Matte box

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Tom

They look good value for money in my opinion. Ah! so you are using a counterbalance on the back. I have my light battery pack and my radio mics on a little strip of aluminium that screws to the top of the shoulder pad 1/4" threads. Something you might like to think about if you need more weight, is to simply make up a simple aluminium bar and move the weight further back which will make the fulcrum point change and the front will be even lighter.

The reason I don't really use a weight is that I'm using different lenses so the front weight changes quite often, however it might be an idea to partially transfer some weight backwards so even though the camera is not technically balanced it will still be lighter up front. I still need to decide if I need a heavier camera on my shoulder or a more supported but lighter one ??? Is an extra 1 - 2kg on the entire rig going to kill you shoulder at the end of an 8 hour wedding ???

Chris

[Tom Van den Berghe]

CHris,

I"m also using different lenses. Mostly the samyang lens or the stocklens. But without a counterweight this is not possible. The frontweight is too much.

With a bigger camcorder like my setup now people really think I'm from television. Sometimes someone ask if I want to film for them.(a stage event, music clip,)

[Chris Harding]

Hi Tom

Actually I would have killed for a matte box yesterday at my wedding shoot ...we had sun coming in from angles we couldn't avoid and some flags definitely would have helped a LOT!!

If you make a bracket/camp arrangement behind your camera so the weight can slide back and forth, you can then have it so it can be closer to the pad when the lighter lens is being used and then slide it further back when a heavier lens (like the stock lens) is on the camera.

Chris

[Dave Allen]

I had a ProAim (insert your India based shell company name here) matte box. It was total junk and didn't even fit my camera as advertised. The company offered a full refund saying half will be paypal'd back upon poof of return shipment, balancing upon receipt. They asked first for good photos showing the problems, as if they didn't know!

After I provided photos, then provided proof of return shipmen, they came up with every excuse in the book about how they didn't have any paypal funds, they were broke, wah-wah-wah. Then when they received their ProAim (insert your india based shell company name here) garbage back, they refused to issue a full refund, only sending half.

The matte box itself was way out of tolerance, the rails were heavily shot-peened to hide all the surface mishandling, the matte box pivot was sloppy beyond all belief and the matte box would not slide on the rails as the rails and blocks were out of alignment.

Total scammers and junk products, you've been warned.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Dave

ProAim was an older brand and tolerances were not very good as was workmanship. Obviously the Cam Tree brands are made elsewhere and quality isn't bad at all. You get what you pay for and a $500 matt box is going to be a lot better than a $130 one. I have had no issues with fitting and robustness with the camtree products.

The base company that markets the gear is Cine City and they have various offshoots on eBay with different names and logos. About 5 years ago I bought a Flycam from them and the tolerances were really bad and I sold it ..however they did get better and my current sled came from them ..it required me to replace all bearings with decent ones and do some engineering mods BUT that still cost me way less than a genuine unit from the USA that would have been 5 times the price. They make pretty good basic stuff but most will need your own skills in DIY mods.

Chris