Glidecam 4000 and XL1
 

Okay, I read through a previous thread on the Glidecam 4000 and it was a bit enlighting. I bought my 4000 off eBay and I was not suprise to find that no instructions were included. The guy who sold it to me is probably laughing his butt off.

I can attest to the fact that trying to set up the 4000 with a DV cam without instructions is damn near impossible.

So I called Glidecam, bought an instruction manual for 10 bucks and they threw in a instructional DVD on how to balance it. After reading the manual and watching the DVD (which was VERY helpful) I almost perfectly balanced it in about 30 minutes.

I say almost because the vertical balance is a tiny bit off even though I did everything possible (based on what I learned). If any of you can lend me a hand with a tip or two on how I could try to get a perfect verticle balance, it would be appreciated.

PS- I have an extra DVD and its yours if you're willing to pay the postage.

Stephen:

If you describe what you are seeing (i.e. the difference between "perfect"vertical balance and what you are getting), that would help.

The swing test is too fast (1 1/2 sec when it should be 2 to 3) and when moving forward at an almost running pace and suddenly stopping, the unit will swing forward and back a little.

I checked out your bio Charles. Impressive. Ya wanna trade your Steadicam for my Glidecam?

Depends, Stephen...how's your back??!

So, you need to eliminate a bit of bottom weight to slow down your drop time.

As far as the pendulum effect, that is going to improve once you get to the desired drop. However a certain amount of that effect will remain, it's actually just part of using a counterweighted stabilizer. To eliminate this you would have to make the rig neutrally balanced, which is much harder to maintain a level frame. The tradeoff is that starts and stops (and acceleration) will cause the rig to kick out or swing in one direction or another.

The solution is to contain those forces with your hand. It doesn't mean that you need to affect a death grip (that will work against you) but you do need to work a little bit of counter force on the post. All stabilizers of this type (yup, even up to the big Steadicams) require this kind of attention in both tilt and roll. Practice is the key...hours and hours of practice!

Good luck with it!