Steadicam

The term steadicam has several senses:

How it works

The steadicam consists of a harness, worn by the operator, attached to an iso-elastic arm. This is in turn connected by a gimbal to the steadicam armature which has the camera mounted at one end and a counterbalance weight at the other. The counterbalance usually includes the battery pack and a monitor. (The monitor substitutes for the camera's viewfinder, since the range of motion of the camera relative to the operator makes the camera's own viewfinder unusable.) In the industry, the armature and weight are traditionally called the "sled", as they resembled a sled in an early model of the steadicam.

Related Topics:
Iso-elastic - Gimbal - Counterbalance - Battery - Sled

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The combined weight of the counterbalance and camera means that the armature bears a relatively high inertial mass which will not be easily moved by small body movements from the operator (much like it is hard to quickly shake a 12lb bowling ball). The freely pivoting armature adds additional stabilisation to the photographed image, and makes the weight of the camera-sled assembly acceptable by allowing the body harness to support it.

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When the armature is correctly adjusted, the operator is able to remove his hands from the steadicam entirely and have the camera stay in place. During operation, the operator usually rests his/her hand on the camera gimble and applies force at that point to move the camera. To avoid shaking the camera when operating its buttons, a wired remote held by the operator is usually used to control zoom and focus.

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For low shots, the camera/sled arm can be spun vertically, putting the camera where the sled normally sits and vice-versa; since both camera and display are inverted, the operator still sees a correctly oriented picture. The upside-down image recorded by the camera can be fixed in post-production.

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