Had a great 3 days shooting aerials with the Alta and Movi Pro last week. Setup was a Red Epic and DJI focus unit with Connex all powered beautifully from the Movis Dtap outs. The first oddity we came across is that the inverted mode doesn't work properly if the gimbal is in Aerial mode and not hand held. The screen at the back flips as it should and the tilt axisi seems ok but the roll keeps trying to flip over. If you change to handheld it works as expected. For going between normal and top mounting on the Alta it would be nice not to have to switch back and forth between handheld and aerial. I dont think we did with the M15 from memory. The other issue we had was with using the mimic to access the REDs parameters when using an EF lens on the EF mount for RED. Iris control is not in the parameter set that is changable from the mimic (not sure if it is there on movicontrol) however we found there was really odd interactions when setting exposure and FR/Shutter with the RED EVF (with mimic paired to MoviPro) then after power cycling the iris would be wide open and I think some other settings had changed also. We had to just leave the mimic off as it was interfereing with the settings we made on the RED evf after a reboot of the camera, like somehow the changes werent updated into the mimic and its old settings went to RED after reboot. This would have been fine if we had Iris control for EF lenses on the mimic and could have done all settings there but alas it wasnt to be. Mainly the resetting of the iris to wide open upon power cycling the camera was the killer. Without the mimic on this didn't occur. I realise if we had manual lenses all would have been fine but man it would be great to have Iris for EF lenses on the mimic too as a lot of light weight setups for drone use can really utilise the in camera electronic iris control to their advantage weight wise. Apart from these little hiccups the first shoot with the Pro was awesome and it delivered as promised absolutely! I loved only having one kind of battery to worry about below the aircraft! 20161216_200043 by Sam Hannan posted Dec 19, 2016 at 11:55 AM
No problem fitting both the DJI Focus dtap and RED power dtap in the Movis Dtap outs? I had some problems as the Dtap outs (CAM and AUX) are very close and the Dtap connectors have the cable coming out from the side.
Hi Mathias, I've found that D-Taps have a little notch in the corner that allows the cable to go out, as long as the cables aren't too thick. Here's a pic:
Thanks for the info Graham! Another question. When attaching the camera to the Movi Pro I found it very easy to fall backwards when standing on the feets. Are you supposed to use like the Movi Dock in order to make this smooth?
I had the Movi fall over the other day in front of a bunch of people with a camera on it, and it was a tad embarrassing. Obviously you have to be careful when standing it on its feet, and I was rushing around and being careless. Also, I may have had the Movi in the ring backwards. I think the feet are supposed to point forward, and I may have had them going the other way. Not sure if that makes a difference in how well it balances. I usually keep a dock on a c-stand close by, but the feet are handy for some things. I also built an inexpensive dock out of a garage hook, and it works pretty well.
Ouch! My problem is mostly when mounting the camera and the Movi pro is very unstable when nothing on it. Only had a Ronin with extension arms hanging it on C-stand before and maybe that's way to go with the Movi Dock when mounting/balancing the camera as well. Or a sand bag on the feets..
I am selling my Movi stand because I don't need it anymore, I am known for dropping stuff all over the place, but for some odd reason I find the Movi Pro to be a non dropper. Had a full days work for a client with it on monday (yesterday). It was the first day after setting it up and modifying it on saturday, I was able to test it out on sunday cause some adolescents that wanna be youtube famous needed a MoviPro cameraman for their "I am a urban white little boy but I wanna sound and look like a bad motherfucker" clip.
to add: very much impressed by the abillity to make changes on the spot, like changing from majestic angle to lock within seconds. and it is very nice to be able to put it on tables or walls and use them as tripods for the Movi Pro
Having the feet on backward makes a huge difference in how the Ring Pro balances. Since the feet are locked into the holes in the ring, if you put them backward, the ring is basically standing straight up. Not good. They need to face forward, so that the ring leans forward:
Hi Bryan! Thanks for that. My feet aren't necessarily backwards on the ring, but since I frequently take the Movi on and off the ring, I may have clipped it in backwards on the Toad by accident. I probably should put a 'this side forward' label on there or something. It would be more obvious if I was using the convenient Monitor mount built into the Top Handle, but so far I tend to like the monitor clamped lower on the ring.
Actually, I take that back... I just looked. My feet are on backwards and it sits too much upright. I'm going to swap them around.
A mark on the front of the ring is a great idea. That way you put the handle (also pointing forward) and the feet on right when you assemble it! If the feet and handle are installed facing the right direction, the standard configuration of the Toad in the Hole is for the latch to close so that the operator can see it while holding the MōVI (opposite of how the M15 TITH is installed). I like this because I can visually see that the latch is closed at a glance while running around with the MōVI.
Yea...I hate how unstable the MoVI Pro is without a camera on it. Makes it a PITA to put a camera on without having the MoVI fall backwards. Means that you NEED a dock which I thought wouldn't be the case with the MoVI Pro. Also surprised Freefly didn't put a safety latch/pin of some sort on the dovetail. You have to be really careful when putting your camera on, and when sliding forward/backward as it can slide right off the plate/dovetail, especially when a lot of weight is on the gimbal. Would suck to smash your camera/lens because it just slid off the plate. :-(