Small Affordable Telescoping Jibs

Eric Coughlin

Eric Coughlin

Veteran
I was wondering what the small, affordable, telescoping jib market looks like. By telescoping I mean where it can telescope in and out during the shot, not just a jib with adjustable length.

I see these two accordian style options at around $3k.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...csr_00_powermatic_scissor_17_retractable.html

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...n_cameaccordion_extending_scissor_arm.html/qa

I haven't looked much, but from what little I saw it seems the pneumatic telescoping jibs often cost over $100k, are very large and heavy, and aren't practical for people who are not dedicated jib operators or rental houses.

I'd like to see a small (say 6-18 ft) and affordable (under $20k) pnuematic jib that mere mortals could use and afford.

Are these accordion style ones any good? They say around 30 lb capacity, but most of the sample footage I'm seeing shows them being used with DSRLs.
 
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Sounds like you’re looking for a “mini” Technocrane or Technojib. Charles just talked about this in his Crank Yankers post. Said they’re using the ‘Chapman Miniscope 7’, which is one of the smallest. But this is not in your spec’d price range, as I believe they’re rental only, or something one man is going to pull out of the back of his vehicle and throw up and use by himself. I don’t think what you really want exists.

http://www.chapman-leonard.com/product/1275
 
The jibs you linked were at NAB a couple of years ago. The CAME unit was tucked in the back of a small booth. They weren't pushing it because I don't think they really thought much of it. I played with it a little bit. Think of one of those extending bathroom mirrors only much longer and with a bigger weight at the end of it. Yes, you get the idea. It has poor left/right stability.
 
Eric you should invest in more serious lighting and grip equipment, it's the final frontier for you!

If the shot allows, a drone can be a faster, maybe cheaper alternative than setting up a telescoping crane.
 
I think Run&Gun has it right, that what I'm looking for doesn't exist. So, dear innovator reading this, please make what I'm asking for before I retire. Thanks.


rob norton said:
Eric you should invest in more serious lighting and grip equipment, it's the final frontier for you!
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My beef with lighting equipment is that you get say $40k of lighting and grip gear, it takes up a ton of space and effort to move around, weighing a literal ton, and you rent it for say $800 per shoot. Or, you get a $40k lens which weighs 8 lbs, fits in a small bag/case, and you rent it for $800 per shoot. Between those two choices, I'll take the lens rental and hire a grip van separately when needed.

Not saying I disagree with you as I could use more lighting and grip gear, just that cameras and lenses take less work to get the same profits off of, and often times DPs on higher end shoots own high end camera gear but not high end lighting gear, so cameras and lenses are currently more of a priority for me.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
I think Run&Gun has it right, that what I'm looking for doesn't exist. So, dear innovator reading this, please make what I'm asking for before I retire. Thanks.



My beef with lighting equipment is that you get say $40k of lighting and grip gear, it takes up a ton of space and effort to move around, weighing a literal ton, and you rent it for say $800 per shoot. Or, you get a $40k lens which weighs 8 lbs, fits in a small bag/case, and you rent it for $800 per shoot. Between those two choices, I'll take the lens rental and hire a grip van separately when needed.

Not saying I disagree with you as I could use more lighting and grip gear, just that cameras and lenses take less work to get the same profits off of, and often times DPs on higher end shoots own high end camera gear but not high end lighting gear, so cameras and lenses are currently more of a priority for me.
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Could you purchase a lighting van then have it go out in Atlanta without you being involved? Then you could obviously use it when needed too. Or are the rates too low to see a decent return?
 
To quote Charles Pappert...

Charles Papper said:
The electric package is almost always coming from a rental house so no-one would really care if I supplied 40 tubes or 4, but I have very limited gear in that department because it is bulky to store and relatively low return compared to camera (brutal rental deals here in LA).
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I also hate dealing with dry rentals (renting out gear when I'm not on the shoot). I filmed Tyler Perry's studio grand opening a couple days ago in Atlanta (new 250 million dollar studio), lots of famous people there like Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Denzel Washington (curse you NDAs for not letting me use this footage!), etc.; three day shoot, but I was only brought on as a Steadicam op for one day. The guy who hired me is sort of a friend so while I typically don't rent out my gear, I let him rent my additional C300s for the two days; they used six C300s on their team for event coverage and Tyler Perry had a separate team doing a documentary with another three or four C300s (no Sony's in sight!). Then, two of my batteries and a microphone wind cover go missing, he says he never saw them or that I didn't put them in the bag I gave him (because we didn't properly inventory everything, because I'm not a professional rental house), disagreement ensues, yada, yada, yada, and I sort of regret renting out my gear. He later finds one of the batteries, and, I mean, it's not the end of the world because I'll still profit despite perhaps having to pay out of pocket for a $200 battery, but what a hassle.

