Pegasus II mini DV seadicam + GH1

Thanks a lot for doing all this! The footage is looking better. Sway wise, it's still not great (but the price sure is). It does have the promise to be quite good after a lot of tweaking, though.

I'm still weighing my options. The Pegasus II still destroys any of my home made attempts. Thanks again.
 
I have not used the Hague system and the folks at Wondlan say they have used it and have told me that the Pegasus II is much better. Of course they are trying to push for their product line. :)

Yes, sway wise we need to resolve the GH1 because it's size and quality is very good for the price.

I've spent a long time trying to figure out what are the challenges with the GH1 on the Pegasus II and I think part of it is due to the fact that the Pegasus II is really designed for mini-dv cameras where the weight of the camera is pretty much at the center. The stock lens makes the GH1 pretty top heavy and the center of gravity definitely shifts so that the required weight for the unit is much more than the actual 1:3 ratio that the product line recommends in the instructions.

What I have done in the mean time is I placed a manfrotto quick release plate on top of the existing Pegasus Plate so that I can get a little better control of the cameras placement and do quick adjustments and then I wedged a chopstick at the back of the quick release plate so that I have the ability to control my shot a bit more with my free hand. It definitely gives you more control over the shot and is much better than touching the camera which gives tons of camera shake.
 
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I have the Hague, and I believe it needs to be weighted down some more for the GH1 with its kit lens. I'm looking at gmoe's videos and my experience with the Hague MMC is only slightly worse than the Peagsus. Of course he has had less time than I did with the Hague, so...
 
gmoe said:
... the Pegasus II is really designed for mini-dv cameras where the weight of the camera is pretty much at the center.

Gmoe, The weight of the 14-140mm kit lens on the GH1 does put camera's center of gravity way in front of the camera body's tripod mount screw. Question: the Pegasus video shows a long slot in their mounting plate, does that not allow you to move the camera forward and back on the top of the stabilizer?
Click to expand...
 
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It's not just that; the grip of the camera (where the battery resides) pretty much shifts the CG to the right. The base of the camera is quite large, so there's less movement needed before the camera starts tipping over.
 
Okay, I got much better results and did the skater shoot over today. There was still sway here and there which I think is just inevitable with this system especially outdoors with wind and all.

But just for kicks I tried to track the skaters knowing that there would be sway in the shot but it was much better controlled and there was a little sway but some takes were not bad. Definitely for that super smooth fluid motion, get a steadicam but I think these little units have a lot of promising potential.

I've already sent my notes and concerns to Frederic Cheung in Hong Kong who sells the Wondlan products and he says he has communicated with them and is hopeful that they can make a version that would be more specifically tuned to the GH1 and other DSLRs like it.

Have one more shoot tomorrow in doors so now that I've gotten a pretty good handle on using the Pegasus we'll see if there is enough of a difference with better weights and practice.
 
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My Pegasus II arrived this morning by airmail from China. And I got it set up and balanced in about hour and a half, excluding one trip I made to the hardware store to get a couple of washers. Here's my setup recipe:

1) The GH1 with the 14-140mm kit lens is lens heavy, so I mounted the Pegasus mounting plate to the GH1 as far toward the rear as the plate would allow (see picture below).

1250573678.jpg


2) I placed a 1 1/2" diameter stainless steel fender washer and a similar rubber washer (see above) between the GH1 and the mounting plate. The lens was touching the plate and the washers provided the needed clearance.

3) I then added 175 grams of weights. I used one each of the 100g + 50g + 25g weights.

4) I then flipped the LCD screen out to the side and trimmed the camera by loosening the swing clamp and turning the gear wheel to the following settings on the mounting plate:
Longitudinal +1.25
Lateral -.1

1250574936.jpg


The above setup past both the "arm thrust test" where I thrust my arm back and forth and produced very little or no rocking motion in the camera and stabilizer. It also passed the "drop test". When I pulled the stabilizer weights to the side and released them, they slowly fell back in place, indicating the desired amount of slight bottom heaviness.

So far I am very pleased with the ease of setup and adjustment. I leave early tomorrow morning for a week long trip. I'll check the thread when I get back.
 
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jpygmy: The balance of forces is easier when the camera has a smaller footprint. The CG of the system is kept closer to the centre axis as the steadicam tilts.

That said, if it passes them arm thrust test, I'm impressed. Might be worth looking into. Where's a good place to get this? ebay? If so, which ebay seller is the "right" one?
 
Hey jpymy, Sweet! I like the washer idea yes clearance is definitely much better. I'll be going to Home Depot to do that as well.

