Saved by the Rod!

[Tom Van den Berghe]

I have to film this sunday carnival and it will rain.
Do I have to protect the arm and vest against the rain? Or is this rain proof?

Here was a test movie

flycam HD-3000 - YouTube

[Noa Put]

No it's not rain proof! same as your camera, you have to protect everything from water.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Somebody told me to use silicon spray to protect it. Do yo have experience with this?

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Today and tomorrow there will be lost of wind. mY test just outside was not so smooth. Do I have to change the droptime of my flycam? A faster droptime in windy conditions?

[Noa Put]

Your steadicam will be swaying in all directions if it's too bottom heavy but it will help if there is wind, steadicams just don't like windy conditions, only steadicams with 3 axis gimbals will keep level even with hard wind.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Tom Van den Berghe

Somebody told me to use silicon spray to protect it. Do yo have experience with this?

No experience in using that spray, you also might get dust and dirt sticking to your steadicam and joints in that way, I would not use that.

[Chris Harding]

The problem with wind is that the post and bottom sled provide a target for the wind ... try holding an aluminium pole up in the air on a windy day and despite the thin pole the wind will still buffet it around. The pros often use an assistant with a wind barrier to walk beside them when shooting in a strong breeze. As Noa says if you make the drop time heavier (more weight on the bottom sled) the whole sled with have a pendulum effect and start to sway ...you need about 3 seconds at least for a correctly balanced rig otherwise to might as well forget the stedicam and just put the camera on a piece of pipe !

Is it essential to shoot this on a rig?? Surely you can handhold as well??

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Chris; Noa,

Thx for your input.

Yes Chris, I can handhold This. Few months ago I shot my first (and still the only one) shoot outside. I posted the testmovie in this thread.

NOw my setup will be less heavy because I will not use the stocklens but a prime zeiss F1.8 which i a lot less heavier.

Walking bewtween the people in this carnival is much more "realistic" then shooting from a tripod an a fixed place.

I will check my 3 seconds droptime. Maybe It's now too fast. thx

[Noa Put]

That 3 second droptime might get your steadicam balanced but it will be useless when you use it outside in windy conditions, your only other option is to just shoot handheld or on a monopod.

[Chris Harding]

How about a hoverboard?? I saw someone on one the other day and they really look cool ..you could handhold and zip around the people and get some awesome footage!!

Otherwise I would just go handheld ...for that sort of event a couple of wobbles makes the footage look a lot more realistic anyway!!

[Dave Sperling]

One other option is of course to operate the steadicam the 'wrong' way -- actually maintain a firm grip on the post rather than letting the camera sled primarily float on the gimbal. (Or even using two hands - one high and one low)
Yes, I know this takes away a great deal of the steadiness of the system -- what it does however is provide you with a way to support the camera's weight (the arm is still supporting the weight) while giving you a way to operate semi-handheld and stay in control when the wind hits. All the real steadicam operators will tell you this defeats the system -- but it might be worth giving a try nonetheless. (However, just as you wouldn't take on a steadicam gig without having spent plenty of time flying the rig, you'd need to try this out in advance to see if it works for you.) A lot will depend on the specific shots you are trying to capture...

[Tom Van den Berghe]

There wa a lot of wind and at that moment I thought none of my shots were good.
When I looked at home the footage was decent.

I made a trailer of it. At 25sec the footage of the steadycam starts.

trailer carnaval moes-kastel 2016 - YouTube

Glad next month most groups will do again a carnival near me. So I have a second chance for some shots.
So I can practice more because still didn't find the right "position" to use the steadycam.

[Noa Put]

It actually looks very good considering the windy conditions at this moment, how did you shoot now? Did you hold the steadicam like Dave suggested? Can I ask what framerate you shoot and how much percentage you slow the footage down? Just asking becaus ethe footage stutters a bit which can either be a too slow framerate or a too high percentage of slowing the footage down.

[Chris Harding]

That looks pretty stable Tom!

Just be careful not to overdo the slomo ..it works well for specific scenarios (like a girl running thru the forest to meet her lover type of stuff) At this sort of event you want to capture the energy of the event rather than slow it all down. If you shoot at 25P and slow it down you will get some blur so 50P is probably the way to go if you want slomo .... to get a crispy clear slomo you need a decent frame rate. On my Panasonics I shoot my slomos at 100fps and there is no blur at all and the camera also processes the video down to 25% for me. In fact if you can live with a reduced vertical resolution shooting at 50i and then dropping the footage onto a 25P timeline allows better slomo than shooting at 25P

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

It actually looks very good considering the windy conditions at this moment, how did you shoot now? Did you hold the steadicam like Dave suggested? Can I ask what framerate you shoot and how much percentage you slow the footage down? Just asking becaus ethe footage stutters a bit which can either be a too slow framerate or a too high percentage of slowing the footage down.

I shot like I shot before. So not like Dave suggested because I dindn't read that on time.
Filmed like in the previous clip I posted @ my house.

Framerate -> I Film in 50P and shutterspeed is mostly @ 1/50 with F1.8 lens and with the nd filter I could hold the F1.8 for the more shallow background.

The camcorder was in auto because I had to focus the flycam and peaking on the screen for focus.

percentage slowdown footage I don't know. Some clips will be slower than the others depending on the music I had choosen.

Hope this helps Noa