Shoulder Support Systems

B

BPatterson

Member
Hey guys, i'm thinking about picking up a hand-held shoulder support system and was wondering if anybody has any suggestions of good rigs. I need it to be able to support an HVX+Letus Extreme+Lens and hopefully soon a matte-box. Anybody have a good suggestion?

Thanks
Brad
 
Hey Brad,
Check out the Redrock Micro shoulder rig. I saw it at NAB and it looked awesome. It can also be configured in all sorts of ways if you get a few of the extra MicroMounts and some extra rails.
 
thinking about one as well, and I was not at NAB this year, only saw the videos of the redrock shoulder system- but what I am concerned about is that it looks as though the camera plate/shoulder pad unit is one piece, therefore pushing the whole camera too far back to use either the viewfinder or the screen, means that we'd have to add an arm and a monitor to use the 200. Can you clear that up? I sent a note to redrock but haven't seen an answer yet.
thanks - LA
 
Torgans,

Yes, you are correct. You would need to ad a monitor to use the HVX200. In my opinion from using the camera alot, it is very important to have a good monitor. The LCD is insuficient for real production work. (Don't get me wrong, I've used it with the zoom function but its not practical and it doesn't allow you to zoom the whole image so you miss what's going on around the edges)

Also the viewfinder is not good enough to use either.

And if you have used a good shoulder mount, you will notice that all good shoulder mount supports put the camera on the shoulder. That is the whole point, that the rig gets on your shoulder and your body (from your back to your legs) will handle the weight. NOT your ARMS. if you see a support that has the camera mainly infront of your shoulder, then unless they have a huge counterbalance hanging behind you, your arms will be taking most of the weight. And this will tire the operator fast and get you shaky footage.

So get a monitor and go shoulder mount on the shoulder. :)
 
I certainly don't disagree, spent years feeling solid as a rock with several big boxes glued to my shoulder - my chiropractor will witness. However, I'm not flush with extra funds at the moment, and most of the work coming up could sorely use some kind of rig. I will have to bypass the redrock system then for the moment. Looked at the dvrig and the varizoom systems, can anyone else jump in on that? Or is there a comparison already on this site somewhere?

btw - your monitors look great, do they have peaking? When I can afford one...

thanks, LA
 
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