Purely two hand-held rig, like the Captain Stubling

RieniO

RieniO

Well-known member
I need to get a two hand-held rig as soon as possible and am now looking at the Captain Subling. If this rig works with the GH1 and can be mounted on a tripod and if a top handle for low shooting can be added, this is the perfect rig for me. It costs $975 and that's fine for me, I've been looking at separate parts on e-bay and all together I will get on the same amount.

My question is: is anyone using the Stubling succesfully with the GH1, or does anyone have suggestions for similar products. But please: two hand-held only. Not one hand held, not shoulder supported. The Hot Rod hand held rig (The Hot Rod Low Profile Hat?) looks interesting too but I still don't find full details and photos on the Hot Rod site and it seems that this rig gets mounted to the camera using the lens mount rather then the tripod mount so I can only be used with a Panasonic/MFT camera. Maybe Illya can enlighten this. Illya, honestly, and others wrote it to you before; you may have fantastic products and you're obviously a GH1 enthusiast but your site is not very clear about your products. Often just a few words, no details, no photos.

This is the RedRock Captain Stubling:

captain_stubling_lg.jpg
 
I have a combo of Redrock and Shoot35 parts. The Redrock DSLR baseplate has a big disadvantage for GH1; once you've screw on the camera the battery hatch is blocked meaning you have to unscrew the camera everytime battery needs changing. But I found another solution, Shoot35 have a tripod connector:

http://www.sgpro.co.uk/products/rodssupports/tripodconnector/tripodconnector.html

and in combination with this raiser they make:

http://www.sgpro.co.uk/products/rodssupports/raiserblock/raiserblock.html

plus their 10" threaded rods I could make the rod system you see in the first picture below, I used the extra tripod clamp as a stabilizer in front. I added a Manfrotto 323 quick release to easily get the camera on and off the rods but it's not necessary. Then I got the Redrock follow focus, grip rods and handles and put together something similar to Stubling as you can see in second and third picture. Note that I have the handle from the front and in level with the follow focus wheel, thereby can have it lean backwards which makes a very steady hold against my palm while still being able to pull focus. Redrock have a EU representative now through Videogear in UK. Pat Wheeler there was very helpful.

http://www.redrockmicro.co.uk/

BTW Shoot35 is releasing their new follow focus December 1st and it looks very promising. It's called CINEfocus. They also have handles and such in the works. Wayne Kinney there is also a very helpful guy.

http://waynekinney.iforumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1372

Still looking for a matte box - right now I'm looking at a Genus or a TLS Kestrel.
 

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RieniO said:
Often just a few words, no details, no photos.
Click to expand...

I'm in process of building a new website as we speak. It should be live in 2009. I'll happily provide answers and photos to anyone who asks. Just go to the "contact" page on the website and provide a valid email address for a reply.
 
Illya Friedman said:
I'm in process of building a new website as we speak. It should be live in 2009. I'll happily provide answers and photos to anyone who asks. Just go to the "contact" page on the website and provide a valid email address for a reply.
Click to expand...


haha, yeah, be sure you're live in 2009. just in time for 2010.:thumbup:

EDIT: i'm a smarta$$.
 
Martti: thanks for the detailed answer. If the battery access is the only problem of the Stubling, I would rather just get the Stubling than having to go through the custom building because my time's very limited. I've been shooting up to 4 hours with a fully charged battery and if I add an external LCD screen and don't use the GH1 screen anymore, the battery will even last longer. Then still, I don't mind that much having to unmount the camera for changing the batteries, and I'll be shooting with two or more GH1s soon so I can just swap them during shoots.

So the only questionmark left is whether a top handle can be mounted to the Stubling, for low shooting. But I'm e-mailing with them now so I'll ask them.
 
Yup, I find it stable. I don't have that huge baseplate so can't compare but it seems like overkill to me with a light camera like GH1. Making a baseplate from two Shoot35 tripod connectors worked really well. Wayne Kinney were even nice enough to test the idea and send it to me assembled like that. Plus as their rods are threaded - male one end, female the other - means you can extend the rods if needed. I order a pair of 3" rods just in case, might be handy for attaching a shoulder mount if I want to try or if the rods turn out too short when having a matte box and a telelens.

