26Sep Makerbot upgrades for the Next Noob shock mount revision.
When I’m not tied up with other projects I’m slowly putting together new ideas for the Noob store. To the left is the upgraded MK7 makerbot extruder, to the right is a ruff mock up of the next generation of Noob shock mount. There are 3 cold shoe mounts along the outside for extra gear. The frame is about 2mm thicker then the original to support the extra weight and you still have a nice and easy to use shock mount for a good price. I still have a few more adjustments and tests to run before it shows up in the noob store, but with any luck the MK7 printer head will help speed things up. I’ll try to keep you posted on the progress, but for now it’s more CAD work for me.
25Sep Spider Steady Rig DSLR Rig Movie Kit adjustable shoulder rig video Review
The title of this post represents the current verbal spasm of a name that this rig sells under right now. The official name for this rig is the Spider Steady Rig (thanks to alexpirpiris for finding that for me), but it goes by many other names. Every time I start to complain about this rig I have to remind myself that it’s only $70 and since most of the problems I have with the design are do to build quality, it stands to reason that you get what you pay for. I would love to see a aircraft part quality version of this rig and it seems like I remember seeing something like that a few years back, but I wasn’t able to find it now.
For the price the is a good buy, but I would spend a few dollars at the hardware store replacing some of the nuts and bolts to beef this thing up a bit. You can find it on Amazon for around $80 if you want it here fast and on
if you don’t mind waiting for the trip from china.
For more close up pictures of the Spider Steady Rig, check out this earlier post.
24Sep Cheap Flexible Focus gears for your Follow focus
Focus gears can get kind of pricey depending on who you buy them from, so when I see one for , I’m a little skeptical of the quality. The basic idea of this little guy is that you can tighten the flexible gear on to your lens’s focus ring and your left with a one size fits most gear for your focus puller. It looks like the pitch on the gears is a standard .8 so this should work with most focus pullers out there. Not sure how well it grips the lens, but for $10.25 the
is probably worth taking a look.
Currently all of my focus gears are made out of hard plastic and either Redrock micro or a . Redrock makes some great stuff, but the price for one focus gear is around $40, the
is around $70 for 6 different sizes which works out to about the same price as the adjustable focus gear, but each gear is only designed to work with one size of lens.
You can also find these flex gears on amazon for $4 more if you don’t want to wait for shipping from china.
Thanks for the heads up on this one Aaron!
21Sep Juicedlink DS214 adapters finally back in the Noob store.
There was finally a brake in the orders for Zoom h1 shock mounts and my makerbot wasn’t out of service with mechanical problems. This gave me the day worth of testing and editing I needed to iron out the problems I was having with the Juicedlink DS214 adapter design. You can now, once again, order this handy little adapter for your Juicedlink DS214.
If you wonder why you would want the DS214 adapter, this picture explains it all. You have a cold shoe and 1/4 20 mount on both the top and bottom of the adapter which allows you to mount the juicedlink DS214 in a position that makes it much easier to use. The extra space on top gives you a good place to mount something like the RODE VideoMic without wasting space on your rig.
To me, this is much more useful then dealing with juicelink’s upside down mounting bracket, and at $10, it’s the cheapest mounting solution that I know of. If you’ve sent me an e-mail over the last few months wondering when this would be back in stock, I apologize for the delay and blame staffing issues. If only I could clone myself, things would get done a lot faster.
20Sep My old Lilliput 8″ monitor put to good use.
A number of you sent me e-mails when I posted my old Lilliput 8″ hdmi monitor for sale a few weeks back, but Brennan was the first to hit the buy it now button. He was also kind enough to send some pictures of it mounted to his PVC shoulder rig. Looks pretty nice and it’s good to see my old monitor is going to good use.
Brennan has the rest of his pictures up over at brobesfx.com.
20Sep Big Canon announcements coming soon?
If you like speculation about what Canon plans to do with there camera line, I highly recommend you check out Canonrumors.com. They usually have the scoop on events, rumors, and patent filings for Canon products.
This one is very interesting and a little strange. Canon has released a lot of DSLR cameras over the years and I don’t remember them calling anything a “historic global announcement”. I hope that’s code for a long over due follow up to the Canon 5d mark II. I know the 5d has all of that full frame and low light goodness, but the auto focus system isn’t that great, the build quality is lacking when compared to its little brother (Canon 7d), and 3.9 fps looks pretty sad when Sony is offering up Cameras with 10fps.
If Canon is announcing a new DSLR, it better not be a baby step forward, or there market share is going take a nose dive. I would also like to see Canon freshen up it’s video camera line which hasn’t made many advances forward over the last few years. The Canon XA10, for example, is basically just the Canon hf s100 from a few years ago with a few minor upgrades and a handle with XLR jacks added to the top.
Sony and Panasonic have had interchangeable lens video cameras for awhile and it’s a shame Canon hasn’t released something similar. But whatever the announcement is I hope “historic” isn’t just a buzz word. I know I’ll be keeping an eye on this event as it comes closer.
