Microdolly gear?

[Todd Terry]

For ulta-lightweight and high portability, MicroDolly makes some pretty good stuff in the dolly department. I’ve found some of their gear to be a little bit pricey, but that’s true of all well-made cine gear.

As far as jibs go though, I swear by the Losmandy Porta-Jib Traveler (www.porta-jib.com). It’s a little on the pricey side too, in fact it is probably one of the more expensive small jibs out there…. but it’s great and worth every penny. Unlike most other small variable-length jibs you never have to assemble or disassmble it or add or remove sections… it simply telescopes in and out. I’ve had mine for pushing 10 years and have used it with everything from little DV cameras to heavy full-size 35mm film rigs. It has paid for itself 100 times over… and I know several other Porta-Jib owners who are just as happy with theirs.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Seth Hancock]

Jason,

I cannot answer the question about a jib as we always rent a professional one for commercial shoots. However, I can clearly talk about some cost-effective dolly solutions.

We priced Micro Dolly and Indie Dolly. We ended up going with Indie Dolly for a couple of reasons. One, it is cheaper, thicker product and very sturdy. Second, the basic Indie Dolly system comes with a seat so the camera operator can be seated when shooting. I recall that this wasn’t the case with Micro Dolly. We purchased this back in April and ended up buying 24′ of straight track and one full circular dolly system.

It has been worth the investment and has been used over and over and over again. Micro Dolly is a good company and we all have our own tastes. I just would recommend you look into Indie Dolly as well. I hope this confuses the issue more… 🙂

Seth

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas A. Edison

[Jason Jenkins]

Thanks Todd,

The Porta-Jib Traveler looks really nice! A couple of things I like about the Microdolly jib are the lighter weight and the weight cage that allows you to use just about anything to counterbalance the boom. There will be some airline travel involved in my work, so weight and portability are key factors.
Unfortunately, the Microdolly jib costs even more than the Porta-Jib!

[Jason Jenkins]

Thanks Seth,

I’ll definitely check out the Indie Dolly! A key factor is light weight and portability since I will be traveling with a bunch of equipment.

[Todd Terry]

Hi Jase…

Yeah Porta-Jib makes really great stuff… lots of people swear by them.

As far as counterweight, I’ve never been that big a fan of the “cage” type systems that say you can “use anything” as counterweight… they are just not as secure, plus most “stuff” you find laying around doesn’t have anywhere near the same mass as real weights, it’s simply hard to find stuff thats heavy enough. I’ve seen some jibs that have water bottles as weight that you “simply fill on location”….but water actually only weighs about 8 pounds a gallon and we usually use about 35-50lbs of weight so that would be a LOT of water. When traveling (at least when far enough to require air travel), we combat it this way: we don’t travel with the weights, we leave them at home. Then when we get to location, one of our first stops is something like a Kmart, Wal-Mart, Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, etc. For 15 bucks you can buy more than enough plain ‘old cheap barbell weights (which is basically all the Porta Jib weights are, except they say “Porta Jib” on the side). After the shoot, we just ditch them on location. We’ve given them away, trashed them, or left them in hotel rooms. It’s a lot easier than traveling with them.

The same for dollys and track… we travel only with dolly wheels, push bar, track connectors, and flexitrack. In our location city we buy (or have our client provide) a piece of plywood and quickly throw our own dolly together. And we buy a few pieces of ABS or PVC pipe for straight track (literally two bucks a piece). Shoot’s over, toss it, and head home.

