Kessler Second Shooter Bundle

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Ken1212

Well-known member
I bought on the first batch. I have both the shuttle pod mini and pocket dolly. All of them are flawless. The Shuttle Pod Mini is very expandable. Look for some awesome upgrades towards NAB time for it. The Second Shooter is simply amazing. They keep updating the firmware with new features and they are top notch with customer support. From what I understand, there are a lot of cool upgrade options that will be available in the future for the Second Shooter. Its a great platform to shoot live or time-lapse
 
I have read some great reviews but some have complained about motor noise. I do plan to use it for interviews in small rooms, how bad is motor noise, since I am in no rush do you think it's best to wait for NAB, do they usually have a sale around that time or other incentives?
 
The motor noise isn't that bad unless you are trying to run it at full speed. That is really fast motion for video. Running a nice normal panning speeds, its hardly noticeable. I suppose if you have a mic mounted to the camera and were running it fast, you could probably pick it up in the mic. With a mic off to the side or boomed and running at a "cinematic speed", it wouldn't be picked up at all. I regularly run mine on an 8' track panning back and forth during interviews just to give some motion shots to cut to. Again, there is noise, but not when used at a normal video pan speed.
 
most of the interview shots will be done at slow speed, it would be great when you do a shoot with it, if you can record a short clip with audio of slow and fast speed and upload it to get an idea about noise.
 
I am really not sure which way to go, between the second shooter and the revolution one head with the oracle, which do you think is going to do more for me. I want to be able to use them on a jib and a shuttle pod. The revolution two 3 axis setup is out of my budget.
 
Those 2 are not the same in that use. To use on a jib, the Revolution Head would be the way. The Second Shooter is a programmed move and not really manual.
 
It is, but its analog. The Second Shooter is digital. The SS doesn't have a joystick control at this time.
 
This thread has been dead, but I'll revive it as someone who has bought a Second Shooter.

The Second Shooter is a very useful piece of kit, but it's not suited for all tasks. Firstly, don't expect this unit to perform whip pans, tilts, or slides. And it's really for lighter camera rigs - the tilt axis is limited to a 10 pound payload, although notably the pan and slide motors have higher ratings. Also, there is not currently a joystick option, so the unit is best utilized for programatic moves, rather than freestyle moves on the fly.
When audio matters and microphones will be placed near the motors, you'll want to limit yourself to 50% or slower speed. Just assume the the moves with audio need to be slow. Kessler has some demo clips you can watch and listen to judge for yourself, and several website offer the unit for rent if that's not good enough to make a purchase decision.

The unit can be capably used to operate a second camera for interviews, but I'd not be confident about leaving it unmanned - cable management could be an issue. Then again, I'm not actually using mine with a Kessler slider - I've modified my unit to work with the Matthews DC Slider, which is a counter balanced slider for tilted and vertical moves. So the cable management might be better on a 100% Kessler system.

Timelapse - powerful 3 axis moves are a breeze. Keep in mind that some shots you dream up might also require focus, aperture, and shutter angle changes that won't be possible on a single Second Shooter system, although some may be possible with geared lenses, some of the CineDrive motors and a second Second Shooter control box. But the limits on keyframes can still leave some moves out of this system's capabilities.

None of the above is meant as a slam - the system provides great functionality for the price. If you're doing a DSLR timelapse, the control box also acts as the intervolameter, and has plenty of fine tuning available to set frequency of frames during the move.

And finally - this system is capable of simple match move tasks. You can repeat a move multiple times, and blend the images together to create special effects shots. It does work for this, but there are some caveats. The largest is that you can't save moves when the unit turns off. Production wise this means you have to make sure you can perform all the recording at once, or else take detailed keyframe measurements on set. Furthermore, you can't export position or keyframe data. So don't expect to dump keyframe data into compositing software, this is an entry level system and those advanced features aren't offered.

One more consideration for match move - since there is no genlock, your timing between passes will be off by as much as half a frame - usually that means 1/60th or 1/48th of a second. For slower moves this isn't necessarily critical, but it is a consideration.

Also, external triggering isn't really available at the time being.
 
Hi james,
Thanks for the info - there's not alot of detailed info out there on the Second Shooter, this is really useful
 
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