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4-Axis Motion Control Slider System recommendations...

Dave Draper

Dave Draper

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We’ve had the Edelkrone Motion Kit for about a year now, but 1) it can’t handle a RED, and 2) it produces extremely inconsistent and inaccurate, “jittery” moves — no matter how well we calibrate it — which have the repeatability of... well, something not very repeatable. In short, it’s a long way from being “production ready”, and has actually cost us money. With that said, we do like that it is relatively compact and portable, and Edelkrone’s customer service is always top notch.

Anyway, because we want something that can handle a RED, and produces consistent, precise and repeatable moves, we feel we need to look elsewhere.

Is there anything in the same price bracket as the Edelkrone Motion Kit that fits this mould? It also needs to be relatively compact and portable, and can’t require an entire crew to set up.

Would be interested to hear everyone’s recommendations.
 
I'm using the eMotimo ST4 and it can handle simple RED DSMC2 setups to about 15-17lbs pretty well. It's not super compact, but it is a super quick to setup unit and you can indeed do pixel accurate moves. They integrate into various tracks like Dana Dolly or MYT Works stuff, with more integration kits coming. Been using it for product and VFX stuff a lot and a lot over the next month as well.

I don't know if there's anything smaller out there that can handle a RED reliably. I mean if there was I'd own it.
 
Phil Holland said:
I'm using the eMotimo ST4 and it can handle simple RED DSMC2 setups to about 15-17lbs pretty well. It's not super compact, but it is a super quick to setup unit and you can indeed do pixel accurate moves. They integrate into various tracks like Dana Dolly or MYT Works stuff, with more integration kits coming. Been using it for product and VFX stuff a lot and a lot over the next month as well.

I don't know if there's anything smaller out there that can handle a RED reliably. I mean if there was I'd own it.
Click to expand...

Phil, thanks for bringing the eMotimo ST4 to my attention. Didn't realise that was the same MOCO system as on the Dana Dolly website, which we'd been looking at previously.

Had a look on the eMotimo website, and the ST4 "Run & Gun" Bundle looks about as compact and portable as the Edelkrone Motion Kit:

https://emotimo.com/collections/bun...rum-st4-run-gun-bundle?variant=12385316110433

Really great that it can be integrated into all these different slider systems -- very versatile.

Pixel accurate, you say? This intrigues me, as the Edelkrone Head Module has a weird quirk whereby it will literally re-position the framing every time you hit "Go" on the app, making it impossible to maintain the composition of any shot.

Couldn't find many reviews for the ST4, though; unless I'm not looking in the right places?
 
Dave Draper said:
Pixel accurate, you say? This intrigues me
Click to expand...

The ST4 is a belt system, so it will largely depend on how good of a job you setup everything, it's not hard. You don't want slack in the line.

Then there's securing the dolly/slider itself so it doesn't move. But yep, you can get repeatable pixel accurate moves once you get groovy with using it. Next time I have a moment I'll grab a couple back to back moves.
 
Phil do you have any tipps on how to setup the eMotimo ST4 with Dana Dolly? My rental place has this exact combo and it's very inaccurate with a very stripped down RED/small lens.
 
JeanChristophe Dupasquier said:
Phil do you have any tipps on how to setup the eMotimo ST4 with Dana Dolly? My rental place has this exact combo and it's very inaccurate with a very stripped down RED/small lens.
Click to expand...

The key to any motion control setup is looking for areas that might cause chaos. Balancing the rig on a small dovetail helps greatly in repeated moves, bolting the camera straight on there doesn't really account for balance, so there's that. Always check the cable and if there's any slack or edging causing wiggle. You can use your eye when kneeling down to sort of scope this out. Meaning you want the cable to go straight into the gear and not on an angle. After you set it up a few times it becomes pretty much procedural. You can have a move up and going in 10 minutes really once you're comfy with it.
 
Phil Holland said:
The key to any motion control setup is looking for areas that might cause chaos. Balancing the rig on a small dovetail helps greatly in repeated moves, bolting the camera straight on there doesn't really account for balance, so there's that. Always check the cable and if there's any slack or edging causing wiggle. You can use your eye when kneeling down to sort of scope this out. Meaning you want the cable to go straight into the gear and not on an angle. After you set it up a few times it becomes pretty much procedural. You can have a move up and going in 10 minutes really once you're comfy with it.
Click to expand...


Thank you Phil, really appreciate it! Will try that when I'm there next time.
We had a stripped down RED Gemini with a 35mm Schneider Xenon lens on it and even at slow speed the image was shaking quite much. Magnifing to 1:1 showed that it was pretty bad. At higher speed it gets worse.

I'm gonna troubleshoot that with my rental place as I'm eager to use the combo how it was intended :)
 
Phil Holland said:
The key to any motion control setup is looking for areas that might cause chaos. Balancing the rig on a small dovetail helps greatly in repeated moves, bolting the camera straight on there doesn't really account for balance, so there's that. Always check the cable and if there's any slack or edging causing wiggle. You can use your eye when kneeling down to sort of scope this out. Meaning you want the cable to go straight into the gear and not on an angle. After you set it up a few times it becomes pretty much procedural. You can have a move up and going in 10 minutes really once you're comfy with it.
Click to expand...
I own the ST4 and have used countless times, though mainly for interview setups, but I 've done Monstro and 85mm Sigma cine on it for a couple of product shots. Highly recommend it
 
Abiodun Shote said:
I own the ST4 and have used countless times, though mainly for interview setups, but I 've done Monstro and 85mm Sigma cine on it for a couple of product shots. Highly recommend it
Click to expand...

That's a hefty rig.

What slider did you use? And how did you find the stability?

Got any shots you could share?
 
Dave Draper said:
We’ve had the Edelkrone Motion Kit for about a year now, but 1) it can’t handle a RED, and 2) it produces extremely inconsistent and inaccurate, “jittery” moves — no matter how well we calibrate it — which have the repeatability of... well, something not very repeatable. In short, it’s a long way from being “production ready”, and has actually cost us money. With that said, we do like that it is relatively compact and portable, and Edelkrone’s customer service is always top notch.

Anyway, because we want something that can handle a RED, and produces consistent, precise and repeatable moves, we feel we need to look elsewhere.

Is there anything in the same price bracket as the Edelkrone Motion Kit that fits this mould? It also needs to be relatively compact and portable, and can’t require an entire crew to set up.

Would be interested to hear everyone’s recommendations.
Click to expand...

Hi Dave, I was thinking of buying the edelkrone headplus and slider system, but your post made me think twice about the system. What problems do you get? I want to quickly point and focus the kamera for some nice 3 axis macro shots.. will it cause me a headache? and by the way which model is your system?
 
The higher end kessler system seems to be a similar price to camblock at 10 to 12K. We have a camblock adventure and it can handle a RED at a push.

The Slider company - I asked for quote recently but they said they dont really sell it anymore. They said price is quite high and judging by price of single axis the multi axis might be 20K +
 
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