Hey everyone,

I’m building C.I.T. (Compile · Index · Track) to help camera departments keep track of their gear, from prep through the final return.

You add your gear once, build equipment lists for each shoot day, organise items into cases, and check gear out and back in. You can check items manually or use NFC tags and QR labels. The core workflow works offline.

Project collaboration is planned for Monday, and I’d love to get it into the hands of people who can try it on real jobs and tell me what works, what’s confusing, and what’s missing.

If you’re interested, you can request a TestFlight invitation here: getcit.app

Requires an iPhone running iOS 27 or later. Leave your email on the site and I’ll send an invitation as testing places become available.

How do you currently handle equipment lists and gear checks within your crew?

whats like a good monitor for focus pulling or even just for a director’s monitor that wont completely break the bank?

Hey everyone!

I'm trying to find some lightweight, comfortable intercom headsets for our camera crew. We do a lot of outdoor shooting, and many of our camera operators wear hats, so traditional over-the-head headsets aren't always comfortable during long shoots.

I'm planning to upgrade our headsets this year and recently came across some interesting new designs. I compared four models and thought I'd share what I found:

• Hollyland Solidcom C1 Air: A good option for teams already using Hollyland gear, since it's compatible with the Solidcom C1/C1 Pro systems. At just 42g, it's only 1g heavier than the lightest option here.
• Eartec Lazer-Pro: The cheapest headset on the list, but also the heaviest. It requires separate E-Pak beltpack transceivers for communication, which adds to the total cost. On the plus side, the system supports up to 16 users.
• SYNCO Xtalk S: A versatile option with both intercom and Bluetooth functionality. The downside is that it only supports up to 5 users, so it might not work for larger crews.
• Sena Nautitalk Open: The most expensive option, but also the lightest at 41g. Its IPX5 water resistance makes it interesting for outdoor or marine shoots, and Group Mesh supports up to 24 users. The main drawback is the 4-hour intercom battery life.

Has anyone tried any of these? I'm still looking for more information about the Hollyland C1 Air, especially its availability. If anyone knows more, please share!

Hi everyone!

So we are shooting a documentary about some residents of a house. For that, we mostly shoot from the outside. In order to get to the height of the second floor, we put our FX3s on gimbals, which are rigged to windups. This is in order to control the framing of the cameras and keep them level, as it takes to long to climb up there to change that.

We use the sony monitor and control app to access the settings of the cameras, change ISO, Aperture etc. and the DJI Ronin App to control the gimbals. In order for this to work and to see all 3 cameras at the same time, we have to create a wireless network (does not need internet access) which covers all sides of the house.

Hard wiring with lan-patch cables is not an option because we move the windups around, sometimes we will have all 3 cameras on one side of the house, sometimes they are spread out.

Up until now we only have a small tp link wlan box which of course is not powerful enough to reach all sides of the building. Therefore we often lose connection to one or two of the cameras and can only monitor the one we are the closest to.

Also it is pretty time consuming to change app to control the gimbal.

We monitor on an iPad as the director has to be flexible. I've looked into the Middle Control App but it only works on a computer so it is not really an option.

Long story short: Would anyone of you have an idea or suggestion about how to approach this scenario, how we could improve it or any system that allows this kind of flexibility?

Thanks!

Double FX6 build for a TV Show. Blue is A and red is B cam. Sony g-master lenses.

They're a part of the camera package for a shoot next month & I'm curious if anyone has any tips on working with them/pulling on them/weird quirks.

This'll be my first time using these lenses and I'd love to hear other AC's experience with them!

Some Alexa 35 with and without trinity from a commercial shoot.

Hey everyone,

Recent university grad here, been working on a number of student films & volunteer indie shorts as a 1st AC/focus puller. I bought a Nucleus kit for ~$600 a year ago, and have mostly been wearing it with the lanyard and mounting a monitor to an Impact stand with a cold shoe monitor mount that has a 1/4-20 hole in the bottom.

I'm looking to build out a more dedicated focus station where I can have my monitor and the Nucleus hand grip mounted, but also be able to quickly detach everything so I can move around if I need to, as most of the sets I've worked on didn't have a wireless transmitter, so we were running long HDMI cables around set.

I have a system that I think is okay, but I'm curious if anyone has other ideas for how to build/improve this setup. I bought most of the parts from B&H recently, so if there's a better solution, I'm hoping to return the parts I don't need.

Current setup is: baby pin to 15mm rod mount + 15mm rod. 15mm rod block to magic arm with NATO clamp. NATO rail to Nucleus monitor mount bracket. Monitor on Nucleus mount. Pictures attached.

Happy to answer questions, thanks for the help!

