Short or Long Arms for Shoulder Rigs?

[BrendanLeahy]

Curious on what everyone has, and what to pros/cons, if any, there are to the different shoulder rig arm lengths. I'm 6'1, so was looking into the longer arms so I don't feel like I'm always ready to rabbit-punch someone.

 

[Bob Gundu]

I like to hold my camera more eng style and therefore use stubby Aaton style grips.

 

[Chad Cooper]

always nice to have option of both, easy with rosette arms and whatnot

 

[Ron Steinberg]

Hi Bob,

That's my preference as well. I'm looking for an Aaton style handle system for my R1, what do you use?

Cheers,
Ron

I like to hold my camera more eng style and therefore use stubby Aaton style grips.

 

[constantine Tirintzis]

Hello. Camera users and specially small camera users have to realize that those cameras or at least 99,9% of them due to awkard shape , size, weight, that to me is lack of ergonomics suffer from bad possitioning on shoulder versus balance, lack of good evf possitioning , distribution of weight, and over all confortable way on getting this on the shoulder with out having to rest every 5 min of takes. It seems to me that back in the old days that film cameras were heavier, longer, at the same time they were made with good ergonomics, so the extra weight, length and geometry, wouldnt make users to suffer from long takes, and now that the weight size went down people find all those weird ways fighting against physics to put the camera on their shoulder , and make the take last 5m, after they get an aching experience and stiff neck. Every sysetm ahs pros and cons, Eng style is the smallest easiest configuration for a user, but on the other hand, its very limited and aaton grips are certainly very nice when... they come with a low profile low distribution Aaton camera, and not a square box camera.
No matter what is being said from user to user, every single operator has a different size body, geometry, style, and tactic to shoot. Getting for example an accurate focus with a big sensor camera under all different contitions and be certain that the shot is done well, has or has not prooved to be ideal in every case. Focus pullers are the ones who solve this problem at most cases, there for the op can concentrate on the framing and dont have to jump back and forth to check and distruct the shot. There are many different ways for shouting hheld now those days. hand grips, long ones, short ones, front heavy, balanced, low angle, all serve some purpose and miss another.
A reasonable small setup is in most cases the best, that can also balance the camera over your shoulder well, and let you feel confortable. Taking a small box camera, adding 100 cages around it, with 100 holes, threads, rails or other stuff just in case you need them, makes the light small box camera, a large box heavy camera, that is way far from the old long heavy film cameras because its simply bad ergonomically designed . I think that in most cases people dont even look at phycics and set up rigs that maybe look like a gun, or like an allien preditor machine with out give attention of how well can help them to do a shot. I also belive that getting to know simple phycics can let you understand better what you need to have a good shooter, rather than looking around to see what looks better, and what most use.
regards