Hurricane Rig first notes

[Bruce Schultz]

On New Year's Eve UPS delivered a mid-sized Pelican style black case. Inside, neatly packed was the complete Hurricane Rig designed by Alister Chapman.

From unboxing to final assembly took about 3 hours for the first time. Alister has good step by step instructions on his website to help. It should only take about 1/4 of that time to do the same process in the future for a shoot day.

The rig is beautifully crafted with strong 19mm rails and well designed camera platforms. The mirror box is easy to position and adjust with a nifty top knob to slightly adjust from 45 degrees for verticals. The mirror box shroud is also easy to attach and works well to block ambient light.

I'm using the Genus (also the H-Rig mfg) rail mounts for the camera which adds additional height to the camera positions, but the rig was easy to compensate for that difference.

All in all, I'm quite impressed and happy with this new piece of 3D kit.

More to come as I fine-tune the rig with cameras & accessories . . .

[John Reeve]

Thanks for sharing Bruce,

When you get a chance would you consider sharing some screen shots highlighting mirror performance. Maybe stills of a grey card and a cross hair from each eye or something?

Cool new rig you have there!

-John

[Alister Chapman]

Thanks for the update Bruce.

Those additional Genus risers certainly add a lot more height to the cameras. We will probably be bringing out optional quick release plates with integrated rails.

I would recommend setting the mirror box higher to compensate for the risers. This will allow you to go fully wide with the cameras without the top of the mirror coming in to shot. We have some stronger mirror springs coming in this week. I'll get one out to you as they improve the mirror stability.

Keep us posted.

[Bruce Schultz]

The Genus risers weren't really a problem, I just had to raise the mirror box a bit to compensate. I haven't yet been able to go full wide with the bottom EX3, but I don't like to shoot at full wide with these cameras anyway because they show the most amount of any distortions at full wide and full extension. I like the idea of a quick release plate rod assembly a lot.

The only real issue I'm having with the rig so far is the sliding shroud for the top camera. It doesn't work with the zero position I have found for the top camera. I'm going to ad lib a little piece of black cloth in that position probably velcro'd to the mirror box to solve that for now.

More to come . . .

[Alister Chapman]

If we made the sliding baffle a little longer would that cure your problem? That would be easy enough to do.

[Bruce Schultz]

Yes, it's just about an inch too short for the Zero position of the top camera.

[Alister Chapman]

You have got the top camera as the left camera? The rig can be configured either way.

I've just picked up one of the new plastic baffles from the factory and mine leaves no gap. Very strange, you should be able to move the baffle so that the cut out for the camera hits either end of the larger aperture in the back of the mirror box without any gaps opening up. I'm wondering if you got sent a short baffle by mistake, there were a few made up that were too short.

[Bruce Schultz]

Maybe I haven't described this accurately.

The sliding backlight inhibiting plate for the top camera (EX1 & yes, I have it assigned as Left) does not slide all the way to the right side of the mirror box when the EX1 is in the Zero position. It looks to be about a little less than 1 inch shy of that position. The sliding plate itself does cover the entire back opening of the mirror box, it just won't slide enough to the right end to position the EX1 lens inside of the rubber cutout.

Since the bottom camera position is fixed (at least it appears to be immovable to the right or left at all) then I am aligning the top camera at Zero to the bottom fixed camera position. I can't see any way to get the bottom camera to be moved more to the left side of the mirror box.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, the rubber fitting on that sliding plate would be better as a cloth shroud with a pull string instead I think. Also, maybe we should take this discussion thread off this site and go private with it since it's so proprietary.

[Alister Chapman]

OK Bruce. I think I follow you. It sounds like the ends stops need to be widened. I agree that a cloth shroud would be better. Your ahead of my as your rig has things mine doesn't. Yes best if this is discussed off line... unless others want us to continue here.

The lower camera position is fixed, but it can be located on either the left or the right side. Right is the default.

[Adam Stanislav]

Continue here, please.