New dovetail needs to be bought?

[Corrado Silveri]

I think that we all need to wait for an official statement from the guys@red.

I want to give to Jim (and to the whole team) all the time and all the respect that they deserve.

Just to repeat myself...

 

[Jarred Land]

I am still waiting for an answer what to do with my dovetail. It is clearly not working for what it is intended so why would I then have to BUY a new one?

The Shoulder Dovetail was always intended to work as a Shoulder Dovetail.

It is why we make a cheese-plate, for solid mounting... as well as the Arri Base for the traditional Arri Slider.

There are options for everyone, just not an "all in one" solution.

Remember, the Base Production pack is a heavily-discounted starter pack to get you into a hand held system (hence the handle).

All that said.... We are working on a new insert that we will give to all owners of the dovetail that will piggy back the rubber washer and make things alot tighter, but it will never be as solid as one of the other solutions.

Hope that answers everyone's questions.

 

[jimhare]

I know I'm an idiot, but why do you use the dovetail for tripod mounting? I thought it was mostly a formed shoulder rest?

Does it slide and allow for tripod balancing or something?

I just want to properly understand the issue before deciding whether it's a problem for me!

Thanks!

 

[grandpa it burns]

Wow, people are really getting worked up about this...

Jay,
I have seen your method used on a shoulder pad dovetail and it worked great! I don't understand why people don't take the 5 minutes out of their day and make the fix to satisfy themselves in the mean time, while waiting for RED's permanent fix? In the time that it takes someone to right a whinny post, they could have had their solution and a sturdy rig. Don't get me wrong, I think RED is responsible for fixing faulty product, but come on guys show some initiative and fix it yourself for now. Lets let the RED guys concentrate on bringing us the real fix. They know there is a problem, and have said they are working on it. I think that if we keep bugging them and bashing on their product, the good feelings of genuinely wanting to help the customer, might get replaced with feelings of artificial obligation...I don't think anyone wants that. I just think in general we can all be a little more introspective, and respectful when posting our feelings of angst. We also have to remember that these are real people killing themselves to help us, not a faceless organization, placing your email in a cue, that will be looked at when someone gets around to it. Lets make sure to give RED, CONSTRUCTIVE criticism...not just criticism. These guys must be pulling their hair out getting ready for NAB.

Cheers to all

P.S. USE JAY's METHOD IT WORKS.

 

[sander kamp]

I'm not stressing out here, don't worry! I already had my own rock-solid solution made.

On a separate note: I think it would be good if RED would send out emails to all people who possibly received not properly working accessories. I had to dive deep into the boards to find out that my audio cables are not good, that my order was missing a power cable from the charger (for which I strangely received a second charger) and now that RED is thinking on a solution for the dovetail.

 

[Sean]

For those of you that would like a fix... Take a good quality business card (not a paper one, a business CARD) and cut it the size of that hole on the plate. Take off the rubber thingy, punch a little hole in the card when the stud will come up. Push the card down into the hole and let the stud force it's way through (Do not cut a hole to size, let the stud come through and make it's own hole). Flatten the card into the hole, put the rubber piece back on top, and if the business card was the right thickness, the wobble will go away. Fair warning, the lever will be hard to lock into place, but it will lock, and the wobble will be gone.

Good luck to you all

I wanna try this fix. I don't totally get it though. I'd love to see a picture of what you're actually doing with this business card. (But you might not wanna take your dovetail off once you finally have it securely set up!)

 

[David Wyatt]

We had our original bottom plate & shoulder dovetail completely replaced as it was wobbly. The replacement was rock solid to begin with but has now gone the way of the other one and is now unacceptably wobbly (a good example of how unacceptable this is is that we were doing a promo the other day which was 100% tracking, there were a few bumps in the track (dodgy wheels or track or something) which got magnified horrendously by the wobbly nature of the mount. We ended up wratchet-strapping the camera to the head which was a really professional look!)

I don't really buy this new response that the shoulder dovetail was never meant to be rock solid - if that's true why was our first one replaced? There's obviously some kind of design flaw because our new one worked fine to begin with but then developed the wobble. It's definitely worth Red working out this issue because the ability to go straight from handheld to sticks or dolly is an absolute godsend and was in fact one of the USPs for me for the base production pack. There are similar set-ups made by Arri et al that do this so it should be possible - again I can't state how desirable this set-up is, it can save you so much time on set - going from production mode to handheld is usually an absolute time-killer, everyone hates it.

In the meantime until this problem is sorted out I think we're going to need to invest in the Element Technica 19mm baseplate. It's unclear from the photo on the Red Store but does this have some kind of shoulder rest on the under side? If this is the case then going from hand-held to tripod/dolly would just be a case of sliding it off of the sliding baseplate rather than unclicking it from a snap plate - is that right? Also, just to double check before we buy, does the ET 19mm baseplate fit existing Arri sliding baseplates (we have one of them already). Theoretically you can then screw any snap plate from pretty much any head into the bottom of that Arri sliding baseplate, right?

p.s. can the Red Store have those kind of 3D photos where you can navigate around the object, look at the top, bottom, sides etc. I've seen it on other websites and it'd be really handy for Red accessories...just an idea.

 

[Karl H]

for what it's worth I'll chime in too.

