As part of my involvement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences History and Technology Subcommittee, we have been hard at work getting the Dykstraflex cleaned up and ready to be exhibited at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. This was a long and tedious process, involving a fair amount of logistics, cleaning, […]
Preparing for May the 4th: The Dykstraflex at the Academy Museum Read More »
Much like the high quality, all-aluminum Peter Lisand pedestals, the inventory I bought from the Lisand family included quite a few of these well thought out, well made, medium duty shoulder and body braces. I have used one with a RED Dragon and with a Canon T3i to shoot video, and they were simple to
Peter Lisand Shoulder and Body Braces Read More »
Much like the high quality, all-aluminum Peter Lisand pedestals, the inventory I bought from the Lisand family included quite a few of these well thought out, well made, medium duty shoulder and body braces. I have used one with a RED Dragon and with a Canon T3i to shoot video, and they were simple to
Peter Lisand Shoulder and Body Braces Read More »
Several years ago I bought out the remaining inventory of the Peter Lisand company, a New Jersey-based manufacturer of high quality motion picture and photographic equipment. This purchase included a number of really well designed and manufactured tripods, body braces, and these excellent studio pedestals. Most of the tripods and fluid heads went very quickly,
Peter Lisand Studio Pedestals Read More »
As we continued our search to find the proper name for the Mitchell geared head, which we still have not found, we came across this charming advertisement that Mitchell placed in “American Cinematographer” magazine in March 1931. In the ad, there are two camera operators, one using a geared head and one a friction head.
Trivia About the Mitchell Geared Head and Friction Head Read More »
An interesting question was posed recently to the committee I serve on at the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences asking about the history of geared pan/tilt heads. The questioner was only aware of the Worrall geared head, so many of us contributed our experiences with other styles and manufacturers of geared heads that
Mitchell Geared Heads Read More »
As we continue our quest through the backlog of tripods, I happened upon this cute wooden unit that lacks any identifying labels. The wooden legs are robustly made, but the integrated pan/tilt head was clearly designed for a smaller camera. This tripod features a cast aluminum pan/tilt head which is joined to the wooden legs
Mystery Wooden Tripod Read More »
As we continue our trek through the forest of tripods, we rediscovered these Peter Lisand studio pedestals and were once again impressed with the engineering that went into designing and building them. A few years back we bought out the remaining inventory of the Peter Lisand Machine Corporation from the daughter of the founder, and
Peter Lisand Studio Pedestals Rediscovered Read More »
You know how you have that one thing that you are always meaning to do, but you just never get around to it? And the longer you put it off, the larger the thing gets? Well, tripods have become that thing for me. I keep meaning to make time to photograph them and list them
A Forest of Tripods! Read More »
One final check in before we take a few days off for the holidays. The Fox Freehead is now about 90% repaired. I have been working on the frozen tilt axis for the last week; it is another remarkable piece of engineering. The tilt axis is made up of a two-part casting that houses the
A Final 2021 Update on the Fox Freehead Read More »
