Cinevate DSLR Rig
 

Their rig for video shooting DSLR that includes rails, matte box, french and side flags, follow focus and mounting looks very nice, but expensive. Have watched the video of the professional that put the rig together, but was wondering if any of you folks have had any experience with it.

I know the one that you are speaking of.... "the Dave Clement" rig. It is smart and beautiful like my wife, but I can afford my wife for now and not that rig. It is so well planned and I want one. But it did inspire the rig I have now. I just got the uni-strut and top handle for it. I am missing a follow focus (love the Durus) and their awesome swing away matte box. But I will have that Follow Focus someday soon. Here's my updated rig (it's sort of a semi-pseudo/half-assed Dave Clement rig) Its a hybrid of about 75% Cinevate and about 25% CPM film tools. Read my review here (post #17 on the thread) http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...=206311&page=2

Sorry I missed this post guys...better late than never to provide feedback though. Steve, I like what you've done with your rig. I never cease to be impressed with how many different configurations our gear ends up in. In the next few weeks you'll see a flurry of media coming from our direction, including Cyclops which will address your budget concerns 100%. Think of a viewfinder that includes the options to build a full rig (cage included) around it. We've dropped zero hints really about the full capabilities of the rig so far, but I promise you'll be happy. It's been so long coming that I think many were wondering if it would ever show up.

Cheers,
Dennis Wood
Cinevate: DSLR Rigs, Camera Sliders, Follow Focus and More

Thanks Dennis for the response.

Cinevate's HDSLR Core Rig has had me licking my chops. Just the price of the ticket has held me back. I know both the investment into development (that must be recouped before you start earning profit) and quality manufacture require a certain price level. It's the old 'you get what you pay for (sometimes)'.... in this case, I think you get what you pay for - a very nice rig. The price is something that I have to deal with.

Really looking forward to the release of Cyclops info. Extremely intrigued.

Thanks again for hanging around here.

John, we tend to work with a very lean development cycle. Regardless, I see you're refreshingly aware that there's a cost associated with developing the very best in terms of camera support. Cyclops is the first time we've started a project with the intention of keeping quality very high, but using volume production techniques to keep prices low. This in itself is a huge investment/risk for us as initial costs are pretty crazy. The benefit though is a really cool product with a myriad of configuration options that we hope to make a lot of folks happy with. I've had so many conversations, Skype video sessions and photo exchanges with shooters that I'm fully convinced no single rig is the "magic" bullet. Every single shooter likes their rig a bit different making it our job to make sure they can configure perfectly. A good shoulder mount with counterweight is something we really didn't do so well until 4 weeks ago..and this is something I believe even our sponsored shooters didn't appreciate. What I can say at this point is that the options are pretty astounding, particularly with the new counter-balance system bits, in terms of setting up a very stable, fatigue-free rig.

I do try to drop in every now and then to answer questions...these days not often enough. Cinevate continues to expand in terms of product, space and most importantly, quality crew. A move to a larger building with some integrated CNC manufacture (and a loading dock!!) is in the works. To illustrate why we need to do this, last week the shipping/assembly crew got to manually unload 16 pallets of our new shipping boxes (If you ordered an Atlas unit last week, you've seen them). This may not sound like much until you realize that we're on the second floor, there's no elevator here, and no chance of getting a pallet jack even in the building :-)

Cheers,
Dennis.

Well I bumped into the infamous Dennis Wood this weekend at the beautiful Amberlites Resort (turns out we've been camping about 1/4 mile apart for about 10 years and never saw each other) and he of course was toting a 5D on a monopod with a gizmo mounted to the back that caught my attention. Yup, it was the brand new Cyclops, and WOW it was impressive. Since I'm not sure if Dennis has let the cat out of the bag on this one yet so I'm not going to mention any details but I think I'll have to call Mr.Visa and see if there's room in my future for a Cyclops. It might actually be the tool that lets me use the 7D's I have for more than paper weights. I'm not much of a DSLR shooter, never thought I would waste my time figuring out how to actually get the thing in focus but now it seems to be a non-issue. BTW Dennis please ignore the footage I shot while we were chatting, didn't have my glasses on so no hope of focus.

It's great to see Cinevate making another world class product right in my backyard.

Dennis showed the cyclops prototype at NAB. It looked a bit funny, but would be quite practical in many situations.

Cyclops has been officially released!

I took some shots at a recent commercial shoot and found it quite useful. For one, no more squinting. I can use both eyes to look at the shot or balance the view between the camera and what's going on in front of it. It's a rugged unit. In terms of configuration (there are many), this one is somewhere in the middle. I recommend getting the rails and the hand grips. They offer a bit of "bump" protection as well as make the camera quite easy to grip when you're in a hurry.

As for the Cyclops itself, the eyepiece contains a real macro lens. The imagry is awesome. For a guy like me who needs glasses to see close up, this is a Godsend. I don't know how I got by shooting outdoors on bright sunny days without this.

Have a look:
Stills
http://img844.yfrog.com/gal.php?g=3w.jpg


Video

Chris, funny who you run into in the places you don't expect :-) Alan, it was very cool of you to do the video review and post it up. For those of you who don't know Alan, he's been bugging us to come up with a finder solution that worked for his style of shooting and patiently waiting for a long time. Cyclops came about mostly because I'm left eye dominant (but right handed) and wear glasss...sadly as of 1 year ago, with progressive lenses. Viewfinder's have always been a struggle for me, and we figured, there have to be others out there with the same challenge. The other kicker is that viewfinders (video or still) require the operator's eye to be locked to the back of the camera, something I look at as limiting.

The funny thing is that when in pure stills mode, I (and likely 95%) of shooters can't stand live-view as the shooting delay is a real pain. So in pure stills mode, I'd tend to remove Cyclops and only replace it for reviewing the stills. In this "mode" the finder is more like a monitor than a viewfinder as two folks can stick their heads in and see the images to critically check focus etc. without zooming in.

If we allow a few folks to improve their shooting experience, and improve their end product...mission accomplished :-)

Cheers,
Dennis.