https://vimeo.com/99371520
Hope that makes a link.
Despite having wiggle suppression camera and lenses I still have WAY too much wiggle. One day I got the brilliant (ahem, if I say so meself!) idea of wrapping my largest Joby tripod around my neck to see what would happen. Aside from feeling like I had a triffid about to devour me, it seemed to help. A lot.
So I began looking at shoulder rigs. Cheap = too flimsy, mid level still looked iffy. The beast linked to above is beyond any imagined budget. So I bought a couple of IKAN rigs on ebay of used, some parts missing, one straight, one Z bridged and I've been working on putting them together. Tomorrow a new non electrical battery plate should arrive (US Post Office willing) and I should be able to cut down the length of the back shoulder rods by handing my balance plates in a vertical position.
Mr B and I have had quite the adventure making the weights. First we went to a couple of tire shops to get lead. About 15 pounds. Melting it was exciting. It seems tire weights are made of a flammable plastic these days and there is only a small amount of lead involved. So we found an old marine battery that had already split apart, so the acid was gone. UGH. A nasty thing to take apart. We expected lead plates, but NOOOOOOO. The lead itself was in a mesh form. We had to separate it from other plastic and when melting it there was enough of the same horrid smoke and burned acid smell that I hope I never have the pleasure of that experience again.
So I bought some lead ingots on Ebay and we've made a mould and poured an 8 pounder. Combined with the total 1 pound we got from the tire weights and the battery there was just about exactly enough to balance the weight of the camera, Lume Cube, monitor and remote, follow focus, plus camera on the front end.
Problem. Try to pick up 16 pounds stretched out over 2 feet long and heft it onto your shoulder with the ridiculously thin pad included with the IKANs. Ha! Well, you guys could probably do it better than I, but I promise, you wouldn't want to.
Back to the drawing board. Remove ALL excess weight, like the light and the monitor... move items forward and backward, add extra padding... would you guess that foam rubber 3 inches thick would compress to 1/4 inch? And the masking tape doesn't exactly hold up when trying to lift the monster on and off your shoulder?
On the other hand, video shots are so very, very, very much more stable that I'm not ready to give up yet.
On the other hand, if I just had 1K to throw at it, I could buy the Shoulder Rig Giganticus linked to above.