Some people have asked me: what shoulder rig should I get for the 7d, well this depends on what you want to shoot. To be honest, I think one of the coolest things about the 7d is its size and portability. Not just because you can now walk in with a backpack full of lenses and a 7d, but its size lets you put it anywhere. After years of shooting with broadcast cameras, this little package has a huge "chuckle" factor. It just makes me smile every time I walk around and shoot something silly.

The stuff:

There is lots of stuff available, but over the years I just happened to have collected a lot of RedRock micro pieces. Not the best quality or superior to anything else, in fact the locking mechanism leaves a lot of room for improvement, but most of all it makes it possible to walk into my local bank without getting arrested.

Recently the RRM Chaps have come up with a bunch of DSLR additions to the range, as usual they are over designed, not very light or subtle but to the job.

Here is a few combi's I managed to build out of the stuff:


Basic chest support to give you a nice mobile setup, not as complex as the one RedRock wants you to buy. Then again there are a zillion ways to configure these.
I like mine as light and simple as possible.



The camera is attached to one of the tiny screw rods, no baseplate adapter needed. Saves you another $295 I think



This is how the thing can be popped in and out for quick handheld shooting. Not very handy if you plan to build a tripod based rig next to it though.



Ordered some black versions of the handgrips, to be honest I really dislike the candy blue, not just because it has a large "my first handycam" feeling to it (the red from Zacuto puts me off just as much to be honest) but because I just want everything to be black.

Monstercam:

You can go crazy and add a V-mount, Zylight, Follow Focus and the big shouldermount. Combined with the chest piece this gives a very solid but portable solution. But the more you add to this, the more you should consider using a EX-3 with 35mm adapter...



For some more detailpron:



How to combine the stuff:



As you can see this makes it a bit more difficult to quickly switch to a tripod setup.



Side view to show you how the Zylight was hooked up with its Cinearm, works pretty well I have to admit.



Might as well add this one as well:



As you can see the big thing missing on all these pics is sound. This is recorded on the popular Zoom H4n. using either the Rode NTG-3 and / or a Electro Voice RE50 for interviews.

But:

Well for now the reality is that in any serious production I still break out the EX-3 with the 35mm adapter for the cine-look. Will have to put the 7d through a lot more before I can trust this as a total package production cam.