Another interesting sale – Edelkrone
Not everything I buy turns out to be useful (or, even better, pays for itself in earnings). I remember thinking how great a carbon fiber monopod would be and I think it has been used once since I bought it at a photography show! But one of my better buys has been the Edelkrone Surface One. It was not cheap – over $800 with the flex head, but I have earned at least $1400 in video sales since I bought it and, of course, the sales will continue. I’m writing about it now because I see they have a sale until the end of December where the discounts rise as you buy more. You also get a perpetual previous buyer discount for new stuff. But what is it?
This image is from their site and they have recently upgraded and renamed a lot of their products – it is now called the DollyONE and that name gives the purpose away.
I really struggled with how to move my camera smoothly during a pan – especially with macro shots. Even the slightest wobble in a hand held pan shows up and I tried sliders, elastic bands to pull the slider – all failed miserably. Then I found this device. It uses a video camera battery and a smartphone App and it turns any flat surface into a flexible automated slider. So you can pan sideways, towards and away from the subject, turn on the spot in a circle (for rotating shots) and a clever rotate about a fixed point option so that you can rotate around a subject, keeping it in focus and in one place, while the other elements rotate. Speeds can be controlled from fast to very slow and it seems that every time I update the App, some new feature appears.
This one has earned $240 on Shutterstock. I also did simple pans like this one on Adobe Stock – $185:
And this one has the camera moving in towards the subject as the focus drifts over the tablets.
These have all been macro shots, but I’m thinking about how I can use a flat piece of wood and have it move sideways for some outdoor timelapse shots. Still in the design stage in my head!
Now this may not be for everyone, and it is expensive, but if you want to get into some more interesting video shots, it certainly is worth thinking about, especially with a sale in progress.