Now I've added a Manfrotto 323 on the tripod as well so I can quickly set down and lock the rod rig with a 200PL-14 quick release plate underneath it. And as I have the same release plate on the GH1 I can also just take the camera and tripod for some quick job without having to drag out the whole rod rig. Also have a Manfrotto 486RC2 ballhead on my Gorillapod for same quick attaching, and one more 323 on my Manfrotto 261 chestbrace. So I can move very quickly between various configurations, with or without the rod rig.

Shoot35 shipped the things very quickly so no worries there.

And note that the Stubling only comes with two 4" grip rods so the handle can't be placed outside of the FF wheel as on my rig - I've tried various configurations now and that placement is the steadiest hold I've found while still being able to pull focus alone.
 

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Would you not be able to build your rig with Shoot35 parts only? What Redrock parts could not be replaced by Shoot35 parts? And do you feel your complete set-up is light enough for hand-held shooting over longer periods of time?
 
Currently the grip rods and handles have no match in any parts Shoot35 makes. The CINEfocus should be out on December 1st according to their forum post.

I do find it heavy enough to be stable and light enough to handle for longer periods of time but I also do a minimum of 3 passes a week in the gym working out with weights so that might influence my judgement. I doubt the Stubling would be much lighter anyway.
 
Ok thanks for all the info. I've been shooting with medium size camcorders handheld for 15 years now without any problem (ok maybe a little back pain after a long day of shooting in strange positions) and the GH1 is lighter than those camera's. I do a lot of exercising as well (tree cutting/logging/splitting/stacking). I did some handheld shooting last week with the GH1 without using any rig... very light but accidentally touching all buttons and lens rings, the body is just much too small to hold it just like that. Then on the other hand, I wouldn't want to shoot hours with a one hand held steadicam like the Merlin.
 
external monitoring

external monitoring

RieniO said:
Martti: and if I add an external LCD screen and don't use the GH1 screen anymore, the battery will even last longer..
Click to expand...

How do you manage to have an external monitoring when shooting?
The gh1 is supposed to have external files monitoring only with playback and not when shooting
Am I wrong?
 
chartres said:
How do you manage to have an external monitoring when shooting?
The gh1 is supposed to have external files monitoring only with playback and not when shooting
Am I wrong?
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing but I am pretty sure you are NOT wrong...however, I hope we both are...but we're not :(
 
Well, there are less costly options out there. One could add something like this to a Stubling

http://cameragrip.co.uk/acatalog/hague_steadymount_lowshot_support.html

Or use something like this instead - adding some short rods for follow focus and matte box shouldn't be too difficult with for instance Shoot35's tripod connector.

http://cameragrip.co.uk/acatalog/hague_camera_camframe_support.html

gdfoto shows some clever uses of a magic arm here, including a top held set up.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1739499

The reason I went with the Redrock handles on a rod rig was that I wanted to place them exactly where I wanted and I don't use a top handle much if at all anyway when I shoot.
 
Thanks for the link Martti, Cameragrip is a great site with great stuff, I had not seen it before. I ended up ordering your second suggestion:

cf.jpg


This is exactly what I was looking for. I may add one of those follow focus systems being sold on e-bay or build something myself with parts from a rc modelling shop. With the camframe I ordered some other stuff as well, again, great shop!

A question about follow focus, I never used one before, how many times do you need to turn a follow focus knob to turn a focus ring on the lens 360 degrees? How is that ratio? 1 to 1, or?
 
Thanks, look interesting and I may order one because it's modulair and very affordable.

We're getting somewhere :-)

(my second GH1 with Tokina 16-50 arrived today so did the Ciego nikon/MTF adapter :-)
 
RieniO said:
http://www.guerrillafilmgear.com/

Yet another new player on the block?

(complete hand-held but no top-handle and no room for mattebox
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Check out the gorillapod. http://joby.com/gorillapod/slr/

I have one and LOVE IT! Only cost me $30 bucks. (got the small on about the size of the average forearm.) I turn the legs up to mimic the captin stubb and boom... works like a charm. Its a great extremely low cost solution to what your' looking for. I think. Plus its CRAZY strong.
 
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