How a GEARED HEAD tripod brings WEIGHT to film

How geared head tripods can bring a beautiful weight to your tracking, and a hands on review of the budget-friendly Proaim Orion Mitchell Tripod.
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Canon Masterclass

[@EpicLightMedia]

This head looks awesome! Love your videos by the way.... huge fans.

[@marooni3608]

Thank you for the video. I had no idea that this head even existed until now. I really appreciate the effort that you put in these videos.

[@raylavers4216]

great explanation on why a gear head can be desirable. Thanks for that.

[@frasermacmannis614]

Very interesting! Thanks

[@mrshaheedmalik]

Great footage.

[@creatorsunionSVERDLOVSK]

never got a chance to try ARRI gearhead or this Orion (even cheap Chinese noname GH) but a few times got my hands on old soviet ones. Oh, man it's great thing, but extremely heavy (most of soviets gearheads are part of tripod and cannot be removed or changed) they are complete metal (except for tripod legs - they are made of wood) - it's almost a 40kg (without camera). Sorry for bad english

[@EpictheEpicest]

I've seen skilled operators trace coloring book outlines with these as practice. It's a lot like using an etch-a-sketch when you are a kid. That said, With a decent enough fluid head, I think you can get close. Just from my experience practicing for 100s of hours with an old O'connor, hitting marks like that is very obtainable, it's just difficult to control the muscles to do a slow move with 0 jitter. With a second operator doing a zoom/dolly/rack focus it's unnoticeable. It's still mighty fun to use a geared head though and I would love one if I could justify getting it xD.

[@galaxyfilms1757]

Underrated

[@S9universe]

very cool

[@NPA_Arts]

Been wanting this for awhile. Getting it next year.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

That’s great. One of the strengths of this type of head is that, if you’re skilled, you can precisely repeat the same camera movement over multiple takes. It’s all about building muscle memory through practice, counting the turns of the wheel, and matching the speed of each take. This sort of repeatability is just not something you can get with a fluid head. If you can master the geared head, you’re going to be a next level operator. (Pro tip: if you’re an EVF person, you’re going to want to get the EVF extension accessory on whatever camera you’re using. Much easier to turn those wheels if you’re not hunched over the camera.)

[@NPA_Arts]

MarcosElMalo2 repeating a shot is the big reason I want it besides the fact that I love old school style equipment. Expensive fluid heads don’t compare to me simply because they lack the repeatability. I’ll probably stick to a monitor and rent an EVF to see if I like it better after I’m used to the GH

[@westwoodmanorfilms7779]

I know you have had the opportunity to use both Proaim's Mini and Pro version of their gear heads. When it comes to the smoothness of the the Pan and tilts have you notices a quality difference between the two or are both comparable in their movement with a camera? Thanks so much.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

I’d argue that the Panahead geared head is better than the Arri, but good luck trying to buy one. It’s rent/lease only and there aren’t that many of them.

[@360CreativeBulgaria]

With fluid head If you adjust your counterbalance properly, your camera will not fall 🧐 Also the sample shots with the gear head doesn’t look very smooth...🤔

[@360CreativeBulgaria]

G. S. I think that the only reason you’ll ever gonna need GH is if you’re using some extremely heavy camera/rig that is out of range of any fluid head on the market, which in 2020 seems very unusual. And if that’s the case you’ll probably have enough budget to go with the expensive Arri stuff, not ProAim. And for sure I cannot imagine indie filmmaker invest in this vs. good fluid head.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Naw. You have a partial point about camera weight, but a geared head gives you remarkable precision that (this is the important part) is repeatable in the hands of a skilled operator. You’re just not going to get that precision with a fluid head. This becomes even more true if you mount the geared head on a dolly, like one of the Fischer dollies with boom arms. You put a skilled dolly grip together with your skilled camera operators, and you’re getting very complicated but precise camera movements all day long. Yes, this is out of reach of your typical indie feature. Or has been until these low cost gear heads have come on the market, bring down the cost of a rental (or even making them available in many markets). At the end of the day, this type of equipment AND the skill required to use them is what separates the big kids from the small fry.

