates? It's somewhat of an unfair comparison. The Redrock baseplate currently has one lock per rail. The Zacuto baseplate has two locks per rail. I love the Zacuto levers. The feel of metal is something I like. However... the Redrock levers and the locks are solid as well. Especially for the price point all that gear is sold at!
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Yeah I was curious about the lever locks part if the Redrocks were as good as the Zacuto ones. Just curious if they were able to match at such a lower price point.
 
USL... i'm pretty sure the zicroMount is irreplaceable. No other piece will mount to the end of that Zamerican arm in order to make it lock and to safely secure a monitor to the arm.

In my opinion Jeff, I like Zacuto's levers better. They are thicker and have that nice metal to metal connection. What would you expect for the price though? In terms of quality of hold, I don't see much of a difference.
 
I know, it is a gamble, but I reckon that now... If this happens and if it happens soon I'll gladly be the lab rat, and while it is totally worth it to go Zacuto, but I just cant... if I even do this at all
 
You know what... the only reason I need the support gear is for the monitor, I becha I can get away with the MB and FF in the Fig Rig (no monitor though!)

I can go that way till I figure out what I am doing to power the Carrion... i still haven't found a decent deal for two medium size V-Mount or 3 pin that I can get for $800 with the dual charger. And I need to make sure I can get at least 12hs off those two for the 14.4V Carrion... any suggestions? Or could I get a single charger?
 
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I'd suggest getting the microPod or the Zacuto red plate first of all... you don't want to be using your rig hand held and have a lot of forward weight throwing things off balance.

Why don't you go with some IDX batteries and a single charger. You can leave one battery charging while the other is in use. Or just charge them both up beforehand. Dual chargers get pricey!
 
Thanks for the quick review on the levers Joseph. I didnt really expect to the RR's to be as fancy as the zacuto's given the price, but they've surprised me recently with the mattebox that looks much more expensive than it is, so I thought maybe they did it again. So are they using plastic levers on the red rock?

The micropod looks interesting. I almost went with that on my rig but decided to spend the extra money to match and not be a guinea pig (although there's not alot you could screw up on a battery plate...). If you're trying to save a few bucks I'd go with the travel charger from Batteries 4 broadcast and two of your favorite flavor of batteries. I only went gold mount because my monitor has a gold mount plate on the back and that will be handy from time to time. The only reason I would get a dual battery plate is if you needed the extra weight or wanted to be able to hotswap batteries without losing power.
 
Edited because I'm in a slightly better mood - Well i got my Zacuto stuff in just now. Not sure what to make of it all. It isnt anywhere nearly as robust or strong as I thought it was. Joints do slip and the Zamerican wont hold my lh80 to save its little life. I have version 2 of the arm which has polished ends which I would imagine may contribute to that. Not sure why the polished the ends... The concept of how the arm works though is slick and it will work for an on cam light now instead of a monitor. Looks like I'll be buying a new monitor too. The lh80 is way too much weight for handheld. When the arm is placed just right it wont slip as much and even then the rig is so off balance its ridiculous. Going to order me an IKAN for handheld run and gun stuff. It weighs less than my light so I tested the light in place of the monitor and the rig works fantastically. Am hoping a shorter first gen arm is enough to hold the lh80 for general use when I'm tripod mounted and the monitor is at the rear of the unit. A for more zicromounts and I'll be there. All in all Zacuto's got some great ideas and some good manufacturing (nice consistent edges, helicoils when appropriate etc), some of their designs just lack IMO.
 
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Jeff,
I've never heard of some of the stuff you're going through. The Zamerican ver 1 arm does not sag for me. The levers completely lock on all pieces. The rods can come unscrewed... that indicated that the levers do lock properly! There is a way to keep your rods tightly screwed into each other with... yes... another part.

What's wrong with setting your rig down on your batteries? If it's such a problem flip the red plate over and mount your batteries on top. In terms of balance, it takes a while to find the proper sweet spot. If resting the rig on the batteries is a problem, set it down on a tripod or what not.

On the gold mount, you need to talk to them about that.

The red plate is meant to be there... it holds your battery plate and the double mount is used to mount the red plate to the rods as well as to hold the Zamerican arm on the back of your rig.

You should see no slip and slide. No sag. No problems at all.

You can totally return any pieces you see unnecessary or that aren't functioning properly. That's part of Zacuto's guarantee. The battery plate is a must return for you! If you think it's all crap, then sent it back!
 
