By Dan Chung and Sarah Li

Well known Australian tripod manufacturer Miller was displaying their latest professional tripod head at BIRTV in Beijing this year. The Compass 12 is priced around $2000 US and designed to be used with DSLR cameras like the 5DmkII yet still give the same level of performance as higher end models.

I personally own a Miller Compass 20 head and Solo carbon fibre legs and have been really happy with it (in fact you can see my tripod being used in the video). It’s good to see a slightly less expensive option for DSLR users wanting to invest in a proper tripod head.

By Dan Chung and Sarah Li

BIRTV 2011 – EImage carbon fibre tripod and follow focus from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Many Chinese manufacturers large and small were showing DSLR rigs and follow focus systems at BIRTV this year. Many rigs look strangely similar to their Western counterparts. Larger brands like Wonderlan and Cinematics had large stands packed with gear.

E-Image is one of the biggest tripod manufacturers in China who regularly attend shows like NAB. Their quality is good compared to other Chinese tripod makers and they have recently branched out into selling rigs and follow focus as well. Here is a look at their new follow focus, carbon fibre tripod and a basic shoulder support with battery plate for cameras like the AF100 or EX1.

So this is my last post from NAB 2011 – only 2 days late. I had a great time seeing old friends, meeting new ones and of course checking out all the new toys. I’d like to thank the dslrnewsshooter crew members Seppe Van Grieken and Johnnie Behiri for their tireless work during the show. Their contribution really made our coverage much better this year.

As a parting shot here are a few more bits of gear that we would have featured in detail if only we had the time:

Canon Explorer of Light Bruce Dorn was at NAB showing his unique iDC system Zero rigs. These are an update of his earlier designs and use a friction based follow focus on a custom bracket to keep the rig ultra compact. The rig for the Canon 60D looked especially nice. Bruce says there is a version for the Panasonic GH2 in the works.

Zacuto was showing off their prototype Scorpion rig. It has an interesting integrated shoulder support/carry handle and is articulated in a way to make balance easy. With the Zacuto Z-EVF fitted it was nice to use.

Manfrotto had a whole range of new gear. Most important to many news shooters will be their new video heads. The 509HD is a model up from the popular 504HD and features the same bridging technology (whatever that means). There is also a new lower end model called the 502HD which is essentially a replacement for the ever popular 501 head.

Manfrotto also showed Dado – an innovative spherical universal junction that connects to threaded accessories or rods. Looks like a piece of 1970’s art but it very cool. They also have a new snake arm which is a more flexible alternative to the magic arm.

There were a lot of Ipad based teleprompter systems at NAB this year. This one is probably the cheapest and I’m thinking of getting one for myself. It’s only $299 from LCD4video.

GoPro were at NAB again this year showing their just launched 3D system for the diminutive action cams. As I was walking past their booth I spotted none other than legendary Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown trying it out on a Merlin stabilizer.

Another 3D solution came from Mio 3D. Instead of using two cameras their rig has 3, allowing them to shoot with two interocular distances at the same time. Make sense? if not don’t ask me – check out their website.

Fastec were a company getting a lot of press coverage for their new hand holdable TS3 high speed camera. Capable of 720 frames per second in HD. Wow! Now if only it were the same price as my DSLR.

Rig company Denz had an interesting solution for mounting an EVF to cameras like the Panasonic AF100. I’m going to need to work out some arrangement for my own EVFs so this is definitely an option.

The Radcam has got to be one of the coolest DSLR gadgets I saw at NAB. I’d love to see shots from one of these.

And to finish our NAB 2011 coverage is this DSLR helmet cam. Recognise the celebrity anyone?

Whilst at the Canon Pro Solutions show in London a few weeks back I got a chance to look at a few new products. Apologies for not posting these until now but I’ve been rather busy lately.

Kata were showing off some new bags aimed at HDDSLR shooters who need to travel light. First up is the Source-261PL bag which is designed to take a camera on a rig fitted in it’s main compartment with several lenses in cleverly designed side pockets. Next they have two new bags in the FlyBy range which are super lightweight gear trunks that can fit a laptop and be used on rollers.

Kata unveils new lightweight DSLR bags for video shooters from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Manfrotto also had an interesting new tripod head on show aimed at convergence shooter doing stills and video together. It functions like a regular pan and tilt video fluid head until at the flick of a switch it goes into photo mode where you can put the camera upright. I can see this appealing to a lot of photographers who are starting to shoot video.

Manfrotto Photo/Video tripod head on show from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Both of these quick videos were shot by dslrnewsshooter.com contributor Sam Morgan Moore. Many thanks to him.

Miller’s pro video tripods at the NAB 2010 show. video by Fstopacdemy’s Scott Karlins and Dan Chung.

NAB 2010 – Miller tripods from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Wayne Shulman of Manfrotto demonstrates the new 504HD tripod which the company developed with the DSLR video shooter in mind. Also featured is the new Genus products DSLR rig. Video by Scott Karlins and Dan Chung.

NAB 2010 – New Manfrotto 504HD tripod for 5DmkII and 7D shooters from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

I’m just back from the UK after speaking at the Canon Pro Solutions Expo in London. It was really great to meet those who managed to attend and good to catch up with some old friends, too. I finally met the very talented 5DmkII shooter Danfung Dennis and got to see a bit more of his upcoming documentary from Afghanistan – it’s looking seriously good.

The main attraction at the Canon show was of course the 1DmkIV; I managed to have a pretty good look at the camera’s video functions and in the next day or two should have more for you.

I met F-Stop academy’s Den Lennie at the show; he showed me the company’s latest 5DmkII and 7D training DVDs. For me, these plug a huge hole for anyone wanting to learn about how to shoot pro video with these cams. Previously you’ve had to spend a long time scouring the net for all the answers – now you can learn what took me months just by sitting down with F-Stops classes which lay everything out in a simple way.

I also have some new toys to test. First up are a duo of Panasonic Micro 4/3rds HD capable cameras – the Lumix GH-1 and GF-1. The GH-1 can shoot 1080p and 720p with full control and a mic input, while the smaller GF-1 is only 720p, but has a much cuter form factor. These are much smaller than the 5DmkII or 7D and can still take an interesting variety of lenses. Both cameras shoot AVCHD but have a relatively low bit rate – not sure how that’s going to work out but I plan a more comprehensive review at some point in the future.

Next up is the new Thinktankphoto Airport Takeoff rolling camera bag that converts quickly into a backpack. I’ve loved Thinktank bags since they came out a few years ago and use their rollers, backpacks and pouches frequently, but I always thought the lack of a backpack/roller was a serious omission. Now they’ve taken my favourite backpack and added wheels and a handle – great stuff. It will carry my full 5DmkII video kit including two bodies, and 300mm lens and my Macbook Pro. Again I’ll be giving this one a thorough working out and will report back. If your in the UK and can’t wait for a full review then you can head over to Snapperstuff to pick one up now.

Gadget three is the new 5DmkII fitting camera armour. I’ve been waiting for this one as the original 5D armor made famous by Vincent Laforet to disguise the 5DmkII during filming of ‘Reverie’ doesn’t fit the MKII well. The new version is a snug fit and gives a really chunky rubber bumper around much of the camera’s body. Whilst it’s a little cumbersome to leave it on the whole time I will put it on the camera for really rough environments or during remote control shoots where the camera is left in a vulnerable position like a soccer goal mouth.

Gadget four is the Litepanels MicroPro LED light – no time to play with this at all yet so no firm opinion; I’m assuming it’s a better, more powerful version of the little Litepanels LPmicro – which I love – but again I’ll report later.

Lastly, I’ve picked up a lovely Manfrotto video monopod from Bogen imaging. The 561BHDV (who makes up these catchy names??) . It’s a monopod with added fluid head and little pop out feet at the base to give extra stability and some smoother panning motion. I tested it a few days ago and found that with wide to moderate length lenses it was very easy to get stable shots. The little feet were easy to use and although you can’t stand the monopod up on them alone they do make the base feel more rooted to the ground and stop it from slipping around. I also tried attaching my Redrockmicro rig to the it and used the handgrips for extra stability; this worked really well. My only gripe is that it’s quite heavy and would benefit from a carbon fibre rather than aluminium leg, although I guess that would push the price up. I think this monopod will be going with me in future unless I’m close to my airline weight limit, when I might switch to a carbon fibre one instead.

Anyway, enough new toys. Hopefully back to some serious shooting this week.