Came TV Single - Test Footage

[John De Rienzo]

Some test footage of the Came TV single for those interested in this handheld 3 axis gimbal stabiliser.

London Calling on Vimeo

[Noa Put]

Looks great, I might be mistaken but I thought I did see some occasional warping caused by a stabilizer plugin, did you stabilize further in post?

[John De Rienzo]

Only 2 shots were stabilised due to my walking technique!....and the rest is straight as is. It is pretty much perfectly balanced on a GH3 and 14mm lens after a lot of graft and messing with PID settings through the basecam software. Something Came do not recommend on this device but it had to be done as without, it had a lot of jitter.

[Noa Put]

Is there any manual how to adjust the settings or was it just a lot of trial and error untill you got it right? If you can get those results without any post stabilisation then you have nailed it pretty good. My beholder does produce jitter in the image, something that can be taken out in post but it doesn't always work well. Do you plan on using this gimbal at weddings?

[John De Rienzo]

I used it at my first wedding last weekend. Out of the box it was not suited to a GH3 - 14mm combination and suffered from a lot of bobbing and jitter which was quite distracting. Came TV says that PID settings should not be changed as it voids the warranty but I have messed with PID settings before so it did not take long to get the right power settings for this combination. Once that was done I had to change it for all the profiles and it now works almost perfectly without the bobbing and jitter.

It does still catch me out sometimes depending on my balance and posture, however in those occasions I am happy to use stabiliser but really pleased that I have managed to balance it almost perfectly.

I think some shots you see are just the lens as it was on auto focus and I notice it pulls in and out sometimes giving a stabiliser effect, but there are about 2 or 3 shots that I did use it in this sequence.

Cheesy cam has some PID settings but no manual as such!

[Nigel Barker]

John, as I recall you were a big fan of the Steadicam Merlin so should have technique of walking nailed. What advantage does this gimbal offer over the Merlin?

[John De Rienzo]

Hi Nigel. The steadicam merlin required constant tweaking and directing with your thumb and finger and had no where near the flexibility in shoots that you can acquire with the came single. Many of the shots in the video would have been almost impossible to pull off successfully with the merlin. The came single could be described as a glorified steadicam but once balanced it is really easy to use and changing g profiles by the click of a button to get different types of shots is a breeze. It does have its caveats though, mainly that it is not an out of box solution to every camera/lens combination as they may have you believe. This device needs tweaking and pid settings need adjusting to get the best from it. Came says this invalidates your warranty, but the gh3 and 14mm lens was practically unusable out of the box with jitter and bobbing. I have pretty much eliminated this and really pleased with it. To summarise it's no comparison. The merlin is inferior.

[Noa Put]

What advantage does this gimbal offer over the Merlin?

The main difference is control you have in maintaining camera angles and the fact that it is insensitive to wind. It will always stay level no matter what. Some disadvantages are that beside the balancing you have to do there is also software tuning involved depending on the camera/lens combination you use because out of the box most cause a jittery image while moving, something you can prevent adjusting parameters but this is a tricky part.

I have used a nebula 4000 but got so frustrated trying to get it right it only got worse. The problem is that the manufacturers don't supply a detailed instruction how to change the parameters so you are on your own to fiddle as long until it works or until you mess up completely. That is probably also the reason why the Came tv supplier doesn't want the user to change anything because they don't want to deal with users saying their gimbal doesn't work because they have changed the wrong parameters and they don't have time to support every users different camera/lens combo.

Another disadvantage can be reliability, I have seen users reporting malfunctioning units and that is not something you want to happen on a critical moment, a merlin/blackbird is a more reliable device.

Another problem is that panning/tilting motion is not always easy to get one smooth continuous move or to have good control over the speed of direction changes, any pan or tilt motion is done with the handle that you either twist sideways or up and down but it takes practice to get nice and smooth moves. A regular steadicam is better at this.

Up and down motion caused by walking is something a gimbal doesn't filter out, the same principle applies as when flying a steadicam, you need to bend your knees a bit, walk heel to toe when you place your feet and hold your arm in the shape of a steadicam arm.

I have used my beholder at the last 2 weddings and like John experienced I also was able to make moves that are impossible to do with my blackbird, but I do keep my blackbird in the car as backup. :)

[Matt Thomas]

I have a Came TV Mini 2 but not got round to calibrating it/or creating a profile with the software, but out of the box settings work to a ok standard.