do you guys use a slider on many production ?

I've tried more small portable sliders than I care to list, motorized sliders, and dollies on a track but what I love and use the most is the Dana Dolly. It's personal preference I'm sure, but motorized sliders that control both the slide and the pan make almost perfect moves and ease in and outs. While some may think of this as a good thing, to me the moves seem robotic and unnatural. The moves from the Dana Dolly with a heavy camera on it are also smooth but feel more organic to me. Less perfect but still silky smooth. Also on moves that are longer than 2 or 3 feet I typically find that I actually don't want the the speed to be constant but to smoothly change depending on what is being said, being shot etc. The Dana Dolly makes that easy to do. If you've never used a Dana Dolly I think it's worth a rental to check it out for yourself.
 
DP, lets see some pics.

Several people have mentioned systems with flywheels. That's a great point and one of the things I don't like about a lot of these systems: there is no resistance. And that is a total b**** when trying to do SLOW, smooth moves. In certain situations, you can shoot in slow-mo and make a faster move so it's smoother, but that doesn't work on interviews and other situations where you need the action in real-time.

I have several friends with Dana Dolly's(they're pretty much the standard in the tv world for ENG/feature crews) and I've never been a huge fan, but they did just get some bonus points and make me reconsider them: They have curved track for them, now. That really changes things. Now if they had a system to add drag/resistance like we can dial in on our heads, I'd be all over it.

It is amazing how many options we have now in the small, "affordable" slider/dolly world, now. Hell, probably just 10 years ago you'd still pretty much be using a "real" dolly if you wanted movement or nothing at all.
 
Carlos Morillo said:
I've tried more small portable sliders than I care to list, motorized sliders, and dollies on a track but what I love and use the most is the Dana Dolly. It's personal preference I'm sure, but motorized sliders that control both the slide and the pan make almost perfect moves and ease in and outs. While some may think of this as a good thing, to me the moves seem robotic and unnatural. The moves from the Dana Dolly with a heavy camera on it are also smooth but feel more organic to me. Less perfect but still silky smooth. Also on moves that are longer than 2 or 3 feet I typically find that I actually don't want the the speed to be constant but to smoothly change depending on what is being said, being shot etc. The Dana Dolly makes that easy to do. If you've never used a Dana Dolly I think it's worth a rental to check it out for yourself.
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I love the Dana, I just wish we didn't have to bring so much heavier, bulkier support gear. Used it last week on a multi-camera interview in a tiny living room, it was too big and made the shoot really inconvenient as we all had to walk back and forth underneath it as it blocked the whole room. Works great but not the right tool for every shoot. I shoot a lot of documentary stuff where we are in people's homes or workplaces and bigger gear like this is often challenging to fit into the places we need to fit into. But when you have room for it, it's great.
 
I'm not a professional, but I have two sliders. One a Shark, and the other the Kessler 3 axis second shooter. The Second Shooter, along with the One Man Crew, allow one person to actually do more work. I like the feel of the flywheel on the Shark opposed to a poster here who said he likes some resistance, not entirely sure what that means but the Shark is great for doing it by hand, no jitters, and harsh stops and starts. What's wrong with that, unless your find jitters and harsh moves somehow more natural and organic.

i love the Kessler it's great for product videos, interviews and music videos..... turn it on and let it do its thing, while you do something else.

Speaking of sliders...... I lost one of the little ball foots on the Shark. I contacted the guy I bought it from Camera Motion Research and they only sell the whole replacement leg. Anyone know where to buy just the ball foot for it?
 
Ok, I'll throw in on this. I purchased the original Kessler sliders with the belt drive and hand crank option. While I appreciated the slider with drive concept, this original model was hard to make smooth moves with. I investigated the Kessler electric drive system, which looked good, but was really expensive. So I explored alternatives and used a bunch of hardware from Servo-City which has some really great stuff. The end result performs great, smooth variable speed movement with a programmable and repeatable routine along with manual control. Couple that with remote camera control, and it really works well for me. See the link for some photos. I carry the complete kit in a tripod clamshell and it pretty much goes everywhere with me as my first camera motion option as my other options are large and take much more time to setup.

G

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...Slider&p=1986666728&highlight=#post1986666728
 
Run&Gun said:
That's a great point and one of the things I don't like about a lot of these systems: there is no resistance. And that is a total b**** when trying to do SLOW, smooth moves. In certain situations, you can shoot in slow-mo and make a faster move so it's smoother, but that doesn't work on interviews and other situations where you need the action in real-time.
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True. I find dragging a thumb or thumbnail on the rails really helps with sticking the landing at the end of a long move. But I'd far rather have a virtually friction-less smooth roll like you get on the Dana rather than the grabby, bumpy mechanical slider moves any day.
 
captslomo said:
True. I find dragging a thumb or thumbnail on the rails really helps with sticking the landing at the end of a long move. But I'd far rather have a virtually friction-less smooth roll like you get on the Dana rather than the grabby, bumpy mechanical slider moves any day.
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I guess Im missing something. I've never had a bumpy mechanical slider before so Im not sure what people mean by that. Are you guys saying you don't like the sliders with flywheels?
 
Michael Thames said:
If I understand your set up its not a 3 axis slider, and programable? Just moves from side to side?
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Michael,

If your comment is about my rig, then no, at this time it is just a slider. However, the controller can handle four channels simultaneously so could be expanded with additional hardware.

For those that have experienced bad slider movement, my slider can go very very slow, and the stop and start are excellent.
 
Just a side point I forgot to mention.

I use basically a rolling spider and dolly.. very small and light.

One thing about that vs a slider is that to go from dolly to sticks you just plonk the sticks onto the spider.

With a slider one has to remove the head add the slider, replace the head.. it take far longer so..

If you wanna be fast in a floor environment a small dolly is faster
If you wanna be really fast you can forget the dolly
You never get caught with your pants down.. aka a half built camera system just when the md makes himself available for 5 minutes.

S
 
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