Anybody using Anton Bauer?

[Wade Francom]

Dave, that last paragraph says alot in a short amount. Great info. Definitely makes me feel better about my camera purchase.

And for the battery, Trevor's right. I'll try and research that 2-pin female cable, or try and find a technician that can custom make one for you. What lemo is on the other end?

[Tom Wills]

I would definetly agree with Trevor on both respects here. Number one: thanks for the insights on the camera, apparently a lot of people's issues were overblown.

As to the weight, try and remove as much weight from the top of your rig as possible if it's a little top heavy. You want as much freedom in terms of drop time as possible for different shots. I'm sure you could wire up an adaptor to make it work, or find someone who could. Also, I'd recommend the cable from the sled to the cam. It can't get much simpler than that, and using the AB plate's built in power downconverter makes a hell of a lot of sense in this situation.

[Dave Beaty]

I can balance the sled with the AB dionic on top and one on the bottom, but the gimbal has to be way up at the top of the center post, not leaving enough room to place the sled on the stand where it mounts between the bottom of the sled and top of the gimbal. My solution is to add another AB battery to the second position on the bottom.

Two thoughts here, is it better from a shooting perspective to reduce the weight of the entire rig or add that extra AB on the bottom providing extra inertia etc. Perhaps we'll achieve better shots with a heavier rig. The Dionic's are only a couple pounds. I actually have an AB 2 pin male adapter. The kind that plugs into the batteries, so it seems like there should be the opposite to plug into the gold mount plate.

I wanted to add that the JVC isn't perfect. The split screen problem is a real issue. But we've found that things like letting the camera warm up and always white balancing seems to eliminate it.  Plus, some of the first production run cameras needed service adjustment to help fix it. Yet these problems are similar to things like vertical smear on other cameras or not white balancing properly. Clipping whites is another problem inherent in shooting that we work around.  It's something inherent in using this camera and as long as you're aware, it shouldn't be a problem.

DB

[Tom Wills]

Oh, if you can make it balance with 2 batteries on the bottom, by all means do. A heavier sled just makes it that much easier to operate. You won't have a lot of the issues that often happen with light sleds of instability and lack of inertia.

I'd say that that's a good call, and it'll mean you'll always have a spare battery on hand!

[Trevor Crump]

I agree, rigs work better 'hevier' 2 AB's on the bottom sounds great to me, this would also allow a take-off for 24volt (if required)

[Tom Wills]

Unless he's using the F24 Flyer, the bottom mount is just that, a mount with no pins and no hookup to the power circuitry. Only on the F24 Flyer is the bottom mount actually a live hookup.

[Dave Beaty]

We have the 12vlt version Flyer so the extra mount on the bottom is not wired. I also found an old Fressi bat that I could canibalize for the plate and wire that to sled DC output, but I think I'll try running with 3 dionics for a while and see if it's better balance and smoother.  The JVC tends to be very front heavy without a battery.