the editman.com

I've not been to satisfied with how my camera slider worked on two tripods. It just to complicated levelling and move around. I've tried light stands but they are not as solid as a tripod. I also tried to use one tripod but due to different heads it has come loose or starting to tilt when nearing either end of the slider.

I have a Manfrotto 546B tripod and figured out a plain half boll could be used so I ordered a Manfrotto 520 half ball and screwed that into my slider and finally something that works! The weight of my AF101 with lens handles effordless and it will take more weight if putting rods and mattebox and heavier lenses on the camera.
 


The slidekamera I have is very solid and when mounting this way it stays level even at each end. I tried it with one AF101 and a 1kg lens because that's about as heavy lens as I have except for the Canon 70-200/2.8. A small investment but it makes this slider even greater! Another practical thing is I only have to bring one tripod and thus fewer things to carry and keep track off.

This week I had a four day shoot in Båstad/Sweden during Swedish Tennis Open. I had both the AF101 and 5DmkII camera with respective lenses and crane, slider and such to get the shots I wanted. Me and the director John (to the left) hoped for sunny days but sadly it was cloudy and rained one whole day. Despite this we got some very nice footage especially during the sunset tennis match. I wanted to do a recap of how my tools worked during this week.


A framegrab from the 5DmkII and Canon 70-200/2.8 IS II lens.

I bought Zacutos EVF to get a decent monitor for my 5DmkII and it's just a great tool on DSLR cameras and something like Panasonics AF101. The only problem I had was the included LP-E6 style battery. It didn't charge in the charger so I had to use a spare LP-E6 battery instead. Back home I found out the pins does not fit to well with the charger and that was the cause. I had to put pressure sideways to get it to charge and I really dislike the fact this battery can't be charged or used with a 5D/7D. I will not use it since I got a decoded LP-E6 style battery from ebay that works with the charger for the 5D.

In total I brought 13 lenses but only used 8. Voigtländer 25 and 50 , Tokina 11-16 and Lumix 14-140 on the AF101. On my 5DmkII I used 50, 85, 100 and 70-200 lenses. The ultra wide Tokina works great on the AF when mounted to the crane and that 50mm Voigtländer is my favourite for interviews. Instead of using a pure macro lens Voigtländer 25 works almost like a macro. My kit lens for the GH1 - Lumix 14-140 might not be the most exciting lens but given it's 10x zoom lens it's so versatile. I shot alot of tennis action with this lens in 50p and it looks great. had to crank ISO up to 800 on some shots but that's not a problem on the AF camera.


A framegrab from the AF101 and Voigtländer 50mm lens.

Brian from Berkeysystem got me another handle for my light shoulder rig and I configured it to work with the Zacuto EVF and 5D camera. Even with something like the Zeiss 85mm lens looks steady. If the Voigtlände 50 is my favourite on the AF the Zeiss 85 is my favourite on the 5D for interviews. I didn't use my 5D to do any interviews this time and frankly the AF handles audio much better. I have two lenses with IS - 100 macro and 70-200. These got a fair amount of use. Neither I or the director felt the need for wide images except for the Tokina 11-16 on the crane. If you are worried about crop factor on the AF101 camera stop worrying! The Tokina 11-16 is the only ticket you need for wide images and they are pretty much undistorted. Set the lens at about 0,7m on the focus scale in you have a sharp image from near to far.


AF101 and Tokina 11-16 on the Hague crane.

Speaking of the Hague K10 crane it is a nice crane but due to how many floors flexed when people walked on them it became tricky to get shots without crane wobble. That's one of the negative sides of having a crane with a single bar. It does wobble alot if the ground isn't solid or something like the wind makes it wobble. It's also heavy to move. I guess we'll use about 7-8 shoots from the crane.

My slider had the same problem with flexing floors. Or it was a floor problem really. Nothing wrong with the slider. But I have to put a better support together for the slider. It is a heavy and smooth slider which I like but you can't have a center mounted tripod as the only support because it will start to go down when you get near the edge. To have two tripods, one on each end, works but I'm not to fond of that either... I guess I'll figure something out. This time I had two Manfrotto light stands and it worked okay. Not as steady as I would like.

To pick up audio I only used my Sennheiser EW100 G3 system with a wind shield. This is so easy to use and I hardly ever get any wind noise or pick up noise from clothing. Great and affordable audio! I had a handheld AT8010 and an AT875R mic tucked in my bag just in case but had no use of them this time. I even had a Sennheiser EW400 if I would have needed a microphone for my 5DmkII.

Did I miss something? Well I did miss to have a small camera to document the shoot. I left my GH1 at home this time and even if I'd had it with me I doubt I would have used it. I must get a small pocket camera next time.

Today I shot a commercial for Abba in Sweden due to be aired near Christmas. This time I only went for using my Canon 5D mkII.

I also had the opportunity to use my cage. It's really a versatile rig and I'll complete it in October. My slidekamera worked great and I appreciate how smooth it is. Never a hiccup when sliding. Forget about dryline sliders this is the thing for smooth and silent slides!



On set we also used a bunch of LED panels. Both Litepanels and Rosco. Great small lights to use whenever you need a kick. Two of my favourite lenses - Zeiss 50/1.4 and Canon 100L were used. My Marshall monitor is also such a great piece of equipment to really get a feeling on how the final result will look. Even thou I was on neutral setting with sharpness and contrast all the way down I had plenty of sharpness. Stayed between F5 and F6.3 in most shots so I had focus not go away to quickly. Canon 100L is a very shallow DOF lens and at F2.8 it's just to shallow most of the time.

I'll post the final commercial once it's done.

I shot this case feature in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago. Used both Canon 5D mkII and 7D. Audio with Sony PCM-D50 and I also used my slider. Microphone an Audio Technica Pro70 lav through a Juicedlink DT454.

This was the first job were I used my new cage rig. Very easy to do nice slides and pan at the same time. I didn't do the edit just a touch of cc. To be put on website showing Swedish postal service in use at a customer. I'll do one or two more case features in the next month.

This illustrates how I use the slider to do jib-like moves with the cameras. You can't go straight up or down because the tripod heads can't be put in that angle but the final move feels just like up and down.

Small things are also good. Today I received new blocks for my slider. The ones that came with the slider didn't work to screw straight into a 3/8 tripod screw. But thanks to Brian Berkey I now can use the slider mounted, either like in the picture, on one tripod or one at each end

I would recommend two tripods but this also works. The Manfrotto 055 is steady but it does weight down a bit when the slider moves to one end. A great thing about the blocks is you can slide them anywhere under the slider. With a bit of counter weight you can even flip the slider vertical and do those kind of shots.

My slider differs in that the ends are chromed where as the version you can buy at slidekamera.com are black.

My camera slider has been in use for a couple of times and I just bought one of the smallest fluid heads to put on. It's a Manfrotto 701HDV and the same model as I have on one of my tripods. These heads are not for heavy cameras but since I don't plan to put anything heavier than a 5D mkII on, or a similar camera, it will work just fine.

I also wanted a rather small head to fit in my bag and one that has the same quick release as my tripod. This makes it very easy to go from tripod to slider. Now this head is far from the best ones but on the other hand Manfrotto is so well spread that parts are easy to get and many DSLR gears are built around a Manfrotto 577.




This makes the slider even heavier but as all things heavy has it's pros. It makes for very smooth pulls. It's all up to the operator if the slides are smooth because the slider it self never (so far) fail.

During a vacation trip to the southern part of Sweden - Skåne I took my 5D mkII, Canon 70-200/4 IS, Zeiss 35/2.0 and camera slider with me.

I captured some of the beautiful sights I saw and made this short piece showing this part of Sweden and some of my camera work using these lenses and the slider. The slider I have is the pro version from www.slidekamera.com.

A went a bit different this time with settings on the 5D mkII. I used higher shutter speeds to preserve as much detail as possible, avoiding motion blur. In my bag I even had a Fader ND but I'm leaving these to others. They take away to much sharpness even on shorter focal lengths It's better to have fixed ND but also more cumbersome or do what I did - raise the shutter.

I used Avid MC but didn't do any grading this time. All exposures is pretty much spot on and these days I seldom miss exposure because I know DSLRs very well after using D90, GH1, 7D and now 5D mkII.

The 5D mkII is such a great camera for both stills and video and I love the mix when having Zeiss lenses on. They are superior even to Canon L lenses I think.

Sadly I had a mishap with the Zeiss 35/2.0. It was in the backseat of the car and when I had to break hard it got a bump on the focus ring. It got stuck but when I came home I manage to make it work again albeit with an ugly bump on the ring...

I got this one meter camera slider a couple of months ago but haven't really used it until I shot a wedding two weeks ago. This slider is made in Poland and feels really solid. I didn't have a good head mounted so the head itself wobbled around a bit and made the shots jerky before I put my hand on top of the head. But with a decent head nothing wobbles on the slider.

Didn't have much time but I put together these short clips to show how it performs. Used my Canon 5D2 camera and 135L lens.

I've looked at this type of construction before so I wont take any credit inventing it. But when I walked in a sports shop and saw a skater kit, complete with track and wheel for about $30 I said to myself - Hey, why not try building something like a skate dolly!

To complete the assembly I got a metal plate, pre drilled with lots of holes. I had to drill holes for the tracks and for a 3/8 screw to get a pan/tilt head onto it.
I had a Manfrotto 391RC laying around so I put it on and made this short video. A quick test so not 100% smooth.

Used my Canon 7Ds and 16-35L and 35L lenses. No lighting or grading just straight edit in Avid and then to vimeo.

Enjoy!

It didn't take me long before I had my first short film made with my new camera slider.
It's a very simple thing but can accomplish some really cool images.

Now I can't say to much about how it performs but at first it was rather stiff.
When going back and forth for a while it seams to loosen up a bit.
It's sturdy yet light and It can be a fun and creative "dolly" to use.

Update april 2010:
I had my slider for a couple of months before selling it. It worked somewhat okay but the whole dryline thing is not my thing.
The dryline plastic bearings do get stuck and if the camera is not balanced it will get stuck.
I always had to put pressure on the sliding plate to get smooth slides.

Here's "Shoes" made with the camera slider and my Canon 7D: