Using a ken labs gyro stabilizer with af100

Mwjace

Mwjace

Active member
I believe something similar to this was used on the verse before dying film, if so maybe some of you can help me out. others too if you can :)

We are in the early planing stages of some helicopter fly overs of our campus in June or July.
We have a local helicopter group lined up, they've done a little work with local tv but nothing fancy being in South East Idaho. I am wanting to get a good stable shot. So I am looking at renting the ken labs KS-8 system to mount our AF100 to. my question is what is the relative ease of set up and do i need anything more then just the kit to hook it up to the camera. Do I need a special tripod or mount, is it a hand held device etc. there website isn't to much help and I want to get as much info as I can before calling. call it trying to be a informed customer i guess :)

Again i don't have much of a budget so flying someone out to middle of nowhere Idaho isn't gonna happen.

Last year I did do some aerial shooting in a ultra light glider with a jimmy rigged system that worked resonably well, so I can do that again if I have to but I am looking to step it up a notch.
 
It needs to spin up before it starts to stabilize.

Best practice is to mount one vertically near the back of the camera and one longitudinally along the bottom base plate.

Use an IS lens.

We used the Lumix 14-140 for that shot and overcranked it as well, which smooths things out a bit.

Also, the more telephoto you are the greater the vibrations will be come evident even with the gyro.

We also had several bungie cords wrapped around the af-100 handle and roped to the helicopters door frame.

Have fun.
 
mcgeedigital said:
It needs to spin up before it starts to stabilize.

Best practice is to mount one vertically near the back of the camera and one longitudinally along the bottom base plate.

Use an IS lens.

We used the Lumix 14-140 for that shot and overcranked it as well, which smooths things out a bit.

Also, the more telephoto you are the greater the vibrations will be come evident even with the gyro.

We also had several bungie cords wrapped around the af-100 handle and roped to the helicopters door frame.

Have fun.
Click to expand...

Agreed on all points.

Stay wide, use an IS lens, make sure they're spun up well before your first shot.

They take a little getting used to, so get in as much time as you can on the ground before getting airborne.

Make sure there is some damping material like a bit of rubber between camera and stabilizers to eliminate that last little bit of high frequency vibration.

Make sure you have good comms with the pilot so you can work together.

Frame your shot and let the stabilizer do the work. Pan too fast and you'll get a little twisted.

And have fun! Get someone to shoot you while you're using the rig too!
 
This is some awesome piece of work. How much of the gyro-assisted footage made into the final video? Also, I suppose most of the characters were shot with chroma keying?
 
All the aerials used the gyros. Flew around for about an hour to get all my shots. Most everything else was filmed on location, pretty much only the spaceship stuff was on green screen.
 
I've shot out of a Navy Iroquois hanging out the open door with a HV20 and 40, stabilised with bungee cords and now looking at a Kenyon.

For the sound, because the airflow blast makes an impossible audio track, I record about 15 secs of the chopper on the ground at flying revs by pointing the cam vertical up at the rotor blades during the run up .. and loop it in post. By pointing the cam vertical from the open door, you shut out any other ground sounds.

What makes this work is adding a smidge of the windblown audio track in the mix and change its level for each shot. Fools everyone.

Choppers don't change revs, the pilot angles the blades to achieve lift.

Cheers.
 
i have the kenlab ks8 works great . my heli footage is up on their website. my footage was shooting a seaplane while hanging out of a A star at 100 miles an hour. check it out at www.hdimages.ca look in movies . then click on the seaplane,gyro demo . always over crank and up the shutter speed as well . funny thing about over cracking , in combo with smoothcam in fcp the occasional excess motion blur will not be fixable in post. if playing in slow mo stutter is not as big of a issue . the ks8 is the biggerof the gyros. i also had a shoulder mount with bungy hooked on the roof. My pilot is great at keeping me pointed in the center of frame to avoid panning. take off the matt box as well a any thing the downwash will move the camera. i will rent mine and would even do it for cheep.
 
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