Hello All -

While there is great information about purchasing or building our jibs/cranes in this forum, tips and tricks for shooting with these rigs are conspicuous in their absence. I've found a few odds and ends in here like a great post by in this thread by Paul:

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=78656

But I was hoping I'd come across a sticky page of "how-to's, great moves, what to avoid and killer techniques" - there's not much here like that.

I just received my Seven Jib Compact XL that I'm using for mostly establishing shots and portraits on some documentary projects I'm working on. I've never used one before, and I'd love to hear from you experienced camera flyers about how you handle the rigs, frame your images, work with pans, zooms, tilts, etc... I'm looking for the "Jib operator pearls of wisdom thread" here.

Anybody want to share their experiences so those of us new to the craft don't have to reinvent the wheel? For the first 20 minutes I didn't even know where to best stand when I set mine up today...

Yes, me too.
I just recently shot for two days with Losmandy Porta-Jib Traveler and it made me think what kind of heads are the best for front end controlled jibs etc.
I found myself using cheap non counterbalanced head on it for example.
Is you got sub $1000 head that has non-removable counterbalance you`ll be stuck for example.

Thanks in advance,
T