7D Shoulder Support

T

themusic

Active member
Hey Guys,

I've been shooting mostly hand held, and it's been more or less fine. When I'm using the 17-55 canon i.s., it looks pretty smooth, and when using the Nikons, I'm able to just tuck and hold.

That said, it would be 100x better with some kind of shoulder support. What do you use for ENG style shooting - meaning I need to zoom and focus so that one hand is on the lens at all times. Do you have suggestions?

Thanks!
 
I was looking for the same thing for my GH1 a while back, and couldn't really find anything. All the options had handles or rails to support a bunch of stuff I didn't need. What I did was take the middle bar out of a crutch, attach brackets to hold a quick release, put the pad from the crutch and more padding on the shoulder part, and added a 2.5 lb weight on the end to counterbalance. Works a lot better. So you might be best trying to make it yourself if you have the resources, otherwise you'll be paying a high price for stuff you don't really need. At least that was my interpretation.

There was one from a British company that looked good, but I was in a hurry, and something I can't remember the name of. VX-something? V something? I can't quite recall on that. But I'll come back here if I remember.
 
I'm guessing it could have been B. Hague's website, they sell a lot of camera supports - both their own and third party.
 
I have been looking at the Eyespy. If you have one, does it work well? What are the pros and cons?
 
That kind of setup requires a lot of stuff, including follow focus (which is less comfortable to me than direct lens contact) and putting enough down on the 'rig' that one could have just bought a real ENG camera. The video, that is. I really don't see it as realistic for most people.
 
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Cassius said:
That kind of setup requires a lot of stuff, including follow focus (which is less comfortable to me than direct lens contact) and putting enough down on the 'rig' that one could have just bought a real ENG camera. The video, that is. I really don't see it as realistic for most people.
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Agreed. I think in this case less is more.
 
It's hard to justify spending as much or more on gear than on the camera.

These companies don't seem to get that.
 
visugeek said:
It's hard to justify spending as much or more on gear than on the camera.

These companies don't seem to get that.
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Why not? A follow focus, mattebox or quality monitor will last you years after your camera is outdated.
 
TheDynamoDuo said:
Perhaps, but if it's proprietary gear thats specific to a certain camera then it's a slightly more dubious lasting appeal.
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Most of the Zacuto rigs are made with their existing parts. The only thing that really comes to mind would be the DSLR baseplate which could be a problem on other video cameras.
 
Made two versions tonight, one with horizontal handgrips and one tommy-gun style. After mounting the camera and playing with it a while I decided to stick with the tommy-gun style. Put foam on the sholder support and bicycle handgrips.

dual.jpg

gun.jpg
 
Matt_Zacuto.jpg
 
visugeek said:
It's hard to justify spending as much or more on gear than on the camera.

These companies don't seem to get that.
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These companies "get" that a certain segment of shooters are willing to pay for gear that doesn't break and has been well designed.

They also stand behind it 100%
 
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