There's an art to dry hire gear rental. It's about servicing the gear to keep it in good shape, labeling everything, inventorying, building relationships, being available to drop off or have the rentals picked up at various times, going over the gear with the people you rent it to, etc., and that's just not what I enjoy doing in life.

And while I do want to upgrade my lighting equipment, since I don't have limitless money, my budget for equipment goes to what has higher priority, which at this point is cameras and lenses. As I said, I think they're an easier return on investment with less hassle.

And my lighting package now is pretty decent, I just lack higher powered lights like HMIs and larger grip gear which limits me from lighting large areas or fighting sunlight as well. I just finally got around to getting two of my Astras fixed which were out of comission for around a year or so, so now I've got six working panel lights which is enough to easily do two lighting packages for interviews when subcontracting someone, along with about 15 or so smaller panel and Fresnel type of LED lights.



Back to jibs, I've been meaning to buy a Seven Jib for awhile but have yet to pull the trigger. I had a Hollywood Microdolly Jib for years which I hated and never used, and after having it on Ebay for two or three years, it finally sold a few months ago. On one of my recent short films I pulled out my old Kessler Pocket Jib Traveler which I hadn't used in years and slapped a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera on it for an overhead shot since I don't have a jib that can support the Amira.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
To quote Charles Pappert...




I also hate dealing with dry rentals (renting out gear when I'm not on the shoot). I filmed Tyler Perry's studio grand opening a couple days ago in Atlanta (new 250 million dollar studio), lots of famous people there like Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Denzel Washington (curse you NDAs for not letting me use this footage!), etc.; three day shoot, but I was only brought on as a Steadicam op for one day. The guy who hired me is sort of a friend so while I typically don't rent out my gear, I let him rent my additional C300s for the two days; they used six C300s on their team for event coverage and Tyler Perry had a separate team doing a documentary with another three or four C300s (no Sony's in sight!). Then, two of my batteries and a microphone wind cover go missing, he says he never saw them or that I didn't put them in the bag I gave him (because we didn't properly inventory everything, because I'm not a professional rental house), disagreement ensues, yada, yada, yada, and I sort of regret renting out my gear. He later finds one of the batteries, and, I mean, it's not the end of the world because I'll still profit despite perhaps having to pay out of pocket for a $200 battery, but what a hassle.

There's an art to dry hire gear rental. It's about servicing the gear to keep it in good shape, labeling everything, inventorying, building relationships, being available to drop off or have the rentals picked up at various times, going over the gear with the people you rent it to, etc., and that's just not what I enjoy doing in life.

And while I do want to upgrade my lighting equipment, since I don't have limitless money, my budget for equipment goes to what has higher priority, which at this point is cameras and lenses. As I said, I think they're an easier return on investment with less hassle.

And my lighting package now is pretty decent, I just lack higher powered lights like HMIs and larger grip gear which limits me from lighting large areas or fighting sunlight as well. I just finally got around to getting two of my Astras fixed which were out of comission for around a year or so, so now I've got six working panel lights which is enough to easily do two lighting packages for interviews when subcontracting someone, along with about 15 or so smaller panel and Fresnel type of LED lights.



Back to jibs, I've been meaning to buy a Seven Jib for awhile but have yet to pull the trigger. I had a Hollywood Microdolly Jib for years which I hated and never used, and after having it on Ebay for two or three years, it finally sold a few months ago. On one of my recent short films I pulled out my old Kessler Pocket Jib Traveler which I hadn't used in years and slapped a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera on it for an overhead shot since I don't have a jib that can support the Amira.
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OK fair enough. Sorry for the derail.

I've got a seven jib and still can't recommend it enough. That may be pushing it with weights, your tripod head and rigged out camera package though?
 
My Amira setup is about 24 lbs and the OConnor 1030D is about 8 lbs, so 32 lbs. The Seven Jib is rated for 60 lbs. I'd probably get the Kessler K-pod to support it which is rated for 500 lbs.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
My Amira setup is about 24 lbs and the OConnor 1030D is about 8 lbs, so 32 lbs. The Seven Jib is rated for 60 lbs. I'd probably get the Kessler K-pod to support it which is rated for 500 lbs.
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Yeah sorry that makes sense, no need to include the weights for just the jib bowl capacity and not an issue with the k-pod. I've got the k-pod and added the all terrain wheels, no complaints at all.

The k-pod would also give you the option to shoot a corporate video from the 90s with the k-flex track.
 
