This post is a follow-up to the entry I posted in October – My Journey with Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. Many of you asked me if I have a shoulder rig for my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and how it is built. Today I will cover exactly that topic.
I would also like to stress that it's by no means the best BMPCC shoulder rig that exists, but it's useful for me, it's affordable and it's built on top of what I already had (covered in previous post).
The only additional elements that transform my rig for the handheld shoulder set-up are front handles and shoulder pad.
Front handles
I'm using front handles that come like this:
They are easy to attach to the rods and they keep the rig very stable. They are also made of quality materials (nice rubber handles and solid screws).
Check out the front handles on ebay
This is how the rig looks like with the handles:
It can already be used this way – the plate with the battery can be put on the shoulder directly. For short shoots, it's fine, but for longer periods with the camera I recommend using shoulder pad described below.
Shoulder Pad
The Shoulder Pad I am using is produced by Movofilms:
The build quality is very nice considering the price compared to some other branded products. It's fully adjustable and can be extended to fit many different cameras and set-ups.
Check out the shoulder pad on ebay
It also has the rod mounts on top to attach the battery or counter weights.
When the shoulder pad is attached to the rods the rig looks like this:
Complete Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Shoulder Rig
This is how the complete rig looks like:
Ready to shoot run'n'gun style. It's not well balanced, but taking into account that the camera is not very heavy it's quite comfortable to operate it this way. There is always an option to move the battery way back and add some counterbalance to the rods behind the shoulder pad. I just didn't want to add more weight to the whole rig.
List of all the elements
- Tilta Cage
- Small HD DP4
- Lens Support
- Fotga Follow Focus DP500IIS
- Anker Astro Pro2 20000mAh battery
- Cheese Plate (for the Anker)
- Adapter for Anker to BMPCC
- Check out the front handles on ebay (including 2 extra rods)
- Check out the shoulder pad on ebay
- Magic Arm (to mount the monitor)
The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is fitted with: