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CINETECH FALCON II CAMERA DOLLY: ADVICE PLEASE?

NOSA OBAYIUWANA

NOSA OBAYIUWANA

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Hi

We are about to pull the plug on either a Superfalcon II Cinetech Dolly or a Panther Column Dolly.

I have used both for short periods (never long term). If there is anybody out there with experience using any can you give some advice on which one to purchase.

My immediate worries:

1. That the Cinetech may have poor build quality and breakdown
2. Panther column dollies are great but not as popular

Any help / advice will be really appreciated.

Thanks everyone
 
Also if there are any grips out there how does the Cinetech compare to the Peewee / Chapman Hustler?
 
No idea what your business is but you may find talking to Chapman UK is worthwhile if you are worried about popularity... You very rarely see anything other than chapman here... Personally if I was going to buy a column dolly it would probably be a GFM unit.

What is you main business? Who will be working the dolly? And what are you trying to achieve with the purchase?

Good luck..
 
Thanks for replying Michael. I have spoken to Chapman but we need to buy one and they do not sell. I love the Hybrid 4... best dolly ever in my opinion but we just cannot rent. The GFM was my original choice until I saw this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N26gy0xGxE then the GFM was out of the question.

We are a small production house and a film school. We need the dolly for live projects and training new grips.
 
That does look odd.. Give them a call and ask for advice and reference the vid? the reason why I trust GFM is they talked me out of buying something I didn't actuall need but thought would work.. Where as Panther have nice but 'keen' sales people that would sell my dead granny a dolly if they could;-)
 
What also worries me is that the Guys at GFM have not been Youtubing their company name. That I find to be a bit negligent. This is a serious issue for any potential buyer... the dolly is over £50K after all. To have no response from the company after a year does not fill me with confidence.
 
I have heard bad things about the italian dolly. I think I used one once and it was fine, but I have never met a dolly grip who went, "wow what a great copy of a peewee!". Panther dolly is a great dolly. The GFM steering issue isn't as bad as they make it out to be in that video. My elemack steers the same way, basically, yeah, you can't make tight radius turns with a 2 wheel steer evenly spaced 4 wheel dolly. That's what crab and using a different wheel configuration is for. The fact that the GFM dolly can switch from normal to crab really easily should solve that problem.

Nick
 
Column dollies are the most common type of dollies on European mainland and GFM is for sure one of the most committed company in this business! They are not active on social media but those guys are true professionals always listening and improving...
 
We pulled the trigger on the Panther today. The rentals for a Chapman were too high and I really like a lot of the functions on the Panther..... eg

1. Ability for the operator to control the jib movement

2. No charging after 6 or 7 jibs

3. 250kg lift on the column

4. Can go through extremely narrow corridors

5. One of the lightest dolly systems

6. Panthers long list of accessories
 
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It is one of the great things about a small centre dolly is using it with a jib... I have never worked with him but Roger Deakins very often uses a jib based of a similar dolly (not a panther) ...

Obviously you hit the 250 kg limit with a mid to big jib but there are great options that will go on...

I am biased as I love the positional abilities of a solid short jib
 
One thing that I think is underplayed with the column dollies is the ability for the cam op to control the column movement. Big thing in my opinion. Makes for really precise movements.
 
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