Check this out: My new HD rig!

I took the drill press and threading tools to my poor defenseless Wemberly II head and turned that rascal into an interesting alternative to a traditional cinema fluid head. It’s easy to balance and it swings like a dream. Damping is non-existent but I think I can work with friction resistance. I'm looking forward to battle testing it very soon...

Hopefully my pals at Canon will soon offer a ½ inch CMOS-based, three-chip, tapeless HD rig with variable film speeds. Can’t wait!

In the meantime, I’m checking out the competition. Just got this Sony EX-1 and it seems to be a real peach. I’ll be wringing it out and refreshing my action-tracking operator skills. It’s been a little while but I used to do quite a bit of motorsports work with Panavision and Arriflex. That always involved a skilled focus-puller so being a one-man-band will be pretty challenging with fast moving subjects. Well, next week’s Montana feline shoot will be a fine test of all…