Archive for June, 2010

I’ll be flying off to Vietnam tomorrow for a month long vacation with the missus. We’ll be working our way from the south in Saigon to Ha Long Bay in the north, Topgear style (without the motorbikes). Vietnam is a beautiful country that I hope I’ll be able to capture with my gear.

For this trip, I’ve decided to travel light and will bring the following items to document my journey:
Canon 7D
Tamron 17-50mm VC
Velbon Ultrastick Monopod
Zoom h4n
Manfrotto Shoulder Brace
Glidetrack SD compact dolly.
I’m most excited about the last thing on the list, the Glidetrack. The thing is tiny and the smooth dolly moves I get out of it makes the $260AU or so I spent on it (used) worth it. For those that don’t know, it’s basically a very small dolly that uses lubricated plastic bearings rather than wheels. It can also be called a slider as the dolly moves you can get out of it can be very deliberately slow. Just go to their website or search on Vimeo for glidetrack to see a plethora of examples. The only problem is, I’m afraid it’ll make me a one trick pony as I’ve seen it occur to others. The gloss of the slow dolly move loses its shine when it’s used for every shot in your edit. I can see why it’s so overused though, it can turn a dull composition of anything into magic.