For this week's effort in procrastination, I'ma quickly talk about a piece of gear that'll help carry me through the next decade or so (it's a tripod pun).
The end of the year normally means offsetting the year's revenue for tax purposes with some gear purchases. Last week I mentioned the DJI Mavic 2 Pro and a few weeks before that the QNAP NAS setup. The big one for 2020 though was the OConnor 1040 Fluid Head & Flowtech 100 Tripod System. I say 2020, but it'll end up on 2021's tax nonsense due to AbelCine butchering the ordering process. I'm still a fan of AbelCine and how they do filmmaker community stuff, but good grief after this sour experience there are other places to buy gear.
Back when I still had a day job I'd purchased a Miller DS20 fluid head setup for what felt like all of the money. At the time I'm pretty sure it was close to what I was making each month. We're talking Panasonic DVX170 and EARLY DSLR days, but it was right on for the type of projects and cameras I was shooting on. Ten plus years and at least three to five camera packages later I've finally upgraded to a system that'll, well...hold my camera.
Seriously, super stoked about getting this fluid head and tripod. I'd been dreaming about one day owning its predecessor, the Oconnor 1030, since it came out back in 2011-ish(?), but fancy tripods aren't super sexy and with it being in the price range it is/was, the 1030 never made it to the top of my gear purchasing priorities. It'd made several appearances on projects with any kind of budget, but always got returned to the rental house afterwards. That freakin' fluid head got replaced in the time it took me to finally commit to the purchase.
I've not had it long enough to put it through its paces, but the first test run had me roaming around after dark in NYC's Chelsea neighborhood with a super scaled-down RED setup. That fancy new fluid head is heavy, but damn it's smooth AF. That beefy 1040 fluid head is tinier than its Oconnor siblings, but it's still close to a hearty 20 pounds with the Flowtech 100 carbon fiber legs. That's like three of my Miller DS20s I'm used to lugging around. I'll need to figure out a shoulder strap setup to help with the one-man-band nonsense I'm normally up to.
Once I got it back to Oklahoma City I figured out the rad counterbalance feature. I've shot on quite a few Oconnor heads but never knew how to legitimately balance one out. Those Flowtech legs too are something else. I've had carbon fiber tripod legs for years, but not having to bend down to near ground level to adjust the camera height will surely save my back. The whole magnetic closure feature seems like it should've happened years ago.
It's never about the gear, but it doesn't hurt when your equipment helps you do the thing. That poor Miller DS20 fluid head was showing its age after having been overloaded for years with my RED package and whatever nonsense I could add to it (teleprompters, sliders, multiple monitors, etc.). I wore the right side rosette smooth in adjusting the operator handle these last ten or so years. It's not like it'll get tossed with the week's trash or anything, but it may end up getting sent in for some much-needed servicing before transitioning to its B-cam package days.