Thinking about picking up a CamCrane 200. Few questions...can it be panned? Does the crane automatically keep the camera leveled during booming? Any additional equipment needed other than a good set of legs? Thanks.

The camcrane can be panned. It sits on your tripod and has a base on a platform to rotates. The end of the tripod where the camera is mounted to held level at all times throughout the boom. You just mount your tripod head to the end of the boom and whatever position you set it at during the boom is where it stays. All you should need is a good set of legs, decent tripod head and a set of weights. Depeding on your camera you might want more or less. I use camera's up to 17 lbs at full length and I have to put about 60 lbs worth of weights on the back. Invest in about 5 2 1/2lbs weights, 2 5lb weights, 2-3 10lb weights and depending on your camera 1-2 25 lbs wights.

The only thing I'm having trouble envisioning is how the boom head stays level. It has to pivot somehow because if you boom up it would then be pointed at the sky (if it were fixed). What kind of mechanism allows it to stay level during booming?

How's the set-up time....is it something I'd be able to do after a wedding ceremony in time for the photo session?

The head stays level. At this point in time I can't really describe how (really tired) but it does.. I'll take a picture of it later so you can see the head. Initial setup will take you a good hour or 2 but once you figure out how to do it it won't take long. By turning mine into three sections and using a wrench and an electric drill I can have my unit up and running in under 20 mins. Not bad considering the results it produces.

The Camcrane 200 works on a parallelogram design, as do many of the cranes out there. This keeps the head and tail perfectly level at all times. The pictures on our website *should* illustrate this (www.glidecam.com/camcrane.html). Also, for remote pan and tilt operations, we now offer a remote head for use with the Camcrane, the Glidecam VistaHead (www.glidecam.com/vistahead.html).

Hope this helps,

Which is the difference between Vistahead and PT20? Who made it first and why is almost the same construction;

thanks!