Same, here man, neever heard of a Zacuto product not working, as I am sure you haven't either. Have you tried making it so the arm is placed so that it the monitor were to make the upper arm close that it would tighten? But it it is what I think you said and it is in fact the clamo on the rails then I am scared to get the RR ones! hehe

Joseph, thanks for your help yesterday! And thanks to both of you guys posting all that I really need to know, so I guess I need to look a s a few other things:

_ IDX batteries!? THESE?!? They are ony $33 on that site!
I can't finf an on camera mount for rails though... can you guys help me find the stuff? I've seen these on steadycams before so I guess they use them to power their monitors so they should brilliantly.
is this not a good one: http://cgi.ebay.com/IDX-battery-cha...gami-sony_W0QQitemZ130209896025QQcmdZViewItem

are those batteries bad ones? please help me figure out a good IDX kit
 
okay Roberto... those batteries aren't v-mount. Start searching for IDX V-Mount batteries! Those are the ones that you should find the mounting for rails for!
 
Well perhaps I just have high standard but the design on pretty much all of this leave alot to be desired. The rods that come unscrewed are the ones connecting to the handles. The already have supposed locking measures in place and neither side works when under load. The levers seem to be breaking in and locking better. Just seemed to take way too much pressure to lock fully. The red plate is pointless because it adds a large amount of weight for no good reason. Why not just bolt the battery plate to the doublemount? And whoever designed the red plate kinda overlooked the fact that the slight recess they created for a battery mount makes the dtap totally unuseable. And I'd flip the battery plate over but that pretty much makes a few hundred dollars of double mount rather pointless. I'll be keeping the entire rig as there isnt much else out there and its already paid for itself so it really doesnt matter. I'd just be very weary of any future zacuto stuff. IMO they definitely have a bit of a hype machine on their hands. Probably will trade out the Zamerican arm though as its a total piece. Maybe will try the ver 1 out instead and see what happens. In the end though they've made a lot of mistakes here I'd find rather embarrassing in a released product. And dont even get me started on their crappy office management skills. Took an entire week to ship out. Every day it was we'll try to send it out today... Ordered on a Sunday morning it shipped on a Friday. You'd think you'd get better service with their prices and supposed level of quality.
 
USLatin said:
You can get three of these for $100 and you can use them to mount the Zamerican on the rails, anywhere... that piece with a screw is locked in, you can leave it in there to mount thingd with screw threads and take it off for Zamericans, the one thing you do need and I don't know a replacement for is the Zicro mount for use with a Carrion... anyone know a replacement/alternative
Click to expand...

As much as I love Zacuto stuff the Zamerican Arm and all the attachments was just a bit too much of having to buy several expensive accessories to get the arm to work. If it slips on your LT 80 take a look at Ultralight's stuff http://www.nebtek.com/products.php?cat=29. In fact panasonic markets their short arm under pany's name as a monitor mount.

For my monitor (Marshall), I use a heavy duty Manfrotto Ball to Arm Bones to bridge plate (snaked from my Sg Pro kit) to rods. No slip. It only extends on one axis but that's a small price for sturdiness.

I'd also recommend going battery belt instead of on boards as the LT 80 is heavy enough on its own.

Back on Topic. The Micro Grips looks capapble of doing all I need but it doesn't look like I can attach the shoulder pad to my Zacuto baseplate. Any ideas out there?
 
Bob Gruen said:
You really do not want the camera that far forward. You will be supporting half of it's weight with the front shoulder muscle, and you will 'feel the burn'.

A properly set up shoulder rig should have its center of mass over your shoulder itself, or even a little behind it. This loads the collar bone, not the shoulder muscle.

The rig below is still front heavy thanks to the Marshal monitor. It will have a bigger battery and even some lead weight slung out back to bring the nose of the camera up.

ShoulderMnt.1.gif
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What shoulder pad are you using and how does it attach to the baseplate. I need a pad that'll attach to my Zacuto plate. Something that just screws into the bottom. Nothing fancy.
 
Ya Tim, I think the only way the Redrockmicro one will work is if you mount it in front or behind... or if you use it with the q-riser piece from Zacuto.
 
Q riser. Just what I didn't want to hear for mounting a damn pad under a baseplate. I guess it's back to kneepads and velcro.
 
those arms are cheap, are they strong though?

I need wome help with batteries though... Joseph, I saw those used before on Steady Cams..... I thought there was a way to mount them

I can however just get the Micro Pod and use the V-mount it comes with to mount one battery at a time, use the 3.3lbs batteries... that should be heavy enough right?
Then I can save on the charger and get a single charger... one one battery on the camera and one on the charger....

I want to find out if this guy was just trying to upsell me, or maybe he wasn't kiddin'
he said these batteries need to stay in the charger when they are not being used
or the batteries will start deteriorating and holding less charge


BTW, the RR shoulder par is about 11" long it is big... so the 7" left in the 18" RR rails should be plenty for the battery and whatnots...
 
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YEah... keep in mind that a lot of v-mount batteries are stackable... you can mount two at once by connecting them to each other.

Tim you could always just be a man and use a towel for a shoulder mount!
 
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