Just a thought, but you could get a nice wide still shot of video, and then do the pan in Vegas with keyframes.

It comes from having the proper equipment and experience. The "proper equipment" means a tripod and head that costs more than a few hundred dollars (a lot more). The "experience" requires practice and time.

That's one reason they're referred to as "professionals."

This came up not long ago. One tip to achieve the gentle acceleration and deceleration is to hook a substantial rubber band around the tripod handle and pull on this rather than directly on the handle. The swivel resistance must be set right, though.

Special equipment? YES!!! If you look at the camera supports used by movie production companies, you'll invariably find that they almost always use gearhead panheads.

Just don't have a coronary when pricing them http://www.filmtools.com/gearnex-gear-head.html

And here's the granddaddy of gear heads, the Worrall: http://owyheesound.com/worrall.html

Of course those heads are made for studio cameras, but I have seen S16 cameras on them (if you have it, use it). Manfotto do have geared heads for stills cameras and fitted with winding wheels the 410 model might be useful for video (I've never tried one). But even with a proper geared head perfection requires practice. Very easy, when winding, for the varying orientation of the wrist to vary the rate of rotation of the wheel. And then often you need to pan and tilt simultaneously at different rates and directions. So whatever you use, practice when not engaged in work.

It's a combination of having a really good fluid head tripod (not the "fluid effect" head of most under $1,000 tripods) and a good bit of practice.

One trick to get smooth pans on a "cheap" fluid effect tripod is to use a thick rubber band or one of those cloth-covered rubber band hair ties. Just slip it over the end of the tripod handle, put you finger in it and pull slowly. The rubber band will smooth out the speed imperfections. It does take some practice to get the tripod drag set correctly and choose the right thickness of the rubber band, but it does help smooth things out.

"Very easy, when winding, for the varying orientation of the wrist to vary the rate of rotation of the wheel."

All good points Serena, but the last time I handled one of these babies (At Bray Studios, on the set for Hope and Glory) I was really impressed by the smoothness imparted by the flywheel action of the winding wheels. This would take care of any unevenness caused by wrist orientation or other operator variations.

Some years ago I modified a still camera geared panhead by adding cranks to the winding knobs, and it is still in use on those really critical situations where nothing else will do.

In effect, it came out a close replica of the Vitec Manfrotto head seen here http://wize.com/tripods/p280629-vitec-multimedia-manfrotto-3263-deluxe-geared-head

I hadn't noticed the 3263 model, which looks like it might be up to the job. So I assume your modified geared head worked well. Not often, apart from following action, that I wouldn't prefer having a geared head on the tripod. But you don't use yours very often?

Another tip is to start by positioning your feet as close as possible to where you want to be at the END of the pan, before starting. Stepping during a pan is likely to interrupt the smooth progress of the pan.

If I were hiring cinematographers on a regular basis for broadcast work, and the job required any panning shots, particularly product work, I would want to know what head they had or preferred to use. The one who mentioned O,Conner would probably get the job. There are other fine fluid heads, that is just the one that I favor. No need for rubber bands! If you are filming a herd of caribou moving across the tundra with a 500mm lens in sub zero weather it can do the job.
Ralph

Just to be clear, the rubber band tip is for people that can't afford a tripod and head that costs the same as a decent used car.

I've never tried it .. but what about attaching some sort of extension to your tripod arm ... in addition to the "rubber band" trick.

It would get you extra leverage .. and, at the same time, reduce head motion for an equal amount of arm (at the tip) movement.

Don't forget to exercise! Set the drag carefully, and practice pan a few times to spread the lubricant in the head. That seems to help with a Manfrotto 503 that I use occasionally. Starting and stopping are the most critical parts of a pan. Your frame rate and shutter speed also play a part. Pan slower if shooting 24p than 60p, and use the slowest shutter speed i.e. 1/50 for 24p or 1/125 for 60p. You want a soft image to avoid a strobe like effect.

Ralph

As an extension to the rubber band trick, why not artificially increase the moment of inertia of the rotating section (camera etc.) by attaching say a long bar anchored at the middle and a heavy weight at each end. A two metre length bar ought to be practicable when shooting the Grand Canyon but not so good when doing weddings. Or you could fit some gyros...

if you're really serious, get a satchler head, or kit - starting around $1250 from b&h.

my last tripod (a good miller) lasted ten years and i only sold it cause i wanted a lighter one - satchler s4 kit fitted the bill and i'm doing pans like a motorised head!

a good tripod will out live any number of camcorders and give dependable service for a lifetime if looked after properly.

My Miller is over 20 years old and is still going strong. True, I had to finally dump the panhead a couple of years ago (replaced with a 503) due to parts no longer being available, but the sticks couldn't be any sturdier or better.

