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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

BeSteady FOUR Thread

Malik Tigrine said:
Perhaps it´s a stupid question but why do you don't simply ask for a refund?
Click to expand...

Exactly what David said. I recall them saying refunds won't go out until all units have been delivered. Even then, chances getting your money back are probably slim given their track record.
 
Malik Tigrine said:
Perhaps it´s a stupid question but why do you don't simply ask for a refund?
Click to expand...

There are reaons - this thread being one of them, that we think development-related group-buys belong on Kickstarter/Indiegogo
 
Don't laugh... But theoretical question: If i decide to jump, would anyone be interested in taking my spot? ;) Yeah, i know.
 
back from Set

back from Set

Hi Guys,

excuse me for getting back here so slow, but our shoot continued pretty fast and we had quite a few long and exhausting Shooting Days the last 2 weeks... and suddenly we are already on Shooting Day 24...crazy.

Tomorrow i will have some time for some more Insights and Experiences from our Set, here a little something our DIT on Set rendered out tonight, a little Snippet i catched with the Dragon Beast V1 of the Beast V2 in Stabilizing Action while we were waiting on Makeup to get ready for the next shot:

http://raw.welldone.tv/jpg/four_v2_Set.mov
 
Besteady Four on Set continued...

Besteady Four on Set continued...

…so a little further into our Start of the Project:

after a couple of Pre Testing Days in Berlin and Stuttgart we were moving Final Testing of the Gimbals and RED Dragons to the Arri Headquarters in Munich where Testingrooms close to the Shooting Location and also Additional needed Equipment were.



IMG_1174.jpg



It was a bit a funny Situation with 3 RED Cameras in the Middle of Arri Territory in their 100 year old Holy Headquarters Halls ( there happened to be after our 3rd Test day an Arri Internal Alexa Mini Celebration Party… what a Scene when we walked through there after the Test with a Besteady Four rigged with a RED Dragon…legendary…)
But the Testing Conditions were great there, it was logistically the best Place for the production and we were very welcomed by the very nice Arri People! So we could fine tune and optimize the Rigs and Settings for the Shoot. Also especially the Camera Support for it. Cause we knew 8 hours a day with a fully rigged Cine Gimbal Shooting Kids you will not survive without a Support.
the other Operator is 74 years old, he did not use a gimbal before the shoot and it speaks for the Gimbal and the support Systems that he got into the whole thing great after a couple of days and now operates like a natural without him being too fatigue and exhausted after a long shooting day.


So we chose one L’Aigle Exoskeleton and one Atlas Camera Support Heavy Duty Edition.

which you can see to the left standing next to everything else all Packed up and ready to go into the Camera truck ( my Colleague Leif Thomas in the middle)

IMG_1191.jpg


Thoughts on that so far: The exo takes getting a couple o days getting used to and you have to put some graphite or similar to the moving parts so you minimize squeaking. it is well built and it is very easy to go to different heights during a take - very smooth. the hight flexibility is a big plus. through most doors and locations you can fit but sometimes it can be just a bit too wide. especially on a 2 cam shoot in a small german house / apartment. but you have no extra height on top and that is a big plus for a feature cause the boom guy can go over you.

that height thing( next to boom things is sometimes low doors etc lights etc ) is the problem of the atlas (we call it the Ant! ) and also could be a bit on the readyrig even i did not test that yet i could be wrong the ready rig sounds like a really promising thing.

also the Ant is basicylla only floating at one height that you have to cumbersome preset with the rope length. all other heights you have to pull down on or lift up with force. the whole weight kind of pulls / bends you forward and is not on the hips like on the exo and it is more exhausting to operate that during the day. but you are not as wide and don’t need the 15 cm clearance on your back for the metal wings.

but so far the exo is a clear winner and a great device!