Interesting you are using only 175grams of weight. It looks like one (100g, 50g, 25g).

I think when I tried that it was a little light for me. I'm using 275g (2x1 100g, 50g, 25g) which is a little closer to the 1:3 weight ratio that was recommended by Wondlan.

Again one reason that I had trouble with the setup in the beginning was I initially used the larger 250gram weight-- I thought dumbly and used the largest one thinking I would use less small ones. The small similarly sized weights work much better in counterbalancing. Don't use the biggie!

Also, after many hours of figuring out what the hell I was doing wrong, I realized what also contributed to the problem is that I have the Variable ND filter which is also attached to a threaded hood and that little bit of extra weight from the hood made things that much more front heavy to throw the balance off. I figured out a better way to do it now though.

jpygmy, I'm definitely glad you had an easier time than I did. :)

I hopefully should be posting a clip later tonight that I was surprised by.

Like I said, when we did a few test shoots with the skater footage in the beginning it really looked horrible it was like sway city.

But I was pretty determined to bench test the Pegasus and see how far we can push it. So just like exercising I've been using it for like an hour a day, literally it's like the new exercise work out tool for filmmakers.

Because we only had one skateboard this time, I just had to run along side or behind and I was pretty surprised to see how steady it was. I mean I was literally running. Not like sprinting but keeping up along side and trying to keep that unit as rock steady as possible.

It's not perfect but definitely put a smile on my face to know that this little unit has a lot of potential and by working out the Pegasus so to speak it is becoming easier to shoot with more of an extension of your body, just as like the big boys do it.

Now, the focus however is to be desired, I guess that's the dilemma with using autofocus but I guess there's no way around in this case when the subject can be moving anywhere. Maybe I should have set the face recognition feature to help track it better..

Now, If only we can get both autofocus tracking and steadicam stabilization working together...

I got to teach a class today but will post either on a break or later tonight.
 
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What I'm doing is to use a remote to force the camera to AF when needed.

Thanks for the link, jpygmy. I'll check it out.
 
Hi Gmoe, I'm headed out the door in half an hour so just a quick reply - when I tried one more 25g weight (i.e. 200g total) the stabilizer started to pendulum in the trust test a little bit.

Yslee, it appears that all of the steadicam type stabilizers are much, much to delicately balanced to man handle the focus ring. For that we need to go to a shoulder mount or other type of stabilization system. AF or remote sounds like the way to go.
 
Gmoe, re your weight ratio, the crane starts out with about ~150g permanently fixed to the end. Perhaps that weight is included in the ratio.
 
Hey jpygmy,

Ahh, yes that is true!! Hmm. So if we include the 150 grams that's permanently fixed that will make your total weight 325g.

And in my config. the total weight would be 425g.

I hope to take a few shots of the camera rig set up just as you did. My camera is a little more centered so that the plate is closer to zero. I found that having a little more weight though heavier allowed for the camera head to not sway as much.

I was swamped with other work yesterday so I didn't have a chance to post footy but did some final tests with clean results. Overall, I'd say that with this system it's not going to be 100% steady shots. I did another dance shoot with a contemporary dancer / choreographer whose movements were steady and slower and I'd say from all the practice I got that it was close to 75% steady tracking footage and that other 25% the camera bounced or swayed. Overall, it's a good system with potential for improvements to work even better and a lot of fun to use when you get the hang of it. If you are careful and more reserved you'll get some great footage. If you are like me and you want to see how far you can push it you'll get a little bounce now and then.

Now, I'm kinda concerned with the AF of the camera and how best to set it up so that you can have the AF successfully track your subject. In my last few tests, the AF was not as successful.

For other users if you can provide any optimum GH1 settings for "steadicam" type footage that would be pretty useful.
 
Finally had a second to breathe and posted this new skate footage test.

I was surprised to see clean 1080/24P footage and some impressive steady results with the Pegasus II even with me running with the unit. I'm finally starting to figure the darn thing out..

http://vimeo.com/6202120
 
Okay, new test. For those like me who do a lot of performance documentation for theater, dance, music, or other live events just thought I'd post this in order to give people an idea of how the GH1 and Pegasus II would hold up in the filming of a contemporary dance piece with theatrical lighting.

http://vimeo.com/6218080
 
are you kidding? it's a cheap piece of knockoff crap.

it has a cheap spring in it's cheap handle to i guess attempt to help stabilize its inferior design.

all it does is bounce up and down and make a springy noise which any good mic will pick up.


don't buy this product!


:-Mark-13(DBG)
 
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Have you actually used this cabbage? What spring are you talking about? Steadycams dont have springs to my knowledge?
 
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