Behold the MōVi M10 by Freefly Systems. What an amazing piece of kit!!
Freefly Systems calls it “a stabilized gimbal born in the sky, reimagined for the ground.” I can’t wait to get my hands on one. It can be operated solely by the operator or in tandem with a camera operator via remote control for more fine-grained control. Think one guy running, the other doing the zoom/focus/framing with joysticks etc.
I can fathom that this will be somehow paired with touch screens via iOS/Android at some point in the near future. Whip out your iPhone, iPad, etc., pinch to zoom, swipe to pan/tilt, tap to focus while your cameraman is legging it over rough terrain and you get a fluid shot that you could never get with a behemoth of a Steadicam. This thing doesn’t have any massive weights on it!
Vincent Laforet, who has be testing it, has a great article announcing the release. The news even hit Gizmodo. Being released just prior to NAB 2013, it is bound to be one of the bells of the ball.
Here is the Freefly Vimeo vid showing it in action. It appears as though there will first be a Pro Model for RED cameras etc. for $15,000 with a $7,500 DSLR model coming soon. $2k for the pro and $750 or so for the DSLR model would be more my speed, but it IS all swanky with carbon it appears, so I can kind of understand the release price. I’m sure that in 9 years, I could afford one.
MōVI BTS from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.
Check out some more of their products and videos. They are amazing.