As far as traveling with big equipment, I have put those days behind me as well… it’s just so hard. Now if we travel we ship almost everything, at least the big and expensive stuff. We have our “traveling gear” pared down to the bare necessities, about six medium/big road cases (when shooting 35mm film there are two extra cases). We FedEx them “hold for pickup” and when we arrive in our destination city we go to the FedEx office and load ’em up. In a cross-country example, it generally costs us about $2500 to get our gear there and back (we plan shoots carefully so we can use FedEx three-day service…a lot cheaper). The gear is always waiting for me with no hassle, and I have never once had anything broken or go missing… which is something I can not say about the airlines.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Jason Jenkins]

A lot of good advice/experience in there, Todd! Thanks, I really appreciate it. I’m still leaning toward the Microdolly Jib for reasons of flexibility. While one can use standard weights on it, there is also the weight cage option. Also, if at some point one wants to go to a 9 or 12 foot boom, additional sections can be purchased and added on. The Porta-Jib traveler is limited to about 6′ isn’t it?

[Todd Terry]

Yeah Jason, about six feet sounds about right.

That doesn’t sound too long, but it seems sufficient for most everything we do. Plus our sticks can go up about six feet high as well, so it can fly a camera pretty high when needed. We have also adapted a 10-foot A-frame ladder so that a crane can be mounted on it, getting quite a high shot. I think I’ve only used that a couple of times, though.

One of our issues is that we use everything from the larger HDV cameras to 35mm film cameras… and some of them are pretty heavy, and we use really heavy tripod heads as well… so we have quite a load on the end of the jib (I’ve never weighed the camera/head combo but with the heaviest camera plus accessores plus the head it’s probably 45lbs or so)… a jib with a six-foot tongue or so is about as long as one would want to want to support that much weight, at least on one of these lightweight jibs. Plus the fact that the Porta-Jib telescopes so it can be any length (no sections in set lengths) makes it a good choice for us.

The Porta-Jib is quite a bit more robust (although substantially less expensive) than the Microdolly jib…. but that comes with its own price: the Porta-Jib weighs three times as much as the Microdolly (30lbs vs. 10lbs). Although I almost always heartily recommend the Porta-Jib, if you use a fairly lightweight camera and you plan to do a lot of lean-and-mean run-and-gun one-man-band traveling, it is probably overkill for you and the Microdolly might be worth looking at.

Also, not to confuse the issue with another product, but Doug Underdahl at Long Valley Equipment makes a darn nice jib, at like half the price of either the Porta-Jib or the Microdolly (https://longvalleyequip.com)

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Jason Jenkins]

Hi Todd,

Microdolly claims their jib can handle a 50 lb. payload. At any rate, that’s not a real factor for me since I’ll be using a HVX-200. That Long Valley jib does look nice. One thing I couldn’t detect from the pictures or the copy was if it has adjustable drag (which is essential, IMO).

[Todd Terry]

I think I’d be a bit wary of putting anything in the 50lb range on the Microdolly jib at anything other than its most compact configuration. However, since you are using a small camera I suppose that is a moot point.

I would suspect that the Long Valley jib has adjustible drag… I only base that on the fact that that is a fairly basic thing and they make pretty good equipment. You could write Doug at Long Valley and I’m sure he could answer that… he responds to emails promptly.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Danny Grizzle]

Scanning this thread, I thought input from an actual Microdolly owner might be useful.

I’ve had my Microdolly gear 7+ years. I totally love it.

For lightweight cameras, you can travel light and use the water bag inside the weight basket. If you plan to use a shoulder mount camera, you might consider local purchase of weights at a sporting goods store. They’re probably not worth the hassle and expense of shipping. Just be sure to prep your package before travel, and carefully note the number and sizes you need.

Athletic weights are slick, they slide, and don’t travel well. I like road trips and prefer to drive when I can. Microdolly’s weight basket works well with shot bags, and they are less likely to slide out the back of a van or Suburban and onto your toes.

Don’t think you can buy a Microdolly jib and you’re good to go. If you think a high dollar carbon fiber tripod will hold up under the weight of a jib arm and counterbalance, you are very wrong. Better forget about any tripod with a 75mm or 100mm bowl, too. I don’t know what I was thinking when I originally budgeted my kit, but purchase of the Microdolly tripod, rated at 300 lbs., solved my problem.

