Sadly during IBC 2013 I discovered the Tascam joined to the GH3 underneath to cause a certain amount of camera bounce as the quick release plate fastened at one single point was not secure enough.
Today I decided to investigate further and here are my findings…
The new GH4 adds an optional sound unit making it very sleek indeed till you discover the power is supplied via a 12v 4pin XLR socket on the side of the unit this may prevent camera bounce (That still has to be confirmed) but you can’t grab the camera off the unit for the odd hand held cutaway shot.
I do feel Panasonic should have designed 2 units a sound version with internal batteries and the version we see above.
Till we get our hands on the GH4 and the YAGH its down to the GH3 and the Tascam DR60.
Using a Manfrotto 814-1 Mini Hydrostat Arm and a Manfrotto quick release plate CT577 you can achieve the best of both worlds.
One note of caution the arm comes in two flavours one with 1/4″ at both ends and one with 1/4″ and 3/8″ this is the version that is better suited to this as the newer Manfrotto 504HD etc. tripods all have at least one 3/8″ mounting hole.
The camera plate attaches onto the Tascam to provide a convenient slip on slip off arrangement very handy if you need to use the Tascam independent of the tripod.
This works well on all new “Bridging” design Manfrotto tripods leaving your Panasonic GH3 free of the Tascam less one 3.5mm stereo lead from the Tascam camera out port.
Although, I never tried this Tascam, I am not surprised to hear there was some bounce. I think the solution you came up with is very slick. In an interview, audio levels are very important. This is a solution that really makes the job workable with one guy.
Hi Philip;
You have tried to feed the audio on the GH3 with the output of the Tascam, i’m very interested on this; just to use the internal GH3 audio and doing so avoid audio synchronization, this will leave a backup on the Tascam.
Cheers.