HDV is becoming a ‘key format’ of the broadcast camera market
Jan 22, 2008 2:32 PM
Ali Ahmadi, product and marketing manager for Camera Dynamics, says the company’s new SooM is the “Swiss Army knife of camera support” and is designed for the HDV market, which is becoming a key format in the broadcast market.
Sometimes interviews take unexpected turns that push you in an unforeseen direction.
That’s the case with this week’s Sound Off interview of Ali Ahmadi, product and marketing manager for Camera Dynamics, the manufacturing arm of the Vitec Group and home of Sachtler and Vinten.
What started off as a brief conversation about a new product Ahmadi describes as the “Swiss Army knife of camera support,” turned into an interesting conversation about the HDV format and the impact the format is having across the continuum of video production applications.
HD Technology Update: Initially, you were designing a support product and it grew into something much more. What did it become?
Ali Ahmadi: It’s a product developed by the Sachtler engineers, and we’re calling it SooM. We set out to create the ultimate family of tools for someone who uses a video camera, and if you were to ask me to describe it in two or three words, I’d say it’s the Swiss Army knife of camera support.
Obviously, Sachtler is known for its tripods and fluid heads. It is a tripod that is much more than meets the eye. The basic configuration of SooM, as we unveil it next week (Editor’s note: Jan. 21) at Video 08 in Orlando on Monday, is a 75mm tripod that has a spreader like most tripods do. The magic part is you can take the spreader out, and the spreader also has a 75mm ball so you can put the fluid head into the spreader, and when you take the spreader out of the tripod, it turns into a mini tripod.
So, everywhere you go, you have your tripod and your baby tripod right then and there.
In addition to the tripod and baby tripod/spreader, you have the SooM tube, which can sit in the tripod and attach to the tripod or baby tripod/spreader. Because it’s held at these two points, you can actually extend it. So, you set up your tripod, and you can raise the tube and end up with a lens height beyond 8ft.
Any kind of obstacle — a crowd in front of you, a hedge you are trying to shoot over or a car — whether you are working in a news situation or you are trying to get a creative shot, you can do this from more than 8ft above the ground, all the way down to a couple of inches when you are using the baby tripod, and it’s all in one unit.
The true magical part is you have this tube with a 75mm ball and you put your head on it, you can actually take that out of the tripod, and it will turn into a monopod that you can raise and lower. It has a little foot pedal that can further increase its stability while you’re using it.
Right now, we are talking about three units that combine to create a single tripod system. In truth, it’s four different products: a tripod with a spreader, a baby tripod, a tripod with a high pod and it’s a monopod. It all fits in one bag that you can wheel around with wheels or carry on your back with backpack straps.
We are suggesting the head with the FSB6 and the SooM, which create a powerhouse for HDV cameras out there. Really, what you have at that point is a Swiss Army knife on steroids that’s appropriate for an ENG shooter, a cinematographer or a videographer.
HD Technology Update: So, you see SooM as a product for videographers as well as ENG TV crews and cinematographers?
Ali Ahmadi: Absolutely. We believe this is going to make a very strong impact with people who work in ENG applications with these HDV-style cameras.
Most of these ENG operators are familiar with our HotPod. That’s the standard for the news guy, and you can see it at all the news conferences. It sets up fast and gives an added height bonus through a pneumatic strut. When we are talking to people from the ENG side, they recognize the HiPod feature of the SooM as being similar to HotPod; but, the SooM offers other features as well.
HD Technology Update: Is this specifically designed for HDV cameras, or could SooM be used with larger ENG cameras?
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