I am almost at the end of my documentary with Alastair of Glidetrack, I needed some shots of their new Carbon Crane so I gave Graham the crane for a couple of weeks to film him using it.

The great thing about the Carbon crane is its sheer mobility, I told Graham to use a smaller camcorder on the crane, fortunately he had a Panasonic 920 camcorder perfect for the job.

Note Graham is using his 7″ portable LCD monitor attached onto the tripod head with a Manfrotto mini arm, this is the preferred way to monitor your footage.

Best practice is to start the camera rolling before you extend the crane.

This crane gives Graham that extra shot needed to start his documentary on the 50th Anniversary of the church he is filming.

The shot will bring the camera in line with the cross in the middle of the church entrance.

I was using the Panasonic PX270 the only 10bit 422 hand held camera to record onto class 10 SDHC cards.

Remember crane shots are time consuming and like any extra special shot should be used sparingly for full effect. The Glidetrack Carbon Crane is lightweight and easy to set up, you still need a tripod to support it but without the aid of a quad copter which you would not be allowed to use in a built up area its the only way of achieving this type of shot.