A friend was asking about my handheld rig for my AF100. I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to adapt my rig to have the feel and efficiency of an ENG rig. While I feel like I’ve gotten pretty close, it still leaves a lot to be desired. I decided to take another spin around the web to see if I could find any new solutions. I found dozens of solutions, so I picked a few to take a closer look at. There are a couple of solutions out there for the Sony F3 that, from what I can tell, would be fine solutions for the the AF100.
Of course there’s the Element Technica Sony F3 Riser & Shoulder Pad Kit. With help from Abel Cine, this baseplate was designed specifically to make the Sony F3 should mountable. It has a positionable shoulder pad that’s held in place by some pretty strong magnets, Arri rosettes the allow you to attach handle bars and receptacles for 15mm rods in the front.
Another nice system is from Canadian manufacturer Shape. Their V-Mount Quick Release Baseplate is designed to lock your camera to a tripod via an ENG style camera adapter plate. It has a simple cushion for your shoulder, held in place by velcro, as well as rosettes for their push button adjustable handle bar grips. I Like that the Shape product has receptacles for 15mm Rails in the front and back. The rear rails are useful for mounting batteries, recorders, wireless, monitors, etc.
While those are both nice pieces of hardware to get either and F3 or AF100 to sit on you shoulder, you probably still need to work on getting the rig nice and balanced. I found a Cinema5D video on Vimeo about an interesting solution from a Swedish Company, Swedish Chameleon. Their product uses a series of rails and straps to position the camera at the right height with a belt that helps to distribute the weight… Maybe you should just watch the video.
