Shoulder rigs and tripod mounting

I'm trying to convince Mark, the guy behind the EXMount, to adapt his mount for AF100 usage.

Hopefully the next time an AF100 is floating around Auckland we can stick it on an EXMount and see how it works and what needs to change.

Otherwise it's pretty clear that Zacuto, at the very least, will be bringing out some AF100 accessories.

That said, every film camera guy I've ever seen go shoulder-mounted with a camera just sticks a piece of foam on their should under their shirt :)
 
Thanks,

I talked to Jim at DM accessories, hes the guy that came up with a really good mount for the EX3. He might be able to craft something as well.
I like some Zacuto stuff. I just think their rigs are a bit obnoxious and I have a prob spending a 1/3 of the cost of the cam to simply get it on my shoulder.

Now if Zacuto made a Zephyr type wedge mount with rails for the AF 100 and then get a DM style shoulder bracket....that would be the ticket!
 
Dennis, with all due respect, but your prices are extremely high. Having previous manufacturing background I know what materials cost and what labor would be on these items. If let's say Black Diamond Equipment can design and sell a carbon-fiber ice tool implementing ISO9000 protocol for half of you cheapest shoulder support I don't know what gives? These mentioned ice tools have twice the amount of material and there are no stock parts on them.
 
robertrogoz said:
Dennis, with all due respect, but your prices are extremely high. Having previous manufacturing background I know what materials cost and what labor would be on these items. If let's say Black Diamond Equipment can design and sell a carbon-fiber ice tool implementing ISO9000 protocol for half of you cheapest shoulder support I don't know what gives? These mentioned ice tools have twice the amount of material and there are no stock parts on them.
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Don't buy them if you are unhappy with the prices. Cinevate isn't running a charity.
 
robertrogoz said:
Dennis, with all due respect, but your prices are extremely high. Having previous manufacturing background I know what materials cost and what labor would be on these items. If let's say Black Diamond Equipment can design and sell a carbon-fiber ice tool implementing ISO9000 protocol for half of you cheapest shoulder support I don't know what gives? These mentioned ice tools have twice the amount of material and there are no stock parts on them.
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I think this is a perfect example of you get what you pay for. I, personally, think that Cinevate price their products very competitively (just look at Zacuto in comparison). And although i may never buy a full Cinevate rig, when it came to getting a follow focus i couldn't go past the Durus, it is an unreal follow focus and worth every cent.

Having said that their are plenty of manufacturers who cater to the more budget conscious. So if Cinevate isn't for you then source gear from another supplier, they are all based on similar designs and principles, but what they save you in money they tend to lack in quality.
 
Business on this things is hard.
First, big amount is going in design.
Second, support. And under support I also mean support for many guys with promote products, make reviews, etc.
Next, reserve for returns, exchanges, etc.

If you look at cheap producers you could find good value.
But. Normally follow bad communication, sometimes questionable design. Some things must be replaced to others or fixed from the start to make it work really good.

In no way I want to support inflated prices on some of the things.
But they have their reason for this.
Sometimes this reason is just inability to produce more then some amount.
 
I need functionality. I do have a problem spending a 1/3 of the price of the cam to simply get it up on my shoulder.
Like with most products, competion is good. It drives down price and creates alternatives.
Again, I would love to see a Zacuto style Zyephr mount with rails and a wedge plate underneath for the af 100.

http://store.zacuto.com/zephyr.html

Certainly someone can/will design a support bracket/shoulder attachment similar to this for the AF:

http://shop.dm-accessories.com/products/ex3-shoulder

Traditional ENG quick release option and functional shoulder capability as needed.
 
I though i was going to read some good info about some option to rig the af100 whit a follow focus + matte box + monitoring on your shoulder and on a tripod.

Not 23 person complaning about how much it cost for a piece of carbon, on a 30 000$ corporative project i would like to put my primary cam on someting solid and verry good that will hold tight, safe and will be perfect for shooting the CEO of the compagny talking about is buisness.

