motorized dolly

The Rhino Dolly is a portable motorised 10.5ft camera dolly that fits in a suitcase

Apr 6, 2022 by John Aldred Add Comment

Popular manufacturer of motorised motion control camera sliders, Rhino Camera Gear has launched their new Rhino Dolly. Its release is in response to what Rhino Camera Gear says is customer demand for longer rails and higher load capacities. And they sure seem to have satisfied both of those requests with a motorised dolly that provides up to 10.5ft of length and a total claimed load capacity of up to 100lbs (~45kg).

There are some caveats with that load capacity, but whichever way you slice it, it’s way beefier than anything they’ve released before. The whole thing fits inside a single case – if you’re not using the carbon fibre legs to raise it up, and it’s designed to be put up in mere minutes. The team at Rhino says their best time so far is an even 60 seconds. But for some strange reason, they launched on Kickstarter.

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This Snoppa Rover is a self driving tripod that wants to replace your camera op

Jan 31, 2022 by John Aldred 2 Comments

This is a pretty interesting idea from Snoppa Tech. It’s called the Snoppa Rover and it essentially seems to be a motorised tripod on wheels. According to Snoppa, you can programme it with set paths with full camera control, it can climb up to a 30° slope, it has a 0° turning circle, runs on all terrains and features smart tracking, so you don’t even need a camera op to follow you around. But what’s most impressive is the stabilisation.

Each of the three weeks on the Snoppa Rover has independent suspension and there’s a gyroscopic sensor in each one, along with a hall sensor and accelerometer. These detect any changes in the rover’s body as it moves over terrain and can respond by adjusting the wheel to compensate ensuring as smooth a ride as possible. You don’t even need to mount a gimbal on top!

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YC Onion’s new Chips 3.0 slider is also a motorised dolly and a 5-axis motion control system

Aug 19, 2021 by John Aldred Add Comment

YC Onion has only been around for a couple of years, but they’ve made some impressive kit since they first launched. Their latest is a new take on a familiar filmmaking tool – the motorised camera slider. This one, called Chips 3.0, isn’t just a slider, though. Oh no, it’s also a motorised tripod dolly, and it can even turn into a 5-axis motion control system with your gimbal on the top of it.

The Chips 3.0 can communicate with a variety of DJI, Zhiyun and Feiyutech gimbals to provide full 4-axis control for videos and timelapse. You get your X linear movement on the slider as normal, but you also get pitch (tilt), yaw (pan) and roll on the gimbal, too. The fifth, of course, is your focus motor. As a still-new company, YC Onion is taking to Indiegogo to launch this one.

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The Rhino Motion Kit is not cheap, but it’s one heck of a motorized slider

Jan 26, 2019 by Udi Tirosh Add Comment

We are a small crew, this is why it’s handy to have one moving camera that needs no attention when we shoot. It means one less crew person while getting top notch B cam footage. And our slider package of choice for that is the Rhino Ultimate Slider (Amazon | B&H).

Having an automated motorized slider is a powerful tool to have in your box. It allows the same camera moves that your typical slider will allow. But it also adds an array of abilities to the team that a normal slider does not:

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