Flycam Pro 6000 is a good choooice ?

i have a Glidecam 2000 with the Smooth Shooter vest that was bought for a DVX100a. all together i think i paid almost $1,800 US. the one you posted a link to looks awfully tempting. i cant believe they can sell stuff as cheap as they do. i have looked at the Steadicam Pilot but $4,000?...!!! come on!

overall the Snooth Shooter vest is nice and the Glidecam 2000 gets the job done but i have some gripes about the Glidecam stabalizer.

the biggest is is the fact that there is no *quick adjust* knobs to tweak once you get the camera mounted. usually there is a very *fine* adjustment needed after you think you have it perfect. with the Glidecam mounted on the vest its very hard to do this. there is a whooping **8** finger screws you have to deal with. if you take the Glidecam off then...you have to worry about the vest arm that is swinging all over the place wanting to hit the camera. most of the other brands have these quick adjust knobs.

another thing is the Smooth Shooter Vest only has *one* spring arm. most of the other vests on the market now have *two*. this within itself isnt a real problem but if i am going to have to buy a new rig for the much heavier EX-1 i am thinking along the lines that you are with the Cinecity.

i cant see anything about the cinecity rig that looks bad. the model you linked to is for much heavier cameras though, so im not even sure the EX-1 would be a good fit.

i thought the demo footage on that link was very unimpressive. the church shots looked like they were almost handheld. its funny becuase the guy speaking was stressing how important it is to practice a lot...i concluded that he needs to follow his own advice.

the only thing that bothered me about the cinecity rig was all of the videos link showed serious...***rocking back and forth***. it seems ***all*** of these types/brand of units do this until you get to the really serious hollywood pro stuff. i certainly dont know a hoot about the real pro stuff but they can be as steady as a rock whether coming to a complete stop with no wobble or just keeping the horizons parrell. i see **rocking** in all of the cheaper units...glidecam, merlin, pilot..etc. even though all the cheap units seem to do it i still saw more rocking than i usually see so im thinking/hoping it was more the lack of competence of the operator than the unit itself.

it would be helpful to hear from someone here that has used one of these things. at minimum i will need to bump up to the Glidecam 4000 since my vest is not the problem. i am tempted to give this whole cinecity rig a shot though.

thanks
david
www.davidprobst.com
 
Last edited:
Thought I'd give this thread a BUMP.
Been contemplating on getting the the Flycam 600o for a while now and haven't been able to find too many good demo video showing it off.
And what I can find is mostly people who have no experience using the rig since the price is attracting "newbs" anyway. So you end up seeing a lot of footage with a whole bunch of sway.
I'm VERY curious to see what footage would look like if someone who has a good amount of experience on a pro Steadicam tried using the Flycam 6000.
 
broken link. I did look this up and coming from cinecity I'm sure it is a rip-off of another company's design. Does not mean it is a bad product but most of their stuff looks great and works pretty well for a little while and then begins to fall apart. I have bought a few small things from them and they are all broken now. The build quality is simply not up to the standards of getting banged around in the field. I would go glidecam or http://www.indicam.com/ for starters. just my 2
 
Last edited:
well i guess i need to somewhat retract some of my statements that i made from many months ago about the Pilot being overpriced.

i made a serious attempt for a couple of weeks attempting to buy the Flycam 6000 & vest from thecinecity but could never quite get the deal executed. i could never get any of their web "add to cart" scenarios to work. they kept sending me alternative links but always got an error messages. i called them a few times wanting to just order over the phone but they didnt want to do that and plus communicating was barely passable with the language barrier. to make a long story short...i just gave up and bought the Steadicam Pilot.

interestingly in this last month i read quite a bit on this forum about people having reocurring problems on the Flycam with the simplest things breaking. i now consider it to be a blessing in disguise that i never could get the thing ordered. just to be clear though...i found the people at thecinecity to be nice and in fairness they were trying to make it happen (sort of) but after awhile i tired of their inflexibility and it just seemed like a mistake waiting to happen.

coming from the Glidecam 2000 and Smooth Shooter vest (read my complaints about this type of system *ABOVE*) and going to the Pilot has been a serious bump upwards and creatively IMO.

originally i thought the Pilot was quite a bit overpriced but after getting it and using it i have to say that you get what you pay for.

the Pilot is so *easy* to get balanced compard to the nonsense on the Glidcam. on the Pilot the left to right and the back to front adjustment knobs make it a *absolute breeze* to tweak once you mount the camera. take your camera off and then put it back on and it all in the same place and ready to go. cant do this with the glidecam in its stock configuration.

on the Pilot i am using the 10 AA's and get about 2.5-3 hours of use out of a good set of rechargables. the monitor on the Pilot is acutally very good being that it will get very bright. no problem outside in the bright sun. i wouldnt use it for critical judging exposure or color though but nonetheless it has an appealing image to look at.

the range of movement up and down vs the smoothshooter is significant. i like how you can simply adjust the tension on the pilot just by twistiing one or both of the *knobs* without having to take off the rig. on the smoothshooter you have to pull out the long allen wrench which gets a bit combersome and akward with the rig on. i have always hated that the Glidecam was slow to get set up once you got your camera mounted....and tweaking/leveling it is a royal pain. it is cheap though so maybe you do get what you pay for.

on the Pilot you have the ability to really extend the center pole and place the gimbal where you want to you can get exceptionally high shots...almost like a small boom or crane although not as effective as the real thing but nonetheless useful at times.

the Pilot itself is tooled to a much more *premium* standard over the glidcam as well plus a very nice case included.

the only thing is...i think the Smooth Shooter Vest (not arm) is more robust *and structured* than the Pilot Vest. way to much velcro on the Pilot vest. true as Steadicam says...one size fits all but its really a bit ridiculous IMO. once you figure out all of the velcro *mess* the vest is ok and functional. i will probably have my SmoothShooter vest drilled with threaded holes to be able to adapt my Pilot arm to the SmoothShooter vest tough.

