Safety First, Less Tears Later...

I was recently informed one of our regulars (who will remained un-mentioned) had a little wallet flattening mishap involving a piece of gear that suffered from a sudden bout of de-acceleration syndrome after becoming unmoored from a rig and falling to the ground, and as such thought I would pass along this little safety tip.

Anytime you are working with a tripod, boom, jib or any rig, you will want to secure your camera, as things break, quick mounts don’t and generally Murphy is usually lurking somewhere nearby.

The problem is multifold, if a piece of gear lets loose and comes down and nails someone on their bean, you can bet your bippy once they regain consciousness the first call they will be making is going to be to “Wei Suem and Howe” with the intent of taking your hiney to the cleaners, and even if the gear doesn’t nail someone, you will be thoroughly soaking a few hankies with your tears once you see the damage that gravity has instilled upon it.

What I have learned to do is to double secure it.

With a jib, boom or tripod many times this can be done by simply tying off the gear with a short piece of aircraft cable attached to an eye-ring which utilizing a couple of washers can be easily and temporally attached to above, then using a gaffers tape sling http://www.filmtools.c​om/smalcarslin.html the gear is secured to the loop of aircraft cable.

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Thanks for the post Wayne. It's a good idea

For reference, I'm the one he's mentioning. My gini shoulder rig from South Korea failed me. The screw that attaches the camera to the mounting plate was made of aluminum and snapped in half sending my camera falling 5 feet to the floor. Luckily the lens hood bore the brunt of the fall, with only minor damage to the lens and camera itself.

Needless to say, I'll definitely be adopting this practice going forward