I find rod systems overrated

I even have my rickshaw seat, which is a yaght seat modded for speedrail mounting.

Yep the castors would not be cheap.

Interestingly my pilot arm is on the bench right now.. I feel with the A30 vest it might do some things, The pilot vest set up by me.. people offered me thier spare change!
 
Alex H. said:
Yes, building out a shoulder rig system for something like the T2i can be complicated and a bit clumsy. Building out any camera rig can be as complicated or as streamlined as you make it out to be. When and if you get experience shooting with true cinema camera bodies, you might find that the rods actually make building and re-configuring the rig much more efficient.
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I don't think I mentioned the T2i?
 
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The T2i and all DSLRs have a specific geometry.

Mirrorless cams with evfs.. r5 a7s.
Mirrorless cams without EVFs Fx3 30

Box cams

black magic 'pockets'

Each class has its own need or not for rods.

Even the type of lens mount affects the choice. For example PL lenses can be manually forcussed without wobbling and with no rods. Lenses on stills mount usually wobble when manually handled.
AF lenses usually are not manually handled.

So you have to go on your own journey.. for your camera.

The T2i has bad AF and a floppy lens mount.. like many 'DSLR' cameras. So you might choose to manual focus, and this might lead you to needing to support the lens.. or not.. whatever works for you.
 
Large cinema 35mm zooms lens, especially with longer zoom ranges, do need support bars. You could need a bridge plate in order to balance the camera on the tripod.
 
Zachadoodle said:
Yes, but it'd be a bit strange if I was only talking about my camera. This is about any camera on a rig.
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Question: do you have any experience shooting with proper cinema cameras, or even with smaller bodies like RED Komodo or Canon C100/200/300 or C70, Blackmagic URSA, or even Z Cam?
 
Alex H. said:
Question: do you have any experience shooting with proper cinema cameras, or even with smaller bodies like RED Komodo or Canon C100/200/300 or C70, Blackmagic URSA, or even Z Cam?
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No sir, I have only used the T2i and my smartphone.
 
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Zachadoodle said:
No sir, I have only used the T2i and my smartphone.
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So, your only hands-on experience is building out your T2i (and maybe your phone).

It is far too easy to form opinions on things with which we have zero actual experience. It’s also easy to write something off as “overkill” or “unnecessary” to try and justify (internally) our own lack of experience, something of which I was guilty in my younger years. I think many of us were. (“That more expensive, more professional thing is overkill when this cheaper solution does just fine.”)

I guarantee, when the time comes that you start working with a much better camera body, your opinion on rod systems will change. Read back through this thread; lots of folks have listed the ways that rods are extremely helpful.

And if you broach a topic like this as a question (“Why or when would rod systems be necessary?”), you might actually get even more helpful guidance.
 
I'm honestly pleased to see that the trend of calling rods "rails" seems to have died down, at least judging by the posts here. Coming up in the industry without feeling any need to change the terminology that was in place, I get irked when the internet crowd muscles new terms in like a popularity contest. "Rods" is actually short for "iris rods", and I don't really know the reasoning behind that terminology--"focus rods" would have made more sense, since they were used to mount follow focus, and generally nothing utilizing rods interfaced with the iris on the lens.

Some esoterica is that Panavision's classic system utilized 5/8 rods, slightly larger in diameter than 15mm, and they were typically side-mounted in a vertical configuration. Accessories that went under the lenses like lens supports and follow focus were mounted on arms that turned 90 degrees to reach underneath the lens. Seems strange, until you realize that their swingaway studio mattebox was able to mount at its hinge point. While this system was in wide use with its film cameras, it has since been abandoned so their modern digital cameras use bottom mounted standard rods.

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15mm was always an 'odd' size.. not something you can really buy from metal stores, US or UK or EU

(I scored a bunch of 15mm OD medical stainless steel once.. but it is a little heavy!)

I guesssed that 15mm came from makers buying 'cheap' 5/8 rod (15.8mm) and shaving off the 0.8 to make for accurate sizing and qualty finish.
 
morgan_moore said:
15mm was always an 'odd' size.. not something you can really buy from metal stores, US or UK or EU

(I scored a bunch of 15mm OD medical stainless steel once.. but it is a little heavy!)

I guesssed that 15mm came from makers buying 'cheap' 5/8 rod (15.8mm) and shaving off the 0.8 to make for accurate sizing and qualty finish.
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From memory, the 15mm support rods first came from Arri, so being a metric country imperial sizes are unlikely to be a factor. The lightweight support rods were an accessory for the Arri 16SR film camera.
 
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