I used to be a fan of the K-flex track on paper (in theory), but two people I know who used it (one who owned it) said they hated it.

I've considered getting the Matthew's Duti Dolly, which you could then mount the Seven Jib onto to get some dynamic shots. Not quite the smoothness and flexibility of a pneumatic telescoping jib, but a setup like that could get you some more dynamic telescoping like shots that just a jib or dolly alone cannot do.

I used to mount my Kessler Pocket Jib Traveler on my Hollywood Micro Dolly for the same setup, but that setup won't handle an Amira.

And then there's always the Dana Dolly, which is industry standard and commonly asked for as a rental item. Can't mount a jib on it, though.

I also find the Matthews Elevator Kit to be an interesting piece of equipment. Not cheap for what it is, but you can get jib like movement with a smaller setup than a jib.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1301712-REG/matthews_415068_elevator_kit.html
 
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Hah yeah the elevator looks crazy! I'd have to own a lot of other equipment before even thinking about buying one.

I've used similar track to the k-flex. It's super heavy and gets filthy, curved moves are rarely required, plus you need a perfectly smooth, ideally flat surface which doesn't happen very often and is why I hate the wally dolly vs. stands with adjustable legs.

You can mount the seven jib to the dana dolly via the 100mm bowl attachment. It's pretty tough to avoid "bounce" though if you're using it to mimic a telescoping type shot, though you could probably get away with it if there's a jib up/down while sliding.
 
The load capacity of the Dana Dolly is 100 lbs. A 24 lb Amira plus 8 lb OConnor with 70 lbs of counterweight and a 22 lb K-Pod is going to exceed the Dana Dolly's capacity.

The Matthews Duti Dolly on the other hand has a listed 800 lb capacity. The footprint of the Dana Dolly is also smaller than the Duti Dolly's footprint, and I would imagine the larger footprint would help with stability when handling a jib.

I guess I work on flat surfaces a lot so that hasn't been too much of an issue with my Hollywood Microdolly, which is a similar design as the Wally Dolly. I also have a Trost Slider for my Amira which I mount on Matthews Slider stands. I find the Dana Dolly is a bit smoother than the Microdolly and Trost, but takes more time and man power to setup.
 
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You wouldn't be adding the k-pod to the dana dolly, only the jib. You can also extend the bar out so you required less counter weight, at the expense of some stability. It may not be ideal but can be done. The pain is getting it at the correct height because you can no longer use the low boy combo stands.
 
Oh, right, duh, no K-pod. Matthews has the Telescoping Bazooka (cool name, right?) so you can mount the speed rails firmly on the ground and get your jib or camera to your desired height. Cool thing is often with a Dana Dolly to make slight height adjustments you have to take a minute with two or three people adjusting (one grip on each side of the dolly adjusting apple boxes or stand height and a third person holding the camera), while with the Bazooka, just one height adjustment to deal with. 15" height adjustment range, so I suppose mainly for finessing adjustment, so you may still be mounting the speed rails on apple boxes or stands and then finessing from there with the Bazooka.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...s_377702_377702_24_39_Adjustable_Bazooka.html

Combined with the Elevator kit's 25" range, and you then have 40" of height adjustment, and a 5.4 ft tall dolly. I guess you'd just need to properly sand bag the base if you're going that high, if that's even practical with a straight pole design.
 
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A few things I noticed:

eBay listing says they may not ship to the US

He stopped himself mid-sentence in one of the video’s when referring to the “length” of the arm and then referred to it as “height”. That tells me it may not work fully extended out horizontally or even at a shallow angle.

Seemed kind of noisy when telescoping in and out. So may not be useable when recording dialog or at least in enclosed spaces when recording dialog.

Video examples looked like bad gimbal video. Even a mediocre jib op on a regular jib would have gotten smoother shots.

Stops on telescoping shots had a lot of rocking, which make them unusable. Which makes me think the main intention of this jib may just be to allow quick changes in length to achieve the shots without re-building that would be required with a traditional jib, instead of actual telescoping during a “live” shot like with a TechnoCrane.

Playing devils advocate, maybe a better gimbal head and mount would smooth out or eliminate the nasty stuff, but who knows...
 
Run&Gun said:
eBay listing says they may not ship to the US
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It's from Austraila which means all I'd have to do is ship it to Rob Norton, then have him fly out here with it for the beer waiting in my fridge.

I bought a canoe from the UK a few months ago that wouldn't ship to America. All you have to do is hire a third party shipping company, ship it to their address, then have them ship it to you. It was pretty simple and not that expensive.



Here's one that the maker sent me a video of after seeing this topic.



 
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