Related Post

Recently in Scribe Gear

Recent Comments

• The Master of All things Flex
• From Print To Digital
• The Results are in — Algae has a Posse
• The Wealth of Networks - With Yochai Benkler
• Don’t Be Greedy
• Historic UCC - UUA Dialogue
• The Making of Bjork’s 3D Wanderlust
• Living La Dolce Vita with George Lois

My Joby and Me: Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM + AG-HSC1U = PASS

I’m going to go ahead and put this out there: I don’t like to take up a lot of space. I pack light. I like my clothes tight. I don’t like a lot of heavy, unnecessary crap.

So, in putting together a mobile photo/video kit, I eyed the Joby Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM suspiciously. I liked the bendy action, the small footprint and the idea that I could attach my SLR to trees, poles, chairs and the like. The same went for lights and flashes, increasing the range for interesting fills and bounce patterns.

What really got me excited though was the prospect of pairing our Panasonic AG-HSC1U mini-HD camera with the Gorillapod. The mini-HD (or “lil’ buddy” to me) seemed light enough and the Gorillapod SLR-ZOOM rigid enough for the combo to work. I went out and bought a Manfrotto 486RC2, threw it on top of the G’pod and lo, a nifty little package was born.

I took the kit to the AIA’s Center for Architecture yesterday to capture the Buckmister Fuller Challenge conferring ceremony and, as if by prophecy, it saved my shot. The ceremony was held downstairs in a packed room with cameras eking out space here and there. I spotted an upstairs balcony and knew it was time to break out the Joby. I plugged our Sennheiser SKP 100 G2 into the board for sound, wired up the lil’ buddy with the ew 100 G2 receiver and took my spot on the glass balcony. Witness the majesty:

In the end, the Joby garnered a solid shot and a ton of curious questions from architects, Bucky fans and other design-oriented admirers. I looked around at these affluent, aesthetically-concerned people nervously handholding their mini-cams, iPhones and, yes, Flips and thought one thing: Joby gets a PASS in a sea of epic FAIL.

Curtiss P. Martin grew up in a geodesic dome on the side of a mountain in Southern Appalachia. Now he serves as ScribeMedia's clean technology editor in a tall building in downtown Manhattan.