Around 3500$ on a complete shoulder rig is what im ready to pay and looking for ( including matte box+follow ), and around 500$ for a tripod. But thats for my needs, if your just going to have fun, unpay work, short film, whit this really low-price cam than just buy someting that fit in your budget. But i think that for most of '' us '' who are selling a service we just need to come to the set whit professional tools. I cant go somewhere and look at my client well wait like 10min i have to fix this arm and re ajust this because i wanted to save 1500$ ... yea i know that you are paying the company 30 000$ but you know ... FAIL...

A client already told me

- hey watch out, your cam probably cost more than my bmw.
'' It was a 5dmark2 whit a complete redrock micro shoulder rig ''
- I just told him yes maybe it depends witch model.

Its a fact clients like to pay and see a nice camera rig. They fell more safe during the shooting when your cam looks like the cam that they saw in the making of terminator 3 last night. Even if ... you know ...
 
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I have experienced both Zacuto's as well as Cinevate's customer service and both were exceptional.

If it isn't in YOUR price range for the WORK that you are doing, then by all means don't buy it.

The free market thanks you for your input.

In my case I FUBARED a rod (my fault) from a Zacuto rig, and they not only replaced it on their dime, but fedex'd it to me overnight so that I could meet my shoot deadline.

That is worth it to me.
 
OMG here we go again. Zacuto/Cinevate/Redrock>insane prices>China/India/Korea>cheap knock-off/stolen design>you get what you pay for, blah....

First of all, there is hardly any stolen design/knockoff in this sector. Even Zacuto doesn't do much "design" at all - those things are just to simple.
Most of this stuff is just a implementation of industry standard parts that comes off the shelf - not much innovation at all.

ProAim copied the Zacuto Z-Finder pro. So they stolen the design. Oh really?
Actually the ProAim finder is nowhere near the optical quality of the Zacuto so they did not copy it.
It is just the design, the rest is a totally different beast.
If ProAim would have used a different color and some other design elements for that plastic funnel would
you still accuse them of infringement? At least 10 other manufacturers do this kind of display loupe.
It´s just a plastic tube with a lens and some mounting hardware.
Look at medium format cameras, they have that since the 1920s.
Did Zacuto have "stolen" their design? No they just took what is used since decades and put
the Z-Logo on it.

For example: The 15mm rod.
Does Zacuto invent the 15mm rod? No, they are (at least in Germany) of the shelf parts.
A 15mm 6061 aluminum rod comes for under 2 Euros a meter (39 inch!) including VAT.
A precision machined (down to 1/10 of a mm) rod comes for under 8 Euros.
Zacuto charges $85 for a pair of 12 inch rods, that´s over $100 for a meter, compared to 8 Euros - what I pay here.
It´s O.K. to make money, but a mark-up of more than 1000% give me a break.

Which brings me to "you get what you pay for".
No you don´t - unless you are happy to pay a 1000% extra premium for the Zacuto logo on the rods.

And here comes my point: A pro in any business is - first of all - a good business man.
A good business man only pays a price, that has a healthy relation/value with the goods he get.
Logos and stickers are no value (unless you have a something to compensate), period.

Next thing is the cheap India/China knock-off myth.
Rods, clamps, shoulder pads and hand grips are used and combined in all sort´s of industries since decades,
most of the stuff is already there, you just have to look outside of the film industry.
How many matteboxes and FF look almost identical from Arri, Crosziel, Redrock, Petroff, down to ProAim?
There is not much to innovate here - this stuff is just to frigging simple.
That´s the reason why a mattebox of 1975 looks almost the same than one of 2010.

FF is even more fun. A simple 90deg. gear with a knob. Big deal. Something that almost every industry uses in one form or another.
Even the extreme expensive follow focuses have only a precision and quality, that is in the lower third of what is considered
good in manufacturing systems engineering and mechanical engineering.
There are much tighter tolerances and higher standards out there with much lower price tags.

