Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
CamDolly is a new dolly and slider system for heavy duty cinema cameras and high-end cinema shots. It can function as a ride-on track dolly using heavy-duty flexible rail, a ride-on doorway dolly, a slider, a tabletop dolly or a 360° orbit dolly. [Read more…]
Cinevate is launching a Kickstarter campaign to bring its new Morpheus stabilizer to life. The Cinevate Morpheus is a all-in-one stabilizer solution for Steadicam-like handheld operation of GoPro, iPhone and pocket cameras while recording video. It serves as multipurpose device for static shooting, as well as an auto-leveling jib head and a slider or dolly. [Read more…]
Here’s a great little trick for getting some motion in your video shots even if you don’t have a slider or a jib. I’ve used a tripod tilted up on two legs quite a bit for cheating dolly-in and dolly-out shots, but the Fenchel & Janisch folks take it a step further with movements along other axes for some cool jib-esque shots. The suggestion of shooting a higher frame rate to smooth out any imperfections in the camera movement when conformed to a lower frame rate is good as well.
[via PetaPixel]
Adorama has a new skate dolly under its in-house Flashpoint brand. The Flashpoint Video Shootskate II Dolly is available as a standalone unit or with a pistol grip ball head. [Read more…]
Kessler has announced pre-sale dates for its new CineDrive motion control system. CineDrive features multi-axis control over camera movements and allows you to fully configure key frames, bezier curves and precision positioning for your time lapses, stop-motion or live action shoots.
The basic kit will be less than $6000 and will include a Kessler CineDrive Brain, two motor bricks plus hardware to configure as a pan/tilt head and a slider motor. An iOS app for the CineDrive system is in the works for the release (or soon thereafter) and an Android app will be available in the future.
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/41043399 w=640&h=360]Pre-sale orders will begin at 1 PM ET on Wednesday, August 29. The sale will be limited to 25 orders at a first-come first-served basis to US customers only and with a one CineDrive system per customer limit. A second batch of CineDrive systems should be available in 1-3 months.
More details available on the Kessler CineDrive website.
Cinetics just launched their new miniSkates for the GorillaPod SLR Zoom, which is the GorillaPod made for smaller cameras and mobile devices. The existing CineSkates are designed to work with the heavy-duty GorillaPod Focus.
Check out the demo video below. [Read more…]
The newest addition to Varavon’s Slidecam lineup are the aptly-named Lite800 and Lite600. I stopped by the Varavon booth at NAB 2012 to get a closer look at these new sliders. The sliders are very smooth and a great selection of mounting options. I’m hoping to get more time with them soon for a more in-depth look. In the mean time, check out the overview video below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo6j8o1aN30&w=640&h=360]Varavon sliders are available at B&H Photo.
The indiSLIDER is a camera slider that I’ve been intrigued with after seeing its ridiculously low prices online a few months back. I had my doubts about how smooth such a cheap product would actually perform. Those doubts were alleviated after handling a few samples on the NAB 2012 show floor.
While it’s still not a high-end product from the likes of Kessler and such, it performs amazingly well for the price. Check out the video below for a little overview of the indiSLIDER system.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs7Mp7Pv0v0&w=640&h=360]The indiSLIDER starts at just $99 for the barebones 24″ model and goes up to $215 for the 4-foot model with legs. More robust “pro” models start at $399.
Cinevate was on hand at PhotoPlus 2011 with its line of HDSLR accessories. I caught up with Dennis Wood of Cinevate for a brief tour of some of the core Cinevate gear for HDSLR users. [Read more…]
CineSkates are the brain child of MIT grad, Justin Jensen. These snap on wheels turn the Gorillapod Focus into a skater dolly and so much more. [Read more…]