Practical Productions – Camera Rigs
Tips, Tricks and Products to make your productions easier
The inaugural episode of Practical Productions, talking about camera rigs today. A short sweet little bit of coverage on camera rigs. I talk about the Zacuto Indie Recoil Rig and the Gratical HD EVF and show off some footage I shot with the gear.
Got a sweet camera rig ? Show it off in the comments or tweet it to me @foucaultdesign
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Review of Zacuto gear and easy break down are below
For me the Indie Recoil rig from Zacuto was a blast to used, I liked it. The ability to go hand-held so easily with a dslr and give it a nice beefy feel was great. I liked the Tornado Follow Focus handle, it was my favorite part just after the Gratical HD. Those 2 pieces of gear together on a shoulder rig, make this a very easy and fun to use rig. Making life easier on set and making tasks quicker and easier to do makes production life better.
Now any product isn’t without its down side. For me it was getting the whole rig set up. It is infinitely customizable to fit all sorts of gear and that is a great thing, but it made life a little difficult to set up. All those little tweaks and movements took time to get it set up and dialed in to where it needed to be. But, once that was done, it didn’t need to be done again. That makes it easy to overlook. The other issue I had is really just my personal preference is that I wish the shoulder pad was further back on the plate about 3-6 inches. It would have made the ergonomics of the whole thing much better. Everyone is obviously different and your mileage may vary on that. ( I stand corrected, it has been brought to my attention from the folks over at Zacuto that you can infact adjust where the shoulder pad is. I just hadn’t noticed it. So with that issue being fixed it does make it a better product for me. Thanks to Zacuto for pointing that out and correcting me) My issues are hardly black marks on the product, just things that I noticed. It’s still a great product, and I recommend you check it out.
The Zacuto Indie Recoil and Gratical HD lets you get work done efficiently and on time and that allows you to focus on more important things like being more creative or getting more clients. That makes it a practical piece of gear to have and gets my stamp of approval.
- Ease of Use – Easy to use, set up can be finicky
- Durability – Well made, pieces work well, strong pieces I found no issues with it (just make sure it’s all tightened well)
- Cost – $1,600
- Practical – Yes
Z-Drive & Tornado (follow focus and grip)
- Ease of Use – Very easy to use, Set up very easy
- Durability – Very durable, smooth fluid movements, very comfortable
- Cost – $825 (Z-drive $550 Tornado $275)
- Practical – Yes
- Ease of Use – Easy to use, Set up not terrible
- Durability – Yes, great build quality, feels solid, is comfortable to use. Screen is bright and crisp
- Cost – $3,100 (if you can shell it out for an EVF you won’t be disappointed)
- Practical – Yes (even though cost could be a factor for many)
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Episode 1 of Practical Productions: Tips, Tricks and Products for making your productions easier. This episode is about camera rigs