[@360CreativeBulgaria]

@@MarcosElMalo2 Are you talking about the ProAim one? Because professional gear is not defined by type, but by quality, and that is what seperates bad from impossible (for indie) investment. And the typical indie with a lightweight camera and a very small crew at best, cannot afford to make either bad or impossible investments and will have a ton more success with electronic motion control device, that you don't need 2 people with 10+ years of experience to operate it, and for sure will be much more precise, repeatable and you can use it on a slider for ex. So you can get much more for much less. You don't need the cheapest 18 wheeler with 2 professional drivers when your cargo can fit in a Porsche :)

[@CUBEOFSIX]

Thank you! Could you make a video on how to master one?

[@Crimsonengine]

You should probably ask a professional camera op :)

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Give him a month or two to practice!

[@UraFlight]

Can I use it for filming fast moving airplanes ?

[@Crimsonengine]

It has fast and slow mode. So as long as you're far enough away it should work

[@UraFlight]

@@Crimsonengine Thank you

[@overkillphil514]

Typical, just when I'm getting a new fluid head tomorrow...lol. It does look nice.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Nothing wrong with a good fluid head. It’s actually your best choice for most tripod. The geared head isn’t so much a step up from the fluid head as it is an extension of your capabilities (although I call those capabilities “next level”). If you have both, you’d still find yourself using the fluid head 90% of the time (this statistic fresh from my ass, but you get the idea).

[@sijilo]

🌞

[@jmez927]

Please get a hold of a r5....we need an input from a TRUE PROFESIONAL

[@michaelgrugal]

You missed the most important part about geared heads. Repeatable motion. You can't do that with a fluid head.

[@Crimsonengine]

Repeatable how? This isn't motion control like an eMotimo unit. A person still has to turn the handles and i will be different each pass.

[@michaelgrugal]

@@Crimsonengine 2 turns on a handle will always land you on the same spot. thats the whole point of gear heads. you can always count on how many times you turn / half turn a handle. It will always land you on the same spot. It will never be different.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@Crimsonengine You count the turns on the wheel. Hopefully this head you bought has a clutch mechanism to change the gearing (not during the shot of course). Now I want you to imagine a scenario in which you need multiple takes of the same shot. The shot is blocked thus: Start on actor, actor walks forward, stops to deliver dialogue, then continues walking until she stops again. You’re supposed to follow the actor’s movements smoothly. With someone standing in at each position, you get the precise number of turns between each blocked position. This is repeatable if the actor is also repeating their motion on each take. It’s a matter of ramping up and down between positions. If the actor isn’t hitting their marks, that’s not your problem-the director and actor have to work that out. Now let’s say the actor is varying their movement speed between takes and it’s a tight shot. Now you need to vary your ramping, but you’re still replicating the shot much more smoothly than you could with a fluid head or handheld. Same principles apply in other scenarios. Imagine you’re shooting a car on a curvy road, from a hilltop. You pick out points where the car passes and count the turns of the wheels. (I’d pick points of velocity change because that will help with your ramping up and down. For example, the point in a curve where the car changes from deceleration to acceleration.) There’s a lot of variables and intricacies to mastering the geared head. You own one so you’ll have a lot of opportunity to practice. Everyone else, find a rental house with a geared head and make some sort of arrangement to go in and practice when they’re not busy. You might need to rent it (but probably at a lower rate if it stays in their facility), buy someone lunch, or they might be happy to not charge you anything, because more trained operators could mean more rentals.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

@@michaelgrugal Exactly this. And developing muscle memory helps with having a feel for the speed you turn those wheels, including ramping your speed. A highly skilled operator can even “repeat” takes when the timing of the subjects motion is variable between takes, by making subtle changes to the ramping up and down. Almost impossible to do this smoothly with handheld or fluid head.

[@dkkeyz8815]

Just like using a M242 bushmaster when the turret has no power.

[@SJTWEBPHOTOGRAPHY]

Wait! What? No one has commented on the background?

[@Crimsonengine]

Between studios right now. I’ll have an update when I find a new one!

[@andrewheki2257]

But how do you whip pan? LOL 😆

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Exactly! This is why you don’t trade in your fluid head or get rid of your shoulder rig to get one of these babies.

[@oshianapiluso4260]

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