IMO... i think "thecinecity" scenario is a big risk. broken parts waiting to happen then good luck getting parts in a snap. i am 100% happy i ended up getting the Pilot. it might be the overall best investment i have made in any of my video gear.

good luck!
david
www.davidprobst.com

p.s. TO BE FAIR...ITS WORTH NOTING... as far as durability and sturdiness...the Glidecam and Smooth Shooter has served me well for the time that i have used it...no issues of quality control whatsoever.
 
Last edited:
Jus10m said:
I'm VERY curious to see what footage would look like if someone who has a good amount of experience on a pro Steadicam tried using the Flycam 6000.
Click to expand...

I tried a system a friend bought against my advice. It is near impossible to produce acceptable images (at least by my standards), there are major design flaws in the rig design.
 
David,
I have to agree; it sounds like you dodged a bullet and Emre seems to confirm it.
Anyhow, I really appreciate you taking the time to critique the Pilot system. I currently have the Pilot Arm/Vest with the Merlin and have been considering the sled. The sled seems like it might be more stable and your comments seem to support that somewhat. Also, would agree on the velcro---absolutely hate the stuff. Seems like clips would be better. Overall, the adjustable knobs on the arm and sled for tweaking on the fly seem like a must have. Hated spending the money initially but that arm was worth it.
 
gco said:
David,
I have to agree; it sounds like you dodged a bullet and Emre seems to confirm it.
Anyhow, I really appreciate you taking the time to critique the Pilot system. I currently have the Pilot Arm/Vest with the Merlin and have been considering the sled. The sled seems like it might be more stable and your comments seem to support that somewhat. Also, would agree on the velcro---absolutely hate the stuff. Seems like clips would be better. Overall, the adjustable knobs on the arm and sled for tweaking on the fly seem like a must have. Hated spending the money initially but that arm was worth it.
Click to expand...
hi gco,

yes, the adjustable knobs for tweaking on the fly IS A MUST.

not only the speedy convience but if you decide that you want to pitch the whole rig "downwards or upwards" its just too easy! when you want it back...a few simple twists and 1-2-3 your done! it pains me to think of all the times i would have *KILLED* to have a "custom" angle on the Glidecam but just couldnt justify the time it would take to get it there plus the brutal pain it would take to get it back to normal....F*CK! sooooooo FRUSTRATING!!!


what i had done with my glidecam and still with the Pilot (somewhat) is...i use the EX1 "eyepiece" viewer to give me a MODEST but instant degree or two up or down by aiming it either up or back in its horizontal position (shifting weight ontop of platform). granite i loose a couple of seconds of footage while i reach up and adjust it but many times i can live with that being that it will give me "just enough" more degrees of tilt that i can just keep going uninterupted with my shot. some times i will use my Pilot with a pretty serious angle pitch it subject will be consistantly "low". this way the default is angled an i dont have to finesse a constant angle shot by forcing the angle with my hand on the pole...especially if i am at a snails pace speed or almost stopped. most adjustments are speedy, friendly and convienent!!!

the possibilities with the Pilot seem vast to me.

the ***piece of mind*** and ***confidence***on a shoot is *alone * worth the extra money for the Pilot....especially compared to the Glidecam.

emre, after reading your scary testimonial for the Flycam i can see that i made the better move. thanks for your quick view into reality.

good luck,
david
www.davidprobst.com
 
Last edited:
My comment on the FLYcam from India..

its crap.. I mean gimbal seems good.. but then the arm sucks, the bottom of the sled BROKE ON ME DURING A SHOOT and because of that I LOST THE CLIENT!! What CRAP!

I got myself the Glidecam V-16 and that is definitely 200% better.. I agree about the adjustment knobs but the arm and the sturdiness is great!

Im upgrading again so now the V-16 that served me well is getting sold.. to someone who will have their fun with the rig.
 
Got the 6000.
Merlin was no option since my full rig is over 18 pounds.
The Flycam does that without problems.
It also got all the adjustment knobs, bells and whistles for quick static and dynamic balancing .
After I found out what I´m doing, it takes me less than 10 minutes now.

On the other hand, I have to scond what CLD said.
The quality should be better. I had a broken bolt a the arm, that almost crushed my HVX in the first 5 seconds I used the system.

Repaced all bolts and nuts, redone the vest, cause I was to fat for it, revamped and cabled the whole thing and now it´s fine.

I think you can not use it out of the box, but if you a DIY guy, think of it as a start with most of the parts there.

Even with some work and extra parts the price is good if you can not afford anything else.
If you got a bigger budget it might be wise to get a used real Steadicam.

Frank
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top