And Serena, due to physical concerns my location shooting is now confined to 3 cam interviews, so the need for a gearhead is no longer a factor. I hope that my assistant cameraman, to whom I bequethed the homebrew gearhead will find good uses for it.

Hi,

Do you know motorized Pocket Dolly from Kessler ?

You can join dolly's carriage with camera's head via guitar string (e) and simple motorized head is ready (use carriage not as sadle for camera head, but as a source of movement).

You can achieve very smooth pan, also slomo pan (because there are motors with various speed, it is possible to program, that pan will take about 20 minutes).

Best regards,

I've got to say, Peter, that in all my years as a grip, often as a dolly grip in arms reach of the camera, I never saw anyone use the elastic trick. This is not at all to say it's a bad idea but I'd say it's compensation for the shortfalls of the tripod head one is using.

Unfortunately, lightweight cameras are usually paired with lightweight fluid heads. We have one were I work and it's got just one fluid setting for each of tilt and pan. Basically all you get is "On" and "Off".

The professional gear I'd see was always based on 100mm and 150mm ball heads and would pretty much always have more than three levels of fluid drag. Looking quickly at the Abel Cinetech site I see that these seem to start around $3000 and go up as far as $11,000. (Granted, everything I ever handled was built for heavier cameras of the 80's and 90's but I don't think that the lighter heads for lighter cameras really offer that many improvements over 10 years ago. I'm sure someone here will tell me otherwise, though)

And by the way, those prices are for the heads alone. Sticks aren't a part of the price.

So, what I'd say here is that those smooth pans are mostly the result of good gear. Skill would add to that but if the head is good then skill doesn't really enter into something like a simple pan. However, if the head is not so good then skill becomes a much bigger factor, and maybe experience would lead you to compromise with crafty ideas like the elastic trick.

People often just rent this gear rather than owning it, and at that point you could even consider renting a geared head. Geared heads are expensive and take a bit of practice but they'd give you a very steady move. They're probably most common under heavy cameras and on top of a high end dolly or crane.

http://www.jlfisher.com/index.asp
http://www.chapman-leonard.com/products.html

Rob

PeterDuke, there are lots of problems with putting a 2 meter crossbar on a head. Beyond the obvious problems of figuring out how to mount it and how to get enough space to use it...there's also possibly a bounce factor. It the arm flexes it'll probably be bad for the shot.

I used to work at a fair sized bay area rental house in the 80s, so maybe I have a bias towards renting gear. Anyway I think renting sticks and heads for a while is a great way to try out the gear before sinking your own money into it. Granted, a lot of people don't live near a rental facility, but you can get things shipped. We had a bit of competition from LA companies for anything over a week-long rental. They'd give a great rate that would make up for the cost of shipping.

As for *good* fluid heads vs geared heads...we certainly rented geared heads but we rented far, far, far more fluid heads. A good fluid head will get you the shot and they're very easy and intuitive to use. Geared heads take a lot more practice and we'd often have camera operators come in to spend an afternoon practicing before they took the geared head out. But if you own the geared head yourself you can get all the practice you want and there's a certain job security to it since no client will be able to operate it.

Rob

". . . but what about attaching some sort of extension to your tripod arm ... in addition to the "rubber band" trick."

I tried the rubber band, but it didn't work well for me. And, a couple of years ago when I wanted to shoot surfers from an overlooking hill where I could get them from a side angle (or even from behind, when they approached the beach), not straight on, it didn't work at all . . . far too sluggish to keep up with the action.

However, I put a half-inch wooden dowel through the handle mount - less than a foot long - and connected it to another dowel, maybe a foot and a half long, connected by a short length of polyethylene tubing. Holding the end of the second dowel, maybe almost 2 feet from the head, that worked rather well for shooting the surfers.

I added a bent metal bar that extended out toward the front (bent down low enough so that it wouldn't appear in any wide-angle shots), with a weight attached to the front. This should have added an inertial "flywheel" effect. As I recall, that helped some, too; but the flexing of the metal limited its utility.

I used it on cheap equipment: Manfrotto 503 mounted on a surprisingly rigid (for the $200 or so price) Chinese tripod.

Rich,

You really should post your equipment under your name. Looking over your previous posts it appears that you are using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and you are new to HD video.

Is this the problem you are seeing when you pan?

John

My post was meant to be tongue in cheek. The bar does not have to be two metres long to increase the moment of inertia. Someone above mentioned the advantage of the flywheel effect of some heavy gears.

The compliance of the rubber band and the inertia of the weight are analogous to an inductor and capacitor in a low pass filter. For best results you should also have some resistance (damping) to critically damp the system to prevent overshoot. However, if you just wanted a single pan, any overshoot could be edited out later.