Camera Crane Limits, What tolerances will you accept?

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

Hi Fellas, I am currently working on a camera crane prototype. - roughly an 8 foot boom. - Without going into too much detail about the design I need to explain my question to you guys.

Due to the mechanics of the crane, it has only 1 drawback and i need to know if this will make it or break it for potential clients.

When the crane is mounted on the tripod, and you have it sitting parallel with the ground - the tripod head is level, the camera is level. All very simple.

The one drawback is, When you start lifting the crane and it reaches max height at around 75-80 degrees perpendicular to the ground obviously not straight up,

The camera will not be sitting perfectly level but it will be pointing 4 degrees upwards. The opposite happens when the camera is lowered to the ground - if you were on a high enough tripod (7 feet) the camera would be pointing downwards by 4 degrees.

This motion is barely visible in my 3d model But it should be taken into account. The maximum movement of the crane allows 8 degrees of camera platform movement from top of the movement range to the bottom.

To give you some context of this crane and its features,

10foot total length
7lbs total weight
1 piece
not telescoping
unpacks in 30seconds
packs down into a space 3in wide by 8in tall and 34inches long
ZERO disassembly

price point around $2000

I cannot provide pictures unfortunately.

Thanks users

 

[nothing]

Said tilt would wreak havoc with the balance on most remote heads, and would make using the crane without a remote head difficult at best.

Remember that not all crane moves are shot in the direction of the boom - so for many shots the problem would manifest itself as a dutch angle, rather than the simple tilt up or down that you seem to be prepared to deal with.

This issue would prevent me from choosing to use this crane.

 

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

Perfect, exact answer I needed. I neglected to think about the dutch angle as would result from use with a remote head. - redesign is in the works.

 

[nothing]

Glad to hear it wasn't a showstopper for you