Hi,

My friend Warren and I very recently visited Hague in Nottingham and have purchase (actually he purchased!) their K12 Jib (699 quid), it's purpose made Dolly (299 quid - special offer at the moment), a motorised power head (150 quid) and various ancillaries (7 inch 16:9 video monitor, LANC controller, Manfotto Fig Rig, Boom pole, Mic supports etc. etc.) It's all being delivered next week (it was way too much gear for us to carry back south to Ely on the train especially since we came home via a couple of nice pubs in Nottingham!)

We were both VERY impressed with their gear. Seems to be really well made and thought out. In addition, they were very willing to openly point out the benefits and, just as importantly, the limitations of each bit of their kit we asked them to demo.

Our original intention was to mount the Hague K12 jib on one of Warren's Libec tripods (it's a H50 I think with floor spreaders) and then put that on a dolly. However, having seen the size and weight of the K12 jib we both agreed that the pupose made Hague dolly was a much more substantial/secure approach.

Once we've had a bit of time to play with this new kit I'll try and post a mini review for everyone to see in a few weeks time. Ideally, I would like to include a couple of pictures of the gear in action so I'd appreciate some info on how to post pictures on this forum (if that's allowed - this forum seems to be different to the one I've been modding on until recently!)

Edit: Just found the IMG tags so I assume I can upload pics to Myspace etc. then post their HTML web codes into my future post then "top and tail" each of those web codes with [IMG] tags - is that correct????

Stay tuned and I'll report back on this one in a few weeks!!!

Andy

I've already posted a few write ups on this stuff:

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=573921#post573921
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=585106#post585106

All the best, Duncan.

No problems - sorry! I did a search several times on here with "Hague" and "K12" as keywords and it threw up nothing. No point wasting peoples's time with yet another review.

It took me a while to work out that the K12 is the MultiJib.
Anyway your write up would be most welcome by everyone here.

You might want to add it onto the threads that I listed above, one opinion (mine) is never enough, so chip in ASAP.

Yep! Will do. Give me a few weeks and thanks for the links/great info (and encouragement!)

Oh, you're going to have fun with that J12, they are indeed a great bit of kit.

Hope you're mate Warren stumped up for the whole catastrophe - weights etc and especially the padded bag, makes life much simpler to have everything contained in one easy to carry bag (not the weights obviously, they alone are 20kg (44 pounds).

The one thing you may find tho' is that there is, under certain circumstances, a "dead spot" between adding an extra 5kg weight and adjusting for perfect balance with the sliding counterweight. This means you need some extra "mini weights" to attach to the camera/ head end. As there's not much real estate there I ended up making some mini "bean bags" of lead shot, just balance on the square cross section bar nicely.

A couple of other issues worthy of note:

Do not undo the clamping screw of the sliding counterweight more than absolutely necessary to get it to slide - the plastic insert under the screw/ bolt tip (that prevents damage to the square cross section bar) will dislodge and is an absolute sod to replace again.

As you bought a LCD screen, there is a nifty way to mount it onto the pivot head (the remarkable device that contains the arm pivot bearings). B. Hague actually sell an articulated arm thingy, with a 1/4" ball type mount at one end (for the screen), a flat length of bar leading to a join operated with a plastic handwheel and then a 90 bend section of bar attached (it's either the MB/A or the MB/D with the leg clamp removed).

You will find a threaded hole drilled into the lower section of the pivot head which will allow an appropriate sized threaded bolt to pass through the hole in the mounting arm then affix to the pivot head. This bracket can be left attached permanently, the arm disconnected by undoing the plastic handwheel (the bolt for this is welded/ secured so cannot fall out).

I went a bit further and had a local chap weld another 90 degree bracket onto the centre of the flat LCD bar and then drill and tap it to take the M8 bolt from a Manfrotto pan arm. Basically I have a pan arm with attached Lanc controller and electric pan/ tilt unit remote control attached just under the LCD screen, so can controll the jib pan and all electronics from one place.

Works a treat.

Another issue you will discover is that the geometrics are not perfect. "Perfect balance" at the horizontal is not "perfect balance" when raised/ lowered. This means that if you balance it perfectly for the horizontal and then lower the head end, it will start to accelerate all by itself, ergo, never leave it to it's own devices!

For the cableing, I popped down to the local electronics store (Maplins, in your case) and bought a bag of those stick on, square cable tie bases and another bag of suitably sized (4 - 5 inches, I think), releaseable cable ties. Attached at regular intervals the full length of the lower bar all the way to the head, keeps all those cables from hanging about.

Something else for your shopping list is some sort of bag to mount under the pivot head to hold batteries (for the LCD) and spare/ over length cable etc. Gets very messy without.

Last but not least (it does stress this in the rather mimimalist manual, but I'll re - inforce it here) be very, very carefull when adding/ removing those 5kg weights. The un - restrained head can reach truly astonishing velocities if a weight is added/ removed without someone or something holding the other end in check. It would be very easy to slam your precious camera into the ceiling at 90 mph with a moments inattention.


I'll look forward to to a "full Monty" review sometime soon.

Oh, for those who can't find B. Hague:

http://www.b-hague.co.uk/camera%20supports%20systems.htm

Great gear, nice people.


CS

Hey! Thanks for the great tips Chris!

Yep, Warren did stump up for all the accessories, bags etc. (and the cash for the kit!!! ...I had to buy him lunch and a few beers to lessen the shock!)

I'll be back in a few weeks with our comments on how we find the kit as promised.

Sorry it's taken a while but I've posted some more info in the following thread. More will come soon too!

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=784819#post784819