Rod Length

[Ryan Patch]

Hey, all-

I'm refining my accessories package right now for a delivery that's coming up. I'm trying to figure out how long I need my 19mm rods to be if I want to be able to mount a prime, FF and Matte Box on them. What have been your experiences?

Thanks!

 

[David Didato]

18" will do fine.

 

[Chris Burket]

Bottom rods or top rods?

If you want to run bottom rods with primes only, you should be good with 12'' rods. They are the standard size that most rental houses ship out with their packages. 18'' will work with small and medium zooms such as the cooke 18-100, 20-100 etc..

If you want to pass the bottom rods all the way through the back and mount a battery or other accessories off the rear of the camera as well as run a prime with matte box on the front, you'll want 24'' rods.

For top rods, I would suggest 12'' and 18''. 12'' are great for running just a battery and 18'' are great for running battery + drive etc...

 

[Mike Prevette]

Same I have both a set of 12" and 18" and it takes care of 90% of every job. If I need anything else it usually comes from the rental house with a lens.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I like 24" for bottom rods when using bigger lenses like the Cooke 18-100. It supports the lens and still gives me enough room on the back side of the camera to mount the battery and drive.

12" and 18" handle just about everything else. 6" rods are also handy on top if you don't need to pass rods through two top mounts. Same on bottom if you use the RED bottom plate and just want to extend rods out to the rear. With the ET Arri base or SIM toe plate, you will need longer rods (12" or longer) to extend out to the rear since both of those base plates clamp the rods at the front of the camera. ...Unless you want to start mounting your baseplates ass backwards or doing other creative things to just make things work.

 

[Chris Gearhart]

Yup, I prefer the 24" on the bottom. True, 18 will do for alot (80%?) of what you want it to do, but the 24" will do for 95%. Especially for long lenses and matte box and battery/drive on the end.

If you have to pick two, I'd say 12 and 24.

 

[Ryan Patch]

So, say I go with 18" in the production pack for standard application, then the 12" carbon for more of a lightweight setup? Would you be able to include a prime, MB, and then a battery on the back with only a 12"?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Not with the 12". The camera body itself is almost 12" long. You need 18" if you want to support a mattebox out front and still have some rod out back.

The Carbon X rods are nice, but they're expensive. If you're trying to save money and weight, the aluminum rods are a good option and so are the ET UltraRods. ET's are aluminum too, but have a hard nickel-alloy coating on them, which is a better surface than the black anodizing of RED's aluminum rods.