Mine wobbles but I dont want to fork out for the ET gear, especially as in addition to the plate you'd still need to buy a shoulder mounting system.

The idea of the dovetail is a good one, so please dont lose sight of that. A system that can be taken right off the tripod and onto the shoulder.

My temporary solution is to buy the cheeseplate, but I dont really want the long term inconvenience of having to change the mounting options just to get the thing on my shoulder.

So I throw my hat in with the others that ask for a rock solid solution with this flexibility.

And Red, as much as I love you I dont recall ever being told that the dovetail was never meant to be a solid mount when I made my purchase, not until people started saying it was wobbly. I would have reconsidered my options if I knew this from the off.

 

[Sean]

for what it's worth I'll chime in too.

Mine wobbles but I dont want to fork out for the ET gear, especially as in addition to the plate you'd still need to buy a shoulder mounting system.

The idea of the dovetail is a good one, so please dont lose sight of that. A system that can be taken right off the tripod and onto the shoulder.

My temporary solution is to buy the cheeseplate, but I dont really want the long term inconvenience of having to change the mounting options just to get the thing on my shoulder.

So I throw my hat in with the others that ask for a rock solid solution with this flexibility.

And Red, as much as I love you I dont recall ever being told that the dovetail was never meant to be a solid mount when I made my purchase, not until people started saying it was wobbly. I would have reconsidered my options if I knew this from the off.

I think most of us would simply have passed on Red's shoulder mount option and bought a 3rd party shoulder mount.

Red did design something more economical in this dovetail solution than anyone else was offering. But they managed to do that with a camera that delivers more than we expected for the money. I will accept some compromises (look, weight, efficiency) in a cheaper shoulder-to-tripod mount system. But I still want it to work.

 

[Obin Olson]

I agree life does not wait for the bolts to be changed out. Need solid Dovetail asap.

That is completely unworkable for documentary production. We need to pull the camera off the sticks with a quick release and go. Life doesn't wait for 4 hex bolts and swapping the gear off the rods.

Can the cheeseplate and shoulder mount co-exist:?

 

[Jarred Land]

It is a shoulder mount... it was designed as a shoulder mount. It is named a Shoulder mount.....

People who are saying they bought a shoulder mount and thought it was a tripod mount I don't really know what to tell you..

 

[Dexter Gregoire]

Should the bottom plate from the Basic production be sufficient enough or the cheese plate instead?

 

[sander kamp]

Remember, the Base Production pack is a heavily-discounted starter pack to get you into a hand held system (hence the handle).

Sorry Jarred but if that's true then why is this picture on the RED website:

That looks like a fully decked out RED on a really sturdy tripod to me all held together by a .... dovetail?

 

[donatello b]

It is a shoulder mount... it was designed as a shoulder mount. It is named a Shoulder mount.....

People who are saying they bought a shoulder mount and thought it was a tripod mount I don't really know what to tell you..

perhaps some of the confusion was( is) from RED's photo's showing the camera with Arri FF,MB , cooke lens with the shoulder dove tail on a tripod=
i assume i can do the same ( perhaps fine print under the photo stating the set up is for photo purposes only and not intended to be used on tripod as shown in photo??) ..
now i didn't see any photo's of the same set up with the 300mm so i assume the shoulder dove tail thing can't take it ...

 

[sander kamp]

It is a shoulder mount... it was designed as a shoulder mount. It is named a Shoulder mount.....

People who are saying they bought a shoulder mount and thought it was a tripod mount I don't really know what to tell you..

The photos clearly suggest otherwise.

 

[Jarred Land]

yes.. I will give you guys that one.

It was just for a photo but it is suggestive.. and ill make sure we fix that.

 

[Sean]

Or maybe just miscommunication? The Red accessories were always vague. We are learning now that the shoulder mount doesn't really offer a tripod mounting option. I didn't know that.

 

[Jarred Land]

Agree with the miscommunication (or lack of it).. the accessories didnt have descriptions until recently, we are working on improving.

 

[David Wyatt]

I think Element Technica are working on a sturdier & more reliable method for going instantaneously from handheld to head, according to their website. You'd still need their bridge-plate ($900) so the total figure might end up putting a lot of people off. Arri used to make a fantastic bit of kit that was a handheld rig (with adjustable handle bars) that slotted into their bridge plate but also had a click plate machined into it so you could just unclick it from the head and go straight into handheld (no sliding it off a baseplate or sliding off a shoulder mount etc). Design-wise it wasn't a million miles away from the Red shoulder dovetail - same concept but just sturdier design and the benefit of attaching to Arri's bomb-proof bridge plates.

 

[Brent Carter]

Like Jarred mentioned, we have been trying to focus on improving communication lines from RED to the customer: email blasts with information for each delivery batch, emails when new firmware or software is available, posts on REDUSER, adding descriptions to product detail pages on the website, Jon's "what you need to know" thread, etc. We know we still have a ways to go - a robust FAQ section for RED.com is one thing we are working on now.

If you have any suggestions on what information you need and how you'd like to receive it, feel free to PM me. Most customer communication goes through me or Jon.

I hope everyone sees that we have tried to improve leaps and bounds in our processes and communication. But we still have goals to get even better.

BC