Glidecam HD-1000 Hand-Held Stabilizer

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Price: $394.98 Too low to display   

Product Feature

• Camera Mounting Plate
• Mid Plate
• Bottom Plate
• Central Post
• Three Axis Gimbal with Yoke And Offset Handle

Product Description

Hand-Held Stabilizer

Glidecam HD-1000 Hand-Held Stabilizer Review

Length:: 1:59 Mins

I've had a chance to try out the Glidecam HD-1000 for a few weeks now, and I have to say I'm impressed. The thing's extremely well built: precision designed and solid. The mechanisms for getting your camera balanced are both simple and clever, and they are easy to use once you get the idea of what you're supposed to do with them. I can definitely say that this tool makes it possible to achieve what it promises: smooth and steady shots that seem to glide through the air.

Having said that, I should also say that unless you've had a lot of experience working with steady-cam type stabilizers before, there will be a learning curve before you can expect to get anything like the kinds of demo shots you can find of the Glidecam on the web. The Glidecam HD is a well-built tool, but it takes some skill and lots of practice to be able to use it well.

The basic idea behind this kind of stabilizer is that you balance the weight of the camera with the weight of the plate below, allowing you to create a center of gravity around the gimbal style pivot where the handle attaches to the Glidecam post. There are knobs on the camera mount that allow you to move it forward, backwards, left and right, so that it floats around the pivot in a perfectly upright position. More importantly, given that the weight on the bottom is almost exactly balanced with the camera, any inertial forces on the camera that would tend to push it forward or backwards around the pivot are counterbalanced by the inertial forces of the plate at the bottom.

So, in principle, the camera should just float around the pivot at the handle, always facing forward and upright. In practice, though, what happens is when you move around it tends to drift. It doesn't wiggle or bounce, but wind or swift motions can lead it to drift a bit - just as if it were in a zero gravity situation and floating free. Additionally, you don't always want it to stay upright but sometimes want to pan or tilt in order to follow a subject precisely, and for that you need to use your fingers of the free hand, but if you put too much pressure with your fingers you're going to introduce the wobble.

The solution is to use one hand to hold it, and the tips of the fingers of the other hand both to keep it from drifting and to pan or tilt the camera as needed. The trick, though, that requires practice, is figuring out how to keep it from drifting and turn and tilt as necessary without introducing wobble. It sounds simple enough, but in practice it takes work. It takes finesse. It's like retraining yourself how to move the camera - it even struck me that it's like learning to ride a bike. After a few practice sessions over a couple of weeks I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it - but I've seen some of the demo shots that others have been able to take using the Glidecam on the web - and I'm not there yet.

I thought this might be a great tool for documentary work - but after using it my feeling is that it does best for shots that are planned out and choreographed in advance. It'd be hard to have it always ready for more spontaneous shots. With an experienced user, you could achieve some pretty impressive shots with this that would add a unique look to any project, and it would be a valuable addition to the bag of tricks for independent cinematographers.

A few minor complaints: the mounting plate goes on and latches in quickly, but if you're using this along with a tripod or you want to take it off it's a bit of a pain. I wish they'd included a quick release mount on here. The weakest part of the design is the tightening screw that holds the telescoping post, that can extend and contract for precision balancing. I found it tends to loosen pretty easily - you've got to really screw it tight in order to keep it from loosening, but if you have to adjust it then it's tough to unscrew, and I'm worried about this being a weak point that will eventually wear down.

About the video: Video footage was shot using a Canon VIXIA HFS10 mounted on the Glidecam HD-1000 (except where otherwise noted). I put together the animated part of the video using Adobe Illustrator CS5 and After Effects CS5. (Note: I had to compress it quite a bit to upload, so it's a bit jerkier looking than it actually should be). The music is "Racubah!" by Mulatu Astatke and His Ethiopian Quintet.

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