After a couple of Days Testing we had it all figured out and there were the two Beast Rigs in their Final Configurations in the Arri Testing Rooms:

IMG_1177.jpg


IMG_1183.jpg


IMG_1185.jpg


and here on waiting standby position in the back of the camera truck before we drove off:

IMG_1265.jpg


We found a pretty neat and clean Monitor and Cable Solution with which we are really happy so far from the way it is physically laid out:

from the camera goes only the SDI Cable up to the Handle Bar with a little loosely laid loop.

from the DC IN Port on the Beast Main Core we go with an ultra flex Power Cable in a half way Loop up to the Middle Grip. all fastened with cable ties.

on the left of the handle bar we mount a SmallHD DP 7 High Bright (for outdoors ) or DP 7 OLED (for Indoors) for operating. way cooler than a red touch lcd which cannot support native 24p Framerate, which these babies can.

the mounting is pretty tight and cool with the besteady accesorium type B plate. no swinging / vibrations or anything.—> a big goal in our rigging was making everything vibration and wiggle free and as light and tidy as possible.. and i think so far it is a good result)

also cool that it stays always in level for operating since it does not move at all like a noga-arm could.

only thing diffcult is tilting up and down quickly, you have to unscrew a hex screw… a quick release on these accessorium mounts would nail it. or a smooth buttery up down tilt mechanism like in the RED Spinner that rotates around the handle… :)

at the back of the Monitor a DTAP 1 to 4 expander which is mounted with power Velcro. then power goes to DP 7 and the Bolt on the right side which is perfectly mounted on two Accesorium type A Connectors. good position and good place for the antenna! on top and vertical and no things around it obstruction Reception.

some short and medium thin costum made SDI Cables to connect it all and it is done.

then the next trick: a simple DTAP Extension of 2 meters length that connects to the DTAP Expander and then leads over the left Grip over the Arms of the Exoskeleton to its back where a V Mount Plate is mounted. (pretty improvised so far with a little clamp and a RED L Piece cause there is no mounting holes so far on the exo back :( … )
there goes a big 230 Wh Battery ( i recommend taking a big Wh Size or you will have to swap batteries so often.

This Solution provides the big advantage no that the complete Setup is powered with one single battery and a battery reload is very fast and mainly we have no additional Battery or weight on the Gimbal Rig! that is good for the motors and for operating and also for carrying when you don’t have a support system in some shots.

A big drawback so far is Power Lead Diameter when using flexible cables: in the first config we had very thin power wires (2 x 0,25mm ) in our flex cable from DTAP Expander to DC IN, and that Drops the Voltage ENORMOUSLY! so our batteries run out very much faster than usual.
we had to trick the Gimbal voltage display a bit in letting us run it longer on these batteries by doing a battery calibration that was based on a half empty battery - that did the trick pretty good so far, but we found now a cable that is still flexible and has more Diameter ( 4 x 0,33 mm and you can combine 2 leads for one phase )


One Mechanical thing that was really difficult for our Setup was that with the Baseplate we got and our Rig Setup we could not slide the plate far enough back sometimes for balance when the 15 mm Clamp was mounted (which we need for our follow focus motors) cause that one blocks the two metal guides on the Sled.
we must say that we really got nothing at the end of the Dragon body so we have to slide really far back

So until there is gonna be a longer baseplate we made a little quick and dirty modification in the metal shop next door to the baseplate:

a little slit on both sides of the 15 mm clamp now you can slide the guides completely through. not pretty but it works ;)

what we also made in the same time is drilling away the Threads that were in the baseplate cause it is way easier to get your screws into the Dragon Body when you don’t have thread on thread.

IMG_1215.jpg



so far for today….Good Night from Munich!

IMG_1143.jpg
 
Thanks a lot Alex for the write-up and pictures. Very much appreciated.
At least it's nice to see this thing being alive and rocking...
 
A longer mounting plate is one of the things I've asked ACR for in the past, and will be crucial in the future. When ACR enables powering cameras via the tray Traxxas connector (or if you choose to power your RED via LiPo) there won't be a need Anton or V-lock battery on the back, or side, which will mean losing a crucial counterweight when we try to add a larger lens, wireless motor, matte box, filters, selfie Go-Pro cameras... A longer plate with a long slot for the screws instead of individual holes would offer more mounting options to offset the weight of the camera and more easily align the center of gravity across a wide variety of builds. Alex's modification to clear out the slots is also key, to gain more offset mounting options.

