Flying the F55 Sony

[EastCoastJib]

I have a shoot coming up that requires me to lift an F55 with compact prime. Any suggestions on mounting options, power options and follow focus? Does the FIZ and BARTECH interfere with flight freqs on 2.4? FIrst time for everything thanks in advance fellas.

 

[SMP]

Wow... don't drop that one ;0 ;0 Haven't seen this one in person but wondering if you could use the same RED AV200 inverted tray. Batteries, no clue. Most of the Bartechs run on 900mhz so you should be ok there. Do make sure on their model, that could get ugly. Do the F55's even have an HDMI out?????????

Just curious... do they really really expect their 1AD to pull focus over the downlink?!? Are they shooting shallow and you're gonna have to haul up a mattebox and NDs as well?? Or is it a monster focal length which will weigh more than the box???? Good luck man, as an alternative I suppose you could try gps waypoints and block it but otherwise... thats a tough one. Sounds like a cool gig though!! Bravo!!

(Sry man, for the life of me, I'm trying to visualize the shot that requires a focus rack above jib elevations???? You following something real close with a real shallow DOF then rolling to Infinity as you rise??? Good luck mate!! Let me know, I'm interested!!)

 

[Kari]

I think you can modify Cinestar gimbal to carry it, but i would anyway go with servo drive and Radians for that weight. Don't think there's really any brushless solution yet especially carrying extra load of remote focus etc and if needed to adjust focus on flight. If interested i might have some spares to beef up cinestar gimbal that will be needed if went that road.

 

[EastCoastJib]

From what I've been told... Talent will be on the roof of large building. Shot starts out head to toe and begins flying away and climbing 20-30ft until entire building is revealed. If this happens late afternoon the DOF should be fine to just roll at hyper focal length and go for it. There is a possibility that it happens early morning and winds up being backlit as crap and with no lighting up there, I think that would be a mistake. DP wants to use an Ageniux 24-100mm which I think is overkill.. I'm pushing for the 24mm ziess CP2 which I have used quite a bit lately. 1stAC confirmed that the BARTECH they have uses 900mhz so that should be good to go... DP insists on 4K so he has the info to crop if needed for stabilization. I keep telling him he won't have to with that much weight on the gimbal but what do I know.

... It does have an HDMI out and I do plan on trying the epic tray first. You have to use the handle to top mount though so that may be dicey. If I can invert the image ill just mount it like the C300 upside down.

 

[maxwelltub]

Love to hear how this goes! Good luck.

 

[eyeball]

I fiited one of these cameras to a AV200 with 360View attachment 13592View attachment 13593View attachment 13594 last week, had a little trouble with the gains on the radian but certainly has great potential.

 

[EastCoastJib]

Eyeball, what tray did you use? Bottom mount I can see but is that the epic tray used upside down or the stock tray? How were you powering it?

 

[SMP]

Oy that sounds like a fun one... Hell with that much weight you might as well mount a PAG toplight to boot, you've got everything else up there

 

[eyeball]

EastcoastJib...Its mounted on the standard bottom tray for the Av200 and it balanced up fine. Powering the Sony was done with a 3s Lipo and a hdmi convertor that was fed from the usb port on the sony. Stripped down the sony doesn't way much more than the 5D mk3 so alot of camera for not much more weight

 

[EastCoastJib]

So you powered thru the USB port?

 

[EastCoastJib]

So it was an interesting shoot! I ended up with the F55 on the epic tray used upside down as I had my Kopterworx anti-vibe plate on the stock tray and DID NOT want to remove it at the time. As you can see in the pics I did not have a lipo to power the Sony. Had I known a few days ago I could have built the 4 pin to EC5 but this client being a price client and not a service client, communication was terrible and I thought we would be flying the mark3 up until the day before. Anyway, my Kopterworx HDMI converter WOULD NOT work with the F55 at all. Very disappointing. Not sure if it was a progressive vs. interlaced issue or what as daylight was almost done and we decided to fly the F700 instead. Again the KW converter did not work but my cheapo HDMItoAV saved the day. I need to figure out the converter issue cause that little guy cost to much not to work. Had the F700 balance almost perfect but with 20 minutes of daylight left we flew. Shots were perfect and exactly what they wanted. Got a round of applause which is always good for the ego. Take a look at the photos and critique away.. Still not totally happy with the way the gimbal rocks in the DW quick detach setup. Seems the rubber bushings are just to soft. Even with non aggressive flying I have to be crazy smooth starting a move and finishing, otherwise the cradle rocks and the skyline just doesn't compensate for that. Cant wait to upgrade to the colibri or something similar. Would love to figure out how to stop the gimbal/landing gear assembley from rocking like that.

View attachment 13613
Stripping the F55 down..


View attachment 13614
Cabling nightmare as we were trying everything to get video out of the camera


View attachment 13615
1stAC ready to shot himself as he could not get the menu up on his monitor and
they did not have the Sony viewfinder onsite. No Menu = No HDMI out settings

 

[EastCoastJib]

So you powered thru the USB port?

I wonder if the KW converter would have worked if we powered it with 5v? Didn't try that.. wish i had. It has worked on everything else with no power so I didn't even
think of that while things were happening.

 

[SMP]

Oy! Back of that thing had to weigh a ton!! Way to roll with the punches and to nail the shot with the sun going down. Thats pressure mate! Well done!!!!

(btw - for the heavier rigs, you might try the quick release from Allied Drones with the four clamps. We use the cheaper one wo the vibration and NOTHING is coming outta that thing)
http://www.allieddrones.com/collections/mounts/products/av200-to-skyjib-quick-release
http://www.allieddrones.com/collections/mounts/products/echo-anti-vibration-quick-release

 

[EastCoastJib]

So that mount doesn't allow the "rock the cradle" effect?

 

[Kari]

Not sure if you can completely avoid it with any mount with heavy cameras, but Allied Drones might help if using hard ball isolators. I have it too and it works well on Radian/CS gimbal combo.

 

[eyeball]

Sorry Eastjibcoast for not replying sooner but I've been too tied up with with a few DW builds to get back onto the forum...but congrats on getting the Sony mounted but must have been a mare trying to get the HDMI sorted and the rocking. I used a simple HDMI convertor that was powered via the USB port that connected to the Sony for the feed...as for the rocking, DW do a couple of different stiffness rubbers for their mounts have you got the yellow or the red in? You should have got both colours with your frame?

 

[EastCoastJib]

When I bought mine in February I only got a set of black and a set of red. Novalee mentioned they would be getting some stiffer mounts but I never followed up. Are the yellow stiffer than the red? I'm currently using the black set.

 

[eyeball]

To be honest..I cant remember which were the stiffest, I normally use the red but tomorrow I should have a bit of free time in my workshop to check which are which for you.