HBS meet up in KL!

[Jon Gordon]

After noticing that HBS member Ed was in the same city as me, I sent him a message and we arranged for a quick meet-up.

Ed is an (former) owner of a Magiqcam steadicam, and an all-round uber nice guy.  I ended up showing up quite a bit late due to some public transport woes, but he was all smiles.

Immediately upon entering his studio, I was all over the stabilizer.  I was pretty excited since I'd never actually laid eyes or hands on a proper implementation through all these years of interest.

First impressions?

The magiqcam, despite its deficiencies and detractors, is not all that bad. The arm is much more rigid when detached from the sled than I expected.  Ed is flying a heavy rig, so his springs are probably tighter, but the average builder might not realize how tight the arms are supposed to be if they don't examine a real copy in person.

The vest is decent, although with a heavy rig I immediately felt some pain in my lower back.  This exposure to a front-mount vest reinforced my plan to make my own a back-mount version.  The padding material was quite good.

The sled was pretty cheap, although Ed made some excellent modifications to his.  The post seemed ridiculously skinny, but it seemed to get the job done.

On flying:

Flying was not all that easy.  Ed balanced everything perfectly, including the minute stage adjustments necessary to fine-tune it.  The rig was heavier than I expected.  I kept over-exerting pressure on the gimbal in a mistaken attempt to guide the camera.  See the attached picture to see me wobbling the rig.

It was only a few minutes of fly-time, but the feeling was exhilarating.

Ed then snapped in to the vest to show me how it's done.  It was rather impressive; he was moving twice as fast and stable as I had during my attempt a few minutes before.

In the end, seeing the magiqcam in person and having a chance to try it out really helped me to iron out my understanding of the steadicam concept  As i build my own unit in the coming weeks, I have to thank Ed for a dose of clarity and for his unnecessary kindness.

Cheers!

[Trevor Crump]

Good on you Jon, and great stuff Ed.
That is a lot of weight for a magiqcam, but shows how solid they can be..

Flying just gets easier from here on.

[Ed Liew]

[Joe Sanders]

Immediately upon entering his studio, I was all over the stabilizer.  I was pretty excited since I'd never actually laid eyes or hands on a proper implementation through all these years of interest.

Cheers!

Sound’s like you had a ball.

There’s nothing like your first kiss.

[Jon Gordon]

Trevor: Yes, I was definitely impressed with Ed's setup.. it's a hefty camera, and he's pretty darn nimble with it.

Ed: Hahah.   

Joe: Hey, nice metaphor... my hands were kinda clammy now that you mention it. :

[michael stevenson]

Jon,

Outstanding!

Michael