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Yup, within the first few minutes the Steadicam Smoothee walked through the door it was laying helplessly in pieces on my workbench. As I suspected, it’s quite easy to modify this little stabilizer. With a quick release adapter, a top stage that can be fine tuned Left/Right & Forward/Back for easy balance, and one of [...]

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I want to say when these things were first released they were over $200 dollars. Ridiculous pricing if all you plan to fly is a cell phone. They have since dropped down in price, and while they are listed at about $180 dollars elsewhere, this month they’re on sale at B&H (click here). Not bad [...]

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There’s a million different little stabilizers on the market, but about a month ago (maybe a bit longer), the Steady Dragon brand upgraded the Gimbal to a universal joint. This type of gimbal provides the maximum amount of range compared to the little Ball-and-Socket type like found in the Hague MMC. The Steady Dragon [...]

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The Skyler MiniCam has been a work in progress floating around the Internet for a very long time, but this is the first time i’ve seen it available on eBay. A clever little stabilizer which stands on it’s own like a tripod, looks to have great build quality, and very simple fine tuning knobs. A [...]

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Today Tiffen announced at CES a newly designed Steadicam Merlin 2. One interesting additions is an upgrade to the handle that includes a remote to start / stop video. Not available in retail stores yet, but a full FAQ section and PDF user manual is available on the Tiffen website http://www.tiffen.com/steadicam_merlin2.html

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Preparing for a last minute shoot today, I found my Steadicam Merlin Vest had cracked on the upper chest piece. Crap. The quick fix for me today was to use the top portion of the Konova Vest and mate it with the Steadicam Merlin Arm (which is held on with the waist area). There was [...]

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Another Hollywood Ultralight turns up on auction. This ultralight stabilizer is a discontinued product, but works like a mini Glidecam (as seen in the video demonstration above). It can support cameras of up to 4lbs, but with all the new GF3 like cameras with HD video, it’s too bad they don’t start making these things [...]

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(Above) Video was just for fun, don’t take it seriously
I’ve probably tested more stabilizers than the Brady Bunch Family has fingers and toes (combined). Not everything makes it on the blog, because it just ends up as wasted sapce. Now i’m not saying some of these stabilizers ‘won’t fly’. What I look into and weigh [...]

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A closer look at the Konova video camera Stabilizer Vest and Arm. Let’s start here. Pricing? Not very competitive. Everyone knows about my Hybrid setup using the Steadicam Merlin Vest / Arm + Glidecam HD4000. This hybrid setup works extremely well and you can probably put one together yourself for around $2300 or so. The [...]

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Testing out some new gear here. Purposely a very poor image with badges erased. The vest and arm are very impressive, but we’ll see how the actual stabilizer performs. It’s not a Steadicam or Glidecam brand name. Unless you can tell which one this is by the image, i’ll have a review on this item [...]

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A friend asks about shooting a commercial following a fast Parkour runner with a long and continuous Steadicam shot. I’m an old fella, so I guarantee I can’t keep up especially while trying to fly a Steadicam. So of course i’m thinking up different ways to pull this off, but one requirement was being able [...]

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Anyone know much about ASXMOV? It’s another Steadicam like vest and Stabilizer kit. Pretty poor old school demo video (above), but none-the-less somewhat effective. A single unit shows up online with total pricing on the kit (including shipping), cost about $1100 less than Wondlan’s new Leopard stuff.

ASXMOV Video Camera Stabilizer Vest Kit

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Wondlan’s new Leopard Stabilizer system comes in along with some of the cheapest Dual Arm Vest + Stabilizer kits. How well does it work? Hmm..There’s a few videos that are showing up over at Vimeo for you to take a look at. One demo above, and an instructional type video showing how to assemble the [...]

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No matter how many Honda Civics are out on the road, there will always be the other guy who’d rather drive the more expensive Porsche. Sure it’s apples to oranges, but if you just need to make a trip to the grocery store, the end result is the same. My point being that a flying [...]

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Cameras are getting smaller and lighter. People are attempting to fly GoPro’s and iPhones on Steadicams. For lightweight cameras including Sony’s A55, Panasonic GH2’s, or Canon T2is, here’s a simple DIY DSLR Steadicam (merlin style) stabilizer idea from Vimeo member KFLeung. There isn’t much tooling required, it’s more of an assembly of readily available pieces [...]

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Question comes in from Twitter – Can the Nano fly a 60D + Canon 24-105mm F4L?

This is not a setup I would normally use, since I really like the wide flying look. I don’t normally have the time to video test every camera + lens combination, but I admit I was pretty curious about this [...]