Pay attention when rigging. A jib arm by any other name is called a catapult. My wife has no experience, but just the right temperament to follow directions. With her help, the two of us can rig up the jib at maximum extension in about 15 minutes. Our 25 year old son, on the other hand, is a ‘get ‘er done’ kind of guy — a bull in a china closet. He was tending the jib the only time we’ve ever tipped the thing. He was doing too much and thinking too little. Luckily, we were outside on dirt, and the camera was not hurt.

With a full size camera and counterbalance, make a mistake and there’s not much you can do but get out of the way and pray nobody gets hurt.

I’ve also got a Microdolly dolly. Absolutely wonderful piece of gear. The push bar should be standard equipment — be sure to add one to your package.

Under load of a full size camera, you will need to be careful to avoid low frequency resonate motions – a slight tendency to wobble. This is a bit of a factor with the dolly, which you may be able to solve by throwing a shot bag on on the dolly at a low center of gravity. I think Microdolly offers a platform of some type that might help hold the shot bag.

My Microdolly jib is an early model. They’ve since added more trussing, a t-bar with lateral triangulating side cables. This may counteract resonate motions in the jib. In truth, this has never been a huge problem for me, but for super critical work using footage from any dolly or jib, you may need to perform some slight image stabilization tracking in post.

I want to add a Microdolly Power Head to my package, and probably will now that I am finally moving to HD with purchase of a Sony PMW-EX1.

You can find cheaper solutions out there. I’ve got a Promax Cobra Crane. It was dirt cheap and has produced some great shots on top of a cheap Bogen tripod and head. The Cobra Crane also has a cool cable controlled tilt mechanism. Not as capable as Microdolly Power Head, but standard equipment and it works! The downfall of the Cobra Crane, however, is transport. I bought one on the spur of the moment at NAB when I caught a job in Utah the same week I bought my PD-150. Promax shipped the Cobra Crane from Irvine to Vegas… and then what? I had that stupid thing lashed on top of a Chevy Suburban in a cardboard box – rain, wind, and snow during a cross-country drive from Nevada to Texas by way of Utah and Colorado. Ugh. Unwieldy as snow skis for Paul Bunyan, and all you can do to keep the awkward thing lashed to the car. It might fit inside a van or Suburban so long as you don’t mind the metal running the full interior length of the vehicle, sitting between heads of driver and passenger.

Maybe newer models of the Cobra have solved these problems. And also a truly terrible build quality. All the hardware comes from the fastener isle of Home Depot, and there’s not a captive screw or bolt on the rig. Just a bunch of cheap thumb screws and common nickel plated washers. Even the camera screw is loose and subject to easy loss.

The one redeeming factor is you can’t see the jib in the finished footage, and the finished footage from a cheap Cobra Crane looks just as good as the footage from a Microdolly. It works, so long as you are using a consumer sized camera. But you will suffer to transport and erect the thing. And you won’t look good doing it, if eye candy is important to you clients.

This couldn’t contrast more from the excellence of Microdolly. Microdolly travels in style, in beautiful, compact, lightweight, matched bags embrodered “Microdolly, Hollywood.” Microdolly is carefully thought out by an experienced filmmaker, every detail crafted as carefully as any film or video. Microdolly gear is engineered, not a garage project like most of low end gear you see in the production market. And Microdolly build quality is a thing of beauty. All the materials in Microdolly equipment are highest quality, as is the workmanship. Microdolly is Exhibit A when it comes to Southern California aeronautical aluminum machining trades. Even the dolly track is beautiful. It is shock corded like quality aluminum mountaineering tent poles, but the material quality and machine work is truly incomparable. We’re not talking kludgy PVC pipe and skateboard dolly wheels here. Microdolly track is hard, highly polished, super strong aluminum. The sections fit together with such precision that the joints are almost undetectable — which is good, considering all this attention to detail translates directly into smooth dolly shots.

Microdolly – highly, highly recommended!