Choosing Wisely...

I couldn't help being impressed by the advertising meme that was printed on the outer cover of a box in our Stirling Street shop: " You have chosen wisely...". It has just the right amount of praise and braggadocio to suit the camera trade. It was on a product that is designed to show you what your DSLR or mirror-less camera is doing by way of video. I'll not go into the technical complexities of it, as I don't understand them, but there are several versions that deal with a video signal in different ways. Think of them as small LCD screens with their own power supply that act as video monitors. I noted that there were several brands; Small HD, Viltrox, and I daresay there will be others. They have clip-on battery packs at the back - one or two depending upon the size of the thing and the power it eats - and a number of 1/4" standard attachment threads on the various edges of the box. It is to these mounting points we address ourselves. Now the average DSLR or mirror-less camera - or dedicated cinema camera - generally has a flash mounting shoe on the top of the body somewhere. If it doesn't, it is a sign that it is intended for pure tourist portability, and you might not consider it for serious video work. The flash shoe is generally a hot one - providing connection to the sync circuits. The video worker doesn't need the flash sync, but they do need that landing spot to attach their specialty equipment. They'll want to use a better microphone than the camera can provide - the in-built ones are prone to all sorts of noise and interference. They'll want to use a bigger monitor screen to see what the video really looks like. And they may want to provide a portable light source like an LED panel or a halogen lamp. These latter are less common now, but can still be found in conjunction with portable battery packs. That's a lot to put up on one hot shoe* - so the manufacturers like Micronta and Tether Tools have come up with a pretty universal mounting bar that distributes the load. There will be a standard hot foot on the bottom and then an adjustable attachment to a rail extrusion. The rail then provides a wide mounting place for standardised clamps and all those accessories. It may be a little top-heavy if you are trying to hand hold it, but a good Manfrotto video tripod and head will solve that. Or you can try out one of the more complex video rigs with gimbals and balancing arms - they were all the rage a few years ago for hand-held dolly work. Some of them needed the kind of balancing act that a test pilot of a new fighter plane does when he takes the ship up for thee first time...and some of them needed that balancing act to be repeated every time something new was plugged in. But that is what makes photography and fighter planes so much fun. Note that the action camera types can also get in on the rig thing - there are a number of dedicated handles and holders that let them keep firm control of their small cameras as they go over the precipice. One even seems to have two mounts so you can film where you have been as well as where you are going... *The idea of hanging the world from a hot shoe may not appeal. Have you given any thought to suspending it from the bottom or the side of the camera by attaching a cast metal Sunwayfoto bracket? I put a flash out the side of the Fujifilm cameras i use by just such means. Perhaps a future column will show some of these options using the gear in the shop. Note: the photography today is not quite up to Little Studio standards as it was done with one speedlight and a curved piece of Ilford inkjet papert in the Stirling Street shop. Shades of 2015, eh? Back to the real studio in the future.