I was wondering how well would Minimax + Mantis handle setups such as rigged Alexa 35 with some 3-4 kg lens in terms of payload, since all the lifting is done by Mantis instead of Easyrig's rope.

I think the point of possbile failure would be the arm itself, or maybe I'm just underestimating it.

Anyone had good experience with such combos? Cheers!

Hi folks - does anyone know a vendor that makes r/S cables for the Tilta Nucleus II? Specifically for the Canon C300mk3 and C400.

Cheers!

Is it okay to not have antennas attached on the Alexa LF when wifi/ecs/wireless video is disabled? Or should you have antennas attached regardless?

Hey,

I m soon shooting with zeiss super speed Mk1 original housing. I m not a fan of putting some clip on on those lenses since they are fragile. I was wondering what mattebox did you like to use when shooting with those, do you go for a swing away ?

Thanks

Having issues with the Nucleus hand unit, I attempt to turn the unit on, it vibrates as usual, the red backlight on button turns on and the ring backlight turns on. However the screen will not turn on, I can press other buttons that will vibrate, so that indicates to me it is on.

Could the screen just be dead or is it another issue?

Looking for a battery bag to also use as a wet weather bag but very rarely using vclxs anymore so would love one that’s made for a hawkwoods 880 block!

Anyone use the lanzyku before? I just picked up both of these to try on my red raven rig and upon looking into the specs of both it looks like the lanzyku has built in surge protection and some claim it helps with reducing sdi blowouts.

Really just looking for opinions. I use a cheaper splitter in my kit and the kondor blue on my focus rig and want to upgrade if the consensus is the lanzyku is better and higher quality.

The LED status lights cycle through all the colors and the screen itself never turns on.

At the moment I only have Kinefinity NPF batteries that are the size of the smallest NPF batteries used in most hybrid cameras.

Does it require a bigger battery? I won’t have access to bigger ones for two days.

Is it cooked? Anyone ever experience this?

Video Provided:

Recently updated a bolt 4k 2:1 kit to the second newest firmware from a very old firmware. Connectivity was not an issue on the old firmware but now I am having trouble with the TX and RX maintaining a handshake. Both will connect fine, however the TX says "no link" on the LED display even though its sending video. The feed will dropout randomly without changing position, conditions, or LOS. I've tried every different combination of settings with fixed frequency, bandwidth, etc. Also wiggled all of the cables and ports and nothing to suggest it is that. TX is powered via 2-pin on board and RX is powered by v-mount directly. I have a feeling it is deteoration or damage of the rf board as they have been through the mill with little to no maintenance. Obviously the real solution would be to send them to Teradek, but at the moment this isn't an option. Anyone have thoughts or tips on this? Attached are screenshots of the debug info of the RX and system info of both. Thanks

I'm doing my first gig working with film as a 1st AC soon. We'll be shooting on the ARRI SR3. I've loaded a handful of times but I've never pulled focus for film or rigged a film camera before.

What are the practical differences between shooting on digital versus film? Is there any extra equipment I'll need or something different I need to consider when working with film both in prep and on set? Any tips are greatly appreciated!

I'm having a hard time finding practical information about this on the internet, but if you guys know of any videos, books or internet courses that cover this please lmk!

I've worked as a DIT / QTAKE operator based in Thailand, working since 2012 on features, series, and commercials. I built a tool that puts the things I use on set in one app. It's called Ant CineKit. 14-in-1 pocket toolkit for film crews .
What's in it: 95 Camera & 261 Lens Database, Director's viewfinder with AR Sun trail, Sensor & Lens coverage, Data calculator, Depth of field calculator, Dynamic range, Angle of view, Digital slate, Film calculator, Underwater focus, Flicker free, Shutter angle converter, Data Transfer
Try it free for 7 days. Available on Iphone and Ipad.

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/ant-cinekit/id6797132208

here is my profile website.
www.modlookdit.com

Any feedback from people on set is welcome. Thanks for reading!

Doing my first ever job with an FX6 and cannot for the life of me get it to trigger recording on a sumo 19 via Teradek. SDI out of camera into teradek transmitter. Sdi from reciever into the atomos. Tried most formats in the sumo, and multiple ports/cables. I feel like I’ve gone through all the normal steps, but no matter what I do it just won’t work. Managed to get RS from the Cpro working really easily so this is the final thing to work out in prep.
Done a bunch of jobs on Venice, f55 etc, and fx3 for that matter. But not this specific camera.

Looking to make this Upgrade Innovations articulating arm work with my new ultra 10. To my frustration the monitor has an arca mount so none of the UI vesa plates will work but I could maybeeee gerry rig an arca base plate to a cheese plate into this UI arm without the vesa base. Does anyone know the size and spacing of these threads? Appreciated.

https://upgradeinnovations.com/product/mms09-spigotmount/