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Matt Lange vs the Steadicam Merlin – Day 1
Today I met a worthy opponent….the Steadicam Merlin. Through a series of emails and phone calls, it seemed to me that the consensus number one stabilizer for the Canon 5DMKII was the Steadicam Merlin. If you were to look at YouTube videos of the Merlin in action, you would think, ‘man that’s smooth and easy to use’. Well, let me tell you TWO things, at the risk of sounding like a photo gear moron. 1) It’s very smooth IF 2) you can get it balanced! Man, I have never dealt with a more tiring piece of equipment in all my photo days. It would seem like you get the thing balanced, moved a little, then all the sudden it’s not balanced. And let me go a little further. If you don’t have it balanced, do not shoot any video. It will look aweful. Through my new job at Donnie Bell Design, we are unleashing the Merlin tomorrow for the new Louisiana Tech Football Season Ticket tv campaign. There will be more details. Many more details to come. Stay tuned.
Side note: This is in no way a knock against the Merlin. Not yet at least. Lol, it’s just simply very new and will take A LOT of getting used to.
haha I warned you. Awesome that you have one though. Can’t wait to see some of the video you shoot with it.
I got one a couple of weeks ago, and boy! talk about impossible to balance. I have Sony SRC-11 Hi-Def video camera with a larger battery that it normally comes with. I have what seems to be balanced, but with any movement, it still teeters. Still working on it.