13Mar CPM Camera Rigs Lightweight Gear Head
If you’ve ever had the joy of using a gear head it’s like riding in first class, going back to a fluid head feels like you’ve been bumped back to couch. In the past Gear Head’s would set you back well over $10,000. CPM is now offering the first low price option that I know of theirĀ lightweight Gear Head for $2,500. I know it’s out of the price range of a lot of us low budget filmmakers but sometimes it’s nice to dream. Look at how smooth that thing is.
March 14th, 2012 at 7:00 am
How about one of those very talented Kick Starter guys engineer and build a gear head for $500! If we’re going to dream, might as well dream big…
March 14th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Is it really smoother? It looks cumbersome, esp with two cranks. I’ve tried using crank/gear systems like that on high end sliders like the Philip Bloom Pocket Dolly, but it was significantly smoother (and with more precise control) to just manually slide the carriage than to use the crank/gear system. I think spinning the crank at a consistent speed is pretty hard compared to just sliding and/or panning/tilting…thoughts?
March 14th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
The Pocket Dolly uses a belt to move things along. From the linear travel systems I’ve used belts aren’t as smooth or solid as gears messing together. I’ve found it hard to get smooth motion using a gear and belt system, on the other hand the belt does provide some tension when moving the carriage along by hand which seems to help.
The Gear Heads take a little bit of getting used to, but once you have the hang of it, motion is very smooth. The 2 sizes of hand wheel give you some speed options, but some of the higher end Gear heads have 2-speed and 3 speed pan and tilt gearboxes so you it’s very easy to adjust motion and get things dialed in to your personal taste. The trick with the ones I’ve used was to get enough weight on them, it always seemed like they worked the best when you had them loaded with a little more equipment.
But I think Gear heads are still firmly in the rental category for me.