20Sep The 3d printer took my weekend
I had grand plans of shooting some video reviews this weekend and getting some new stuff into the Noob Store, but as soon as I sat down in front of a CAD program for a little bit of design work I ended up spending 3 days designing this guy. 22 hours of designing, cutting, redesigning, cutting again, and I have almost all of the none electronic parts finished for a full 3d printer.
Normally I get burned out on a project like this after 5 or 6 hours of work, but things were going so well that I kept on plowing through. If I keep this up I might have this printer finished before the next kit printer shows up. Motors and belts are on there way, so now it’s time to take a brake from this project and get back to camera gear.
15Sep Shock mounts back in stock again.
I have plastic and hardware back in stock and the makerbot is again running at full steam, shock mounts are now back in the Noob store. DS214 adapters might come back in a few weeks once the second printer is up and running. Also new items in the Noob store coming tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.
15Sep Tascam Takes another swing at Zoom with the Tascam DR-40 4 track recorder.
A few months back Tascam released the DR-05 which seemed to be a direct competitor to the Zoom h1 field recorder, I compared the two units side by side and it did seem like the over all build quality of the DR-05 was better then the Zoom h1, though the H1 wins in the size category. Now it seems Tascam has it’s sights set on the Zoom h4n with the release of the Tascam DR-40. At around $80 less you end up with a 4 track field recorder with adjustable built in mic’s, XLR/1/4 inch combo inputs and a button interface very close to that of the DR-05. One major thing that’s missing is an 1/8 inch stereo input, the only way to record 4 tracks is the use a combination of the built in microphone with the XLR/1/4 inch inputs which limits a lot of what makes the 4 track recording handy when using the Zoom H4n.
Another thing to consider is that the Tascam DR-100, which falls into ruffly the same price category as the Zoom h4n, looks like a much beefier build while also featuring dedicated volume controls. The Tascam DR-40 also seems to be missing the option to act as a USB audio interface for you computer, which is something I use almost weekly with my Zoom h4n.
It does have Neutrik Combo jacks which accommodate both XLR and 1/4 inch inputs and a mysterious 1/8 inch plug labeled “remote” at the base. Maybe this is a 1/8 inch stereo input after all, or maybe Tascam plans to offer a remote control like the one that is available for the Zoom H4n. Either way I will find out soon and let you know. I should have the Tascam DR-40 in for review next week and a video with a back to back comparison of both the Tascam and Zoom h4n to follow. Special Thanks to RED for point this out to me this morning.
One side note is that the Refurbished Zoom H4n field recorders are down to $249 on amazon right now, which puts the price to feature gap a lot closer to the DR-40.
13Sep Ram mount 1″ ball adapters: buyers guide
I’m a big fan of Ram Mount 1 inch ball adapters, they’re easy to mount, come in all kinds of configurations, and they’re very rugged. The only problem with Ram Mount is that they make a lot of stuff and because of that their website is about as organized as a riot in a prison yard. Whats worse is they use a numbering system for all of there parts that has little to do with anything I could figure out. An example of this is the 1 inch ball to 1/4 20 stud adapter (above bottom left), just look under “RAM-B-237U”. I have no idea what any of those numbers mean or how I would every guess that they belonged to the item I was looking for. It’s so bad that I actually have to keep a cheat sheet with a part number list in my parts bag.
So here is a quick little over view and guide to what I’ve found useful. First lets start with part numbers. I use all 1 inch ball adapters, they work well and they also connect with other camera equipment I have. The barbell looking thing on the top left is a Ram Aluminum Double 1” Ball Adapter (part number: RAM-B-230), it runs about $10 to $15 and works great when you need to extend the length of your mount. Below that and to the left is the RAM 1/4″-20 Female Threaded Hole with 1″ ball (part number: RAM-B-348U), it runs about $6 to $10 and gives you a good option for mounting on adapter plates with open holes. Directly below that is the Ram 1″ Ball with 1/4″-20 Aluminum Stud (part number: RAM-B-237U), it’s use should be obvious and it’s price is $6 to $10. To the far right are 3 of the Ram Marine Double Socket Arms (part number: RAM-B-201), I have a few of these that were sold with the word “marine” in the title and a few just labeled “double sock arm” and I have no idea what the difference is, price is about $8 to $15.
The (above) and the ram mount system (below) are ruffly the same length and price, but there is a trade off. The Ram Mount Arm has more adjustment options, is a lot stronger, handles more weight, and is a lot more durable, but because of this it weighs almost twice as much as the petite
.
One other thing to consider is that RAM makes so many different types of adapters that they can be attached to almost anything. If you need a ball mount on your windshield or even on your cup holder they make it. You’ll have to decide for yourself what works best for your application, but if you need something rugged RAM 1 inch ball mounts are definitely something to consider.
If you do decide to go with a RAM Mount setup, make sure you keep an eye out for shipping prices. Some sellers like to mark the price up by double. I’m an Amazon Prime
