I have been working with Olof Ekbergh of Westside AV Studios a DVinfo.net sponsor who builds mounts along with cables and lots of other gear. We talked a month ago about doing a nano mount for my new camera. Now that I have the camera we went from mock up to finished product in three days.

My requirements were to have it off the back using the strong tapped holes in the top of the camera behind the wireless slot. Olof suggested we add some arms so I could mount my wireless up top and who knows what else on the sides. Here are some quick shots I just took of the rig.

One thing Olof will change is the distance from the back of the battery. It could be 1/2" less and still work fine. The battery comes on and off easy.

Dear Paul:
This is very nice engineering and quality work !

This is very interesting guys. The 350 is crying out for a nanoflash combo so I've been mulling over how to do this. The other idea I had was a v-lok cage where the nano sits between the cam and batt and the nano can slide up to see the UI or something.

Would be a bit more complex to build.

All good stuff.

Dave

Thanks Mark but Olof gets the credit he does great work.

Dave I was more interested in just mounting my battery on the camera and keeping weight forward.

This reminds me of my old DXCD50/PVV1 DVCAM camera & my Sony radio mic. Sony had a V-Lock mount accessory for the receiver that was screwed into the back of the recorder, which wrapped around the battery. The receiver was housed in a tight fitting pouch with a V-Lock fitting.

The battery could be accessed as normal and the receiver was mounted behind the battery. A very good solution. Does the PMW-350 have any mounting screw holes at the rear along the edges? If so, a similar mount could be made or perhaps purchased and a V-Lock connector attached to the nanoflash.

But then again, seeing Olof (and his team???) has already come up with a solution.......
Hope it all goes well for you and Olof.

David Olof is the man here I am just the lucky person to have his first mount so I can put the camera to work.

I think the simple setup is nice. There is an aluminum structure on the top back of the camera that has four tapped holes keeping the process simple. Two are 4mm and two are 2mm so there is plenty of strength.

The addition of arms going up or down each side is very nice. I may just use the top cold shoe for my wireless and keep the side arms off. Nice to have options.

Attached is a picture of the tapped holes on the camera.

Thanks for the info & photo Paul.

I just had a look at the photos on the brochure and the back of the camera body has quite a few tapped holes, presumably for many mounting options. Just curious.

Best wishes

I can send along a picture of the back if you like?

Only if it's not too much bother Paul.
Thanks very much

Hello David I think your right they have used the same Vlock mount as the DXC series. The problem with using a Vmount system is gaining access to the card slots and screen to change settings. I had a nNovia QuickCapture unit which had a great Vlock mount but the screen and HDU access was on top with cable connection on the bottom.

will send it along later today.

David here you go two shots of the back of the camera with battery off. Let me know if you see what you need here if not I will remove the Nano mount and take a picture of what you need.

Some stills from the 350 with Nano mount and new Vinten tripod setup working sunset last night. Other stills here in the Tripod Thread.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/special-mounts-applications/470677-vinten-fluid-head-fibertec-sticks.html

David here you go two shots of the back of the camera with battery off. Let me know if you see what you need here if not I will remove the Nano mount and take a picture of what you need.

Thanks Paul,

The 2 lowest holes on the LHS and the 2 offset slightly upwards on the RHS (in photo 2) are in the same position as the V-Lock bracket I have. Should fit perfectly. Only thing is that I don't have a PMW-350 camera.

How does the stock lens perform?

Hello David I think your right they have used the same Vlock mount as the DXC series. The problem with using a Vmount system is gaining access to the card slots and screen to change settings. I had a nNovia QuickCapture unit which had a great Vlock mount but the screen and HDU access was on top with cable connection on the bottom.

The mount that I have is a Sony mount and has been designed to stay well clear of everything. All that would be needed is a V-Lock mount attached to the back of the nano and clip into place behind the battery, not unlike Olof's design that Paul is using so well.

I have the mounting plate for the back of the nano with no less than 29 holes for mounting almost anything you like!!!

Dave the lens seems ok so far. Not much of a range at 16x8. I will have more input soon since the rig will shoot a few jobs in the next few weeks.

I have been doing some research on the Nano Flash uint and it appears to sound very good in principle. After talking to a cameraman who has just returned from filming camels in the desert, he has discovered a few issues.

Issue one, he unknowingly slightly ejected one of the CF cards just enough to stop recording however to the eye it was still pushed in. This can be avoided by enclosing the eject buttons behind a door.

Issue two, recording will have to be started maually if in TC 'Free Run'

Issue Three, there is no time or space remaining on the inserted media

Issue Four, limited indication that the unit is recording, audio level meters would be useful

Issue Five, the unit is exposed to dust rain etc.


The conclusion is that the unit works very well however IMO it looks very much like a proto type unit which has been released to gain some feedback, i think the Nano requires some modifications that would make it perfect. Would we be happy with an SLR camera that has no door to cover the CF card or no media door on the PMW-350/PDW700 ?