Cheap knock-offs is an other myth. They are not cheap at all.
In fact even the Indian stuff is much overpriced for what it is - sometimes even more expensive than the "originals".
If you look at the quality of those "cheap" gear, the price is hair raising.

And yeah, I know there are exceptions to all of which I said.

So what to do? We are in a Catch-22 situation.
You can burn your money by paying for totaly overpriced stuff with famous logos,
or you can burn a little less money for totally overpriced crap with without a logo.

Since I´m mostly not happy with the gear out there I design my own stuff for my needs.
A lot of parts I get of the industry shelf, some from my machine shop.
Is it cheaper? Sometimes way cheaper, sometimes not, but at least it´s the way I want it.

Rods or a cheese plate for example or a complete dolly are insane cheaper.
Complicated machined elements are usually not, because I need only one or two.
If I have 2000 machined, they would be cheaper.

End of rant.

Bottom line:
In the film gear industry you don´t get what you pay for - whatever you get is overpriced, but the build quality varies.

Frank
 
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Postmaster said:
Bottom line:
In the film gear industry you don´t get what you pay for - whatever you get is overpriced, but the build quality varies.
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This is a bit contradictory, your saying that you don't get what you pay for, but your saying that when your paying more the build quality varies? This is exactly my point, when you pay the inflated prices of the manufacturers you are paying for a better build quality. Because the camera rig industry is a fairly small industry the manufacturers can charge whatever they want. That is why even the cheap ebay knockoffs (although cheaper that the brand name manufacturers) are by no stretch of the imagination cheap, yet their build quality is not even comparable. I am not saying that everyone should pay so much for a carbon/aluminium rod, but when it comes to something like a follow focus you really do get what you pay for. I have a Cinevate Durus that i bought after trying to DIY a follow focus from a 90 degree gearbox off the internet. One cost me a little over $1000 and the other $50, yes they both had a 90 degree gearbox but that was where the similarities ended. When you said "Even the extreme expensive follow focuses have only a precision and quality" that is the whole point of a FF, precision and quality you don't buy a FF for the looks or to make your camera rig look more impresive, you buy it to make precise smooth focus changes.

N.B. i personally have never and will never buy a Zacuto product due to their overinflated prices, i merely used them as an example of a costly rig manufacturer.
 
"you get what you pay for"


To concur with Postmaster, in my experience, mostly this is not true.
It is however a marketer's dream situation, and they rub their hands together gleefully whenever they hear it.
Mostly what you are getting is a fashionable product which is 10-20% better and at a price which is at least 200% more expensive.
However, there are plenty of inexpensive products out there which are better than their more expensive counterparts.

On the flip side, their are a lot of people willing to pay exponentially more for this small differential. For them that kind of dependability is invaluable when the potential costs of production losses are far greater.

What is key here to remember, is that the ways in which YOU will be using these products are what matters.
If you are not regularly on well budgeted long-haul gigs, you may not need the latest, greatest and most expensive.
 
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so to keep the discussion ...
Then what would you buy for this camera ?

Stop complaining about everything ! What would be your non-zacuto good option that dont cost $$$$ then ?
 
yoclay said:
"you get what you pay for"


To concur with Postmaster, in my experience, mostly this is not true.
It is however a marketer's dream situation, and they rub their hands together gleefully whenever they hear it.
Mostly what you are getting is a fashionable product which is 10-20% better and at a price which is at least 200% more expensive.
However, there are plenty of inexpensive products out there which are better than their more expensive counterparts.

On the flip side, their are a lot of people willing to pay exponentially more for this small differential. For them that kind of dependability is invaluable when the potential costs of production losses are far greater.

What is key here to remember, is that the ways in which YOU will be using these products are what matters.
If you are not regularly on well budgeted long-haul gigs, you may not need the latest, greatest and most expensive.
Click to expand...


Let's hear what you think are cheaper, better alternatives.....and most importantly tell us why.
 
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