DP Sasha Rendulic is a big fan of Zacuto, and he reports that for the film trilogy Gray in White and Black, he sat down with Weiss in 2007 as he prepped the second film, More Like Black. “At that time, the director and I were developing more choreography, with camera movement and angles. Our budget was limited and we were prepping for a two-camera shoot on this one. Steve recommended the new Panasonic AG-HPX500. Zacuto’s package included superior optics with Canon HD cine zoom lenses, plus prime lenses, and Zacuto’s famous support systems. This package, with camera setups for film look, and some effects filtration to soften the video edges, gave us satisfactory results on our Panasonic 17” HD monitor as our image reference.”

Over at Chapman/Leonard, marketing director/vp Christine Huenergardt reports that the company has “basically been improving and fine-tuning what we already have, so we’ve been focusing on that rather than on introducing new equipment. In fact, because of the strike, we didn’t even plan to do NAB this year.”

The company’s latest line of camera support equipment is the Hydrascope 32’ and 15’ telescoping crane arm, displayed with even further upgrades at NAB 2007. The Hydrascope is the first waterproof telescoping crane arm and works off a compact 24-volt battery without any umbilical cords to confine its use.  This low voltage system makes the Hydrascope a safe unit to operate either in or out of water or in wet, damp environments, such as rain. Another important feature of the Hydrascope telescoping crane is its new and improved design, which allows a 2:1 arm ratio at the final stage of the arm, allowing this arm to take payloads of up to 175 lbs.  The Hydrascope / G-3 combination has been utilized on many television and film projects this past year, including the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom the Crystal Skull, Semi-Pro, Bones, House with operator Tony Gaudioz, DP Gale Tattersall and key grip Jamie Young; and Charlie Wilson’s War with operator James Wickman, director of photography Stephen Goldblatt ASC and key grip Charles Saldana.

“Another new product is the CL slider,” Huenergardt adds. “We are currently working on evolving, as we do with all our equipment, from use in the field to make it the best product on the market today.”

Egon Stephan, Jr., president and CEO of Miami-based Cinevideotech Inc., reports that the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary, “so we’ve seen all the trends in camera support and rentals come and go. Right now, we see a big demand on the HD video side for Sony gear and the new Red camera. We have two of the Red cameras, and as they’re so few out there, it’s a very hot item.” As a working DP, Stephan also notes that the Red camera takes all his film lenses “without a special adapter, so it’s more like a cine-video hybrid camera.” On the film side, he sees demand for the Arricam Studio, “which we rent. On 16mm, it’d be the SR advanced high speed or the smaller A Minima type of camera made by Aaton. We also cater to a lot of the film students here, so they shoot on Mini DV or 16mm.” Stephan also sees a lot of demand for “glass lenses — Cooke S4s, Ultra-Primes and Angenieux are all hot items.”

The company also reps Makohead. “It does very well here, even though it costs a $1000 a day to rent,” adds the DP. “It does an amazing job of stabilizing the image if you’re on a boat. We also have Hydroflex housings for the cameras, and we get a lot of calls for all this.” Cinevideotech is also the sole rep for Tyler Camera Systems in Florida and the Caribbean. “They’re high-end helicopter mounts, and we have the side and nose mounts, and middle mount and the major mounts so you can put the heavier type of cameras on them,” he says. “And we do a lot of aerial jobs.”

Over at Vinten, new items include the Vector 750, Vector 950 Active & Vision iScript, all unveiled at NAB. Vinten has combined the best of the functionality and durability of the acclaimed Vector 700 Standard and H versions and incorporated them into the new Vector 750 pan and tilt head. The new Vector 750 features a C.G. range span of 80mm-250mm. To facilitate the use of camera accessories such as a talent monitor and spotlights, the 750 features a maximum payload of 165.3 pounds (75kg). Like the Vector 700, the new 750 is designed with a unique spring- and cam-free counterbalance mechanism that makes adjustment quick and simple, eliminating the need for time-consuming cam changes when altering camera configuration.

Vinten's Vector 950 Active pan/tilt head system now complements most Canon HD long lenses with the Optical Shift Image Stabilizer ("Shift-IS") feature to eliminate any trace of lag after fast pan or tilt shots — a great advantage in the production of fast-paced HDTV sports and live-entertainment events. The Canon-Vinten collaboration integrates the advanced capabilities of Canon's Shift-IS lens technology with the special encoders built into Vinten's Vector 950 Active pan/tilt head system, and combined with a customized Active serial controller box, creates the link between the two technologies. The high-resolution encoders in the Vector 950 Active provide the perfect output for compatibility with the new Canon AF lenses.  This technology addresses some of the key issues of the HDTV market, which requires sharper, more stable pictures.  It is also compression-friendly as it delivers a more stable source image, which minimizes the amount of processing required by the encoders to produce the perfect final image for broadcast output.