Grug
Veteran
Alrighty, well after some painful delays that had me awkwardly jury-rigging the camera for my first few shoots with it, my Element Technica components have finally arrived, and I’ve paired them with some of my infinitely customisable Berkey Systems components to create what I think, is a very functional setup for the F5.
The inspiration for the setup came from the Arri Amira. From the moment I laid eyes on the Amira’s dovetailing shoulder-pad setup a lightbulb went off inside, and I knew that was the handheld solution I’d been looking for. With lightweight modern S35mm cameras, you always tend to end up with so much weight up front, that balancing the camera properly on your shoulder is a real struggle - and when the centre of gravity isn’t directly over your shoulder, all of the extra weight of the camera falls on your arms, which tire out much quicker than your shoulders and back ever will.
So this began my hunt for a dovetailing system that I could incorporate on to my F5. Arri have a nice sliding shoulder pad setup, but it revolves around the VCT broadcast plate, and that didn’t suit my needs. Then Zacuto announced their sliding shoulder pad baseplate, and that looked great, but it wasn’t available yet, and was still based around the VCT standard.
This led me back to Element Technica’s Micron Bridgeplate setup. I’d been utterly delighted with ET’s body armour modification for the F3, so I had plenty of faith in their gear, and I particularly liked the way the ET side panel not only protects the ridiculous viewfinder cable on the camera, but also creates a solid edge from the XLR inputs upwards (this removes an outcrop on the camera that could easily snag on things) you can see the way it fits here:
By drilling out 1/4”-20 holes on Berkey Systems rod holder I was able to mount it to the top plate, which allows me to use my existing system of 15mm rods to provide extremely rapid, extremely rigid, and extremely adjustable mounting for a monitor (or other accessories) to the camera.
Moving to the Micron standard requires you basically start afresh with your mounting plates, but if you don’t need full on dovetail plates, you can instead work with the delightfully streamlined “Micron Hybrid Adapter”, this sucker here:
Mount these on to whatever you like (tripod plates, steadicams, planks of wood) and you’re up and running with a nice compact dovetail that the camera can slide straight on to.
Now Element Technica have a shoulder pad that mounts directly behind the Micron Bridgeplate in a nice streamlined manner, however this still puts the camera’s centre of gravity too far forward with most lens/mattebox combinations, so the beauty of the Micron setup, is that I’ve been able to attach a second Micron Hybrid Adapter to a Berkey Systems shoulder pad I already had:
And this allows the shoulder pad to slide as far forward or backwards as you need to balance the camera perfectly. And it only takes seconds to slide the camera off your tripod head and slide the shoulder pad in.
You can jury-rig just about any shoulder pad to the Hybrid Adapter Plate, so it’s a very accessible way to get a fantastic level of functionality to your F5(5). I’d highly recommend it.
The inspiration for the setup came from the Arri Amira. From the moment I laid eyes on the Amira’s dovetailing shoulder-pad setup a lightbulb went off inside, and I knew that was the handheld solution I’d been looking for. With lightweight modern S35mm cameras, you always tend to end up with so much weight up front, that balancing the camera properly on your shoulder is a real struggle - and when the centre of gravity isn’t directly over your shoulder, all of the extra weight of the camera falls on your arms, which tire out much quicker than your shoulders and back ever will.
So this began my hunt for a dovetailing system that I could incorporate on to my F5. Arri have a nice sliding shoulder pad setup, but it revolves around the VCT broadcast plate, and that didn’t suit my needs. Then Zacuto announced their sliding shoulder pad baseplate, and that looked great, but it wasn’t available yet, and was still based around the VCT standard.
This led me back to Element Technica’s Micron Bridgeplate setup. I’d been utterly delighted with ET’s body armour modification for the F3, so I had plenty of faith in their gear, and I particularly liked the way the ET side panel not only protects the ridiculous viewfinder cable on the camera, but also creates a solid edge from the XLR inputs upwards (this removes an outcrop on the camera that could easily snag on things) you can see the way it fits here:
By drilling out 1/4”-20 holes on Berkey Systems rod holder I was able to mount it to the top plate, which allows me to use my existing system of 15mm rods to provide extremely rapid, extremely rigid, and extremely adjustable mounting for a monitor (or other accessories) to the camera.
Moving to the Micron standard requires you basically start afresh with your mounting plates, but if you don’t need full on dovetail plates, you can instead work with the delightfully streamlined “Micron Hybrid Adapter”, this sucker here:
Mount these on to whatever you like (tripod plates, steadicams, planks of wood) and you’re up and running with a nice compact dovetail that the camera can slide straight on to.
Now Element Technica have a shoulder pad that mounts directly behind the Micron Bridgeplate in a nice streamlined manner, however this still puts the camera’s centre of gravity too far forward with most lens/mattebox combinations, so the beauty of the Micron setup, is that I’ve been able to attach a second Micron Hybrid Adapter to a Berkey Systems shoulder pad I already had:
And this allows the shoulder pad to slide as far forward or backwards as you need to balance the camera perfectly. And it only takes seconds to slide the camera off your tripod head and slide the shoulder pad in.
You can jury-rig just about any shoulder pad to the Hybrid Adapter Plate, so it’s a very accessible way to get a fantastic level of functionality to your F5(5). I’d highly recommend it.
