GH2 Gh2 w/ canon fd 24mm & flycam fail!!!!!

J

Jamal Jonesy

Active member
Alright so here's a thought; I'm sick and tired of trying to balance my GH2 w/ Canon FD 24mm on my SECOND flycam nano (sold the first one out of frustration). Now I got jealous of the explosion of good resulting footage from vimeo users that I psyched myself into buying ANOTHER one. FAIL! This thing is almost impossible to set up; its been 3 weeks now and I have tried every configuration, watched EVERY tutorial video out there,tried every combination of weights, positions of the camera on the sled, etc. I literally almost killed myself trying to get this piece of s@$% to work!

Sorry to all those doing fine with this thing, but it just doesn't like me. Does any one have any suggestions for a REAL DSLR stabilizer for running-and gunning that not going to rape my wallet?! The Wondlan Ares looks good, so does the blackbird. Anything that takes as long to balance as the Flycam Nano is out of the question. I actually have a number of client-based project lined up for the summer, so getting a good stabilizer is a priority.

Any suggestion much appreciated!
 
The flycam just can't achieve perfect balance. My drop test are disaterous at every position of the bottom post. The GH2 with my Canon lens is exactly .80 kg, so I put 4 weights on each side. It will spin slowly when I walk around, and every drop test is disasterous, with the flycam+ gh2 falling violently and swaying side to side. I tried making it more bottom heavy, and placing the camera as far back on the top sled as possible. No Luck.
 
i find that once balanced correctly, you still have to learn how to actually use it. it is an artform in itself to run around with any steadycam setup so half of it is still learning how to operate it properly. bottom heavy makes it sway more and sliding the cam all the way back unless that is where its centre of gravity is, isnt gonna help either. does this flycam have x and z axis or just z axis adjustments? the more expensive steadycam's will have the x and z adjustments making it more fine tuned especially if you want to flip out the lcd.
 
Rig Weight enhances stablility. GH2 is light, canon 24mm is light. Have you tried a bigger lens? Or putting something on the camera, attached to the shoe to make the rig heavier.
I don't have a flycam, I have a blackbird. While I have little trouble flying pretty much perfectly with a bigger lens, or with my pan 150- with the 20mm pancake, I get a lot of side to side sway.
Blackbird actually suggests making the top heavier, I put a zoom h4n on the shoe mount. This enabled me to put more weight below.You might want to try that.

This helped me but there is lot of finesse involved. I'm sticking with the blackbird. it took 5-10 hours to learn it.
I can balance any rig in 5 minutes now. But getting the 20mm flying as clean as I want takes work.
 
Weight is only relative to how resistance free your gymbal is. I have no problems balancing a GoPro on a tiny 3way ball bearing rig.

I would be examining your Gymbal for irregularities, i'll bet you have a sticky one.

The other problem i have seen with the Flycam Nano, is where the forked handle attaches to the two points of the housing around the large bearing, the centers are misaligned when being manufactured. This is difficult pick up, but it affects Dynamic balance big time (rig will spin as you walk or fall over when you face the camera backward but be ok when facing away from you)

R
 
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Perhaps a different lens like the pancake? I can balance my GH2 with lighter lenses easier. The adaptor to use other lenses adds length and makes it harder to balance I have found
 
I really love the glidecam HD series. Relatively inexpensive and easy to fly and adjust to a variety of different cameras and you can mount a ton of things on it and modify it to take the cable through the tube for bottom monitoring. I just wanted something that worked and did it quickly. I think that now I'm able to balance and setup my glidecam HD4000 in less than 10 minutes and it really floats super well....
 
This is the problem i was talking about above, watch the video the guy has exactly the same problem as you.

 
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