Shoulder brace recommends anyone?
 

I've got a Sony V1U and am going to be shooting a doc on people with stunted growth and want to shoot from there eyelevel. Therefore I wanted to buy a shoulder brace (with some sort of adaptor?) that I can use to convert to a waist supported brace. Something to allow me to have the same stability a shoulder brace has, but allowing me to shoot from a much lower eye level.

Can anyone recommend a product(s)?

http://www.dvmultirig.com
 

http://www.dvmultirig.com

This rig will allow you to set the camera at a naturally low height, whilst knealing, by locking one of the spring down. The camera will still have a range of vertical movement on the second spring but won't sit too high.

You'll get really steady shots all day long without fatigue, and the rig sits quite loose on you so you can move and twist the camera separate from your body to reposition shots without having to scramble around on you knees too much.

Add a Lanc controller and you can operate with one hand on the rig (on the zoom for example) and one on the camera controls.

Also another thing to try is to set the waist pouch lower on you waist.
Or try to operate without the spring section.

I won't give any more opinions here, as I'm a little too biased towards this kit. But search this area of the site for more info.

hi there

I use the Cavision brace and find it fine with my Z1. All these hand held cameras are front heavy and don't balance or are awkward and impractical to use in run and gun which ever shoulder brace you use. But its better than using your wrist to take all the weight...

Can't wait for the shoulder mount HDV cam that's planned.

Cheers
Gareth

Sorry to disagree but there are several shoulderbrace makers who use some form of body support. They are almost all great for run and gun work and take all the weight of the camera.

The Cavision is just a shoulder plate and a handle, nothing like as usable as the kit I listed above.

If you've ever used a DVTEC rig holding a fully loaded Z1 for 14 hours straight at a live event (and wake up the next moring without aching), you'll know why it's so good.

Thanks, Duncan.