Alex, thanks for the pictures and the extensive post. It's great to compare builds with other users. I couldn't find this info in your post, maybe I overlooked it: How are you running power to the RED? What is the exact mounting setup you have to mount the DP7 to the Accessorium B – is that a tiny L-brakcet I see? How does it work to have the rig power attached to the rig when your operator wants to dock and take a break? Do you have a solution so you don't have to power down the whole rig or if an AC wants to adjust some settings while the operator is off hydrating?

Thanks, Alex!
 
Jordan Raabe said:
A longer mounting plate is one of the things I've asked ACR for in the past, and will be crucial in the future. When ACR enables powering cameras via the tray Traxxas connector (or if you choose to power your RED via LiPo) there won't be a need Anton or V-lock battery on the back, or side, which will mean losing a crucial counterweight when we try to add a larger lens, wireless motor, matte box, filters, selfie Go-Pro cameras... A longer plate with a long slot for the screws instead of individual holes would offer more mounting options to offset the weight of the camera and more easily align the center of gravity across a wide variety of builds. Alex's modification to clear out the slots is also key, to gain more offset mounting options.

Alex, thanks for the pictures and the extensive post. It's great to compare builds with other users. I couldn't find this info in your post, maybe I overlooked it: How are you running power to the RED? What is the exact mounting setup you have to mount the DP7 to the Accessorium B – is that a tiny L-brakcet I see? How does it work to have the rig power attached to the rig when your operator wants to dock and take a break? Do you have a solution so you don't have to power down the whole rig or if an AC wants to adjust some settings while the operator is off hydrating?

Thanks, Alex!
Click to expand...

Hi Jordan,

its great to hear that these Insights can help current and future Besteady Users out with helping Setup their rig. A lot of efforts and thoughts went into it and i think it will help even if you wait until you got the unit in hand to get started off much faster with a great Rig! it really took us a while to get to a good Setup for Feature Film work and believe me there is of course still a lot of room for improvement!

I have heard from ACR that a longer plate is in the works so this will be solved in the future too.

Now to your questions, which are really good ones!

The Power as of today goes as following which only works with the V2 board, which is just one of the reasons the V2 upgrade is killer : V mount battery with dtap out to a 2 meter dtap extension to a dtap splitter behind DP 7. then to dp 7 + bolt + 1 cable to DC IN of Besteady. On Camera Shelve we cut the traxxas connector and changed for a 2 pin B0 Lemo female. then our costume cable as explained into epic and FIZ Receiver.

There is no bracket on the accessorium type B - it is a screw directly through it to the back of the dp 7 - there is one thread on its bottom back. it holds really good, no wiggling or vibrations and has a low profile and the horizon is always same as your Bar. problem so far is tilting up down is only possible with opening screw with tool and also when tilting it up very much the other end of the Accesorium is in the way of the pan bar: which can collide with it when you have dual operator mode - usually in follow mode ( single op) you never have the pan bar go that far left or right.

i mean with the exo in the first couple of weeks of shooting in 45 degrees ( that is how it felt at least) celsius Hot weather... i never had to go pee a single time...even though i drank like 10 liters a day.... it was all sweated out...

IMG_1382.jpg


and to be honest with the exo one could if you want or must stand all day in it even if you have a Rig hanging from it, but we must say that we have a pretty light configged rig in our besteadys currently, one could have way heavier rigs in the besteady and exo ...and then it might be a matter of your stamina.

and of course being able to sit down while wearing exo and rig is a really quick solution to take all weight of you, then you have no muscles that carry anything when you sit there really relaxed...


but if you want to take of the besteady of the exo currently it is easy: the AC or 2 nd AC takes the Vmount battery out of its plate on the back of the exo including cable and then just unhooks the besteady from the exo fabric hooks and then can put it on its tripod.

i can then either keep on wearing the exo and run around and talk or go pee or to catering... or i get rid of the exo and put it on its stand.

and the gimbal and cam is still powered and running. and anybody wanting to play with Dragon can do this, change lens, settings etc or watch a replay over the bolt 300 on the big Video combo screen or etc.


here i just compressed a little snippet of some walking with the Besteady and an exoskelet that the other Dragon / Besteady rigged camera captured during our previous shooting day:

http://raw.welldone.tv/jpg/four_v2_Set_walk.mov


and here a little good night smile ;)

IMG_1629.jpg
 
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