David hart

Dear David,

1. We have been designing an accessory for the nanoFlash. It protects the two CompactFlash card slot Eject Buttons from being hit accidentally.

Also, it prevents the cards from flying out if one presses on the Eject Buttons too hard.

We have manufactured 100 of these, so far, and they are about to be powder coated.

2. The camera typically provides us with Timecode. It would be nice if the camera also, via HD-SDI indicated that it wanted us to record. We have tried to obtain this information, but have not been successful so far. It is not from a lack of trying.

When the camera is in Free Run or 24 Hour Run, the timecode runs all of the time, so we cannot record on incrementing timecode.

3. I do not know exactly what you mean.

At the bottom right of the LCD, we show the number of minutes remaining on the cards currently in the nanoFlash.

At the top of the LCD we show a bar graph of each card, showing how much of the card has been used.

4. The nanoFlash has audio level meters.

5. Yes, the nanoFlash is exposed to dust and rain.

The nanoFlash does not have a fan, thus does not normally ingest dust.

We do expect our users to take reasonable precautions against rain or other moisture.

A Zip-Lock sandwich bag would work if you had nothing better.

Hi Dan
Thanks for the speedy response, I think everyone in the UK has gone to bed!

I'm pleased to hear that it does have a time remaining and VU levels display, my friend must have been suffering from sun stroke!

Very interested to know more about your nano flash accessory, perhaps you will keep us posted with some photos? Do you have a price yet?

I have purchased a PMW-350 and out of principle I plan to purchase a Nano this year as I am reluctant to rely on SxS media, It's like anything you buy theses days, if you wait a while things seem to improve also the price has come down a bit due to the increasing sales.

Regards

David

Dear David,

The nanoFlash is an excellent addition to the Sony PMW-350.

No, I have not established a price for this accessory. I will try to post pictures later.

We are still working with introductory pricing for the nanoFlash.

We introduced it at $3,999 (US) a year ago, but reduced the price to $2,995 as an introductory price shortly thereafter. This helped many people obtain the nanoFlash who many not have been able to do so otherwise, due to the economy.

This, of course, helped us also, as we sold more units. We just built our 1000th unit. And we have hundreds on backorder at this moment. But, we do build quite a few of these every month.

Approximately every month we add significant new features to the nanoFlash. Thus, we regularly provide free updates, adding new features, some of which were quite unexpected to the original owners of the nanoFlashes.

In your case, you can significantly enhance your PMW-350 by adding a nanoFlash.

All in all, we feel that the nanoFlash is quite a bargain. I hope you will feel the same way if you choose to add a nanoFlash.

The nanoflash is changing how I feel about CC'ing. Grading mxf 100 mbps 4:2:2 from the PMW350 produces jaw dropping video that is uber clean. It really pays an extra dividend if you have to shoot interlace video. It's won me over.

The nanoflash is changing how I feel about CC'ing. Grading mxf 100 mbps 4:2:2 from the PMW350 produces jaw dropping video that is uber clean. It really pays an extra dividend if you have to shoot interlace video. It's won me over.

Tom's comment is spot on - all those potential nanoFlash buyers, do NOT expect it will vastly improve your (already excellent) PMW (EX1/3, 350) recordings! It's not what nanoFlash'es 4:2:2 color sampling or greater bitrate is about - the true advantages can bee seen after grading your footage (the heavier the grading, the most obvious advantages).

That said, cleaner image (due to higher color resolution and more relaxed compression) can sometimes be seen "out of the box" even when compared to the XDCAM EX, SxS recordings (not to mention e.g. HDV from some other cameras).

Oh, and on this thread's main topic: I don't have the 350, but I'm using Olof's solution for my EX1 and nanoFlash - ingeniously designed, very well made. Recommended!

Piotr

Hi Dan

Look forward to that, what is your connection with the Nano Flash do you work for them or supply to them?

Regards

Dear David,

I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for Convergent Design.

The nanoFlash is our product.

The nanoflash is changing how I feel about CC'ing. Grading mxf 100 mbps 4:2:2 from the PMW350 produces jaw dropping video that is uber clean. It really pays an extra dividend if you have to shoot interlace video. It's won me over.

I haven't shot interlaced in a long time and not since I got a nanoFlash. So the results in grading interlaced material from the nanoFlash is that much better than interlaced 4:2:0 XDCAM? Have to give it a go around to see for myself.

Dan, It's good to know that I have been talking to the right person.

David

I've used my NanoFlashes in sand storms during the Arizona Monsoon season, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle in mid winter and in good old British Winter storms and they have both been 100% reliable. I don't think SxS cards will let you down either, they are incredibly robust and reliable, but the advantage the NanoFlash gives is the ability to record 2 copies at once, plus CF cards are a lot cheaper than SxS cards. As has been said above the NanoFlash footage comes into it's own in post. At 100Mb/s it is so much more resilient, so much so that I use a NanoFlash with my PDW-700 whenever possible as it improves that too.