Dana Dolly; tripod vs stand

I have an expensive dolly and slider both sitting in storage most of the time. I rarely take them out- only if specifically requested, now. But one thing the Dana dolly can do that neither one of them can, and I don't think I've seen anyone mention on here, yet, is work on curved track.
 
puredrifting said:
Fair enough, everyone's different. I just wrote that because I hardly ever use a Dana or even my sliders anymore, I used a rented Dana once last year on a YouTube RED shoot and that was it. If I had it to do over, I wouldn't have bought my Rhino setup, it's collecting dust.
Click to expand...

Do you shoot solo? If so id forget sliders in reality.

To me sliders only come into the frame when Im working with my assistant. I think flimsy sliders are just, well you may not deliver what the director needs, with dana size (mine is 2.4M) two hefty sets of legs and scaff bars you need two to set up and operate well.

As for delivering what the director needs, I feel that apple boxes only offer specific heights, with my two bowl tripods I can offer from floor scraping if the camera is underslung through to about 1.5m in infinite increments (and can go higher on my big matthews stands if required, but only on flattish floors) - I can also offer shots on extreme terrain.

I did a shot recently that also had the rails on a tilt so that we could pull back from an ipad screen to the user. The bowls only offer maybe 20 degrees of tilt though..

S
 
morgan_moore said:
Do you shoot solo? If so id forget sliders in reality.

To me sliders only come into the frame when Im working with my assistant. I think flimsy sliders are just, well you may not deliver what the director needs, with dana size (mine is 2.4M) two hefty sets of legs and scaff bars you need two to set up and operate well.

As for delivering what the director needs, I feel that apple boxes only offer specific heights, with my two bowl tripods I can offer from floor scraping if the camera is underslung through to about 1.5m in infinite increments (and can go higher on my big matthews stands if required, but only on flattish floors) - I can also offer shots on extreme terrain.

I did a shot recently that also had the rails on a tilt so that we could pull back from an ipad screen to the user. The bowls only offer maybe 20 degrees of tilt though..

S
Click to expand...

Edit- I totally missed the link you posted, I dig that setup. I might rip off your design.
 
Last edited:
I have the Kessler Shuttle Dolly which is Kessler's version of the Dana Dolly. It is a bit more versatile, especially since I already had the wheels for their K-Flex track system. I have a couple of Manfrotto 536 stands which are fantastic. 100mm. They go really low, really high, and take a surprising amount of weight. For quick setup, though, I bought some Matthews slider stands. For me, the usefulness of a slider depends on how quickly I can set it up. The slider stands take out all of the extra adjustment and attachment issues of using bowl based tripods and they hit all of the needed heights for a normal shoot. The slider stands also fit in the Pelican 1650 case that I use to transport the Shuttle Dolly. The slider stands are not as stable as the camera tripods, but I haven't actually noticed any extra wobble for normal focal lengths.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top