Mark1138

Yeah, I agree.  I figure this is probably not as good as a Steadicam but smoother than handheld.  I would be getting it for my own use shooting low/no budget film but I too would have more concerns if I was trying to contract myself out as a Steadicam operator.

In the homebuilt stabilizer thread they talk about the arm possibly being less "iso-elastic," so it requires more force applied to the sled to move it vertically than a real Steadicam would.  Although I'm not sure that even all of the Steadicam models are iso-elastic, especially the smaller ones.  But I could be wrong.  To me I think that it being less iso-elastic would also mean more transferred motion through the arm like you mention.  As far as I can tell it just has a single spring in each arm connected directly to the arm at each end.  I'm wondering how difficult it would be to modify it by adding some pulleys and cable so that it is more iso-elastic.  As far as I can understand it, it looks like the secret to the iso-elastic arm is the fact that with a pulley and cable reduces the amount of distance the spring must expand with the movement of the arm.  The farther the spring expands, the greater the change in force that is needed to move the spring further.  So by reducing that spring travel distance you're able to reduce the amount of force you have to apply to the sled to change the position.  Likewise, as movement is traveling the other direction down the arm from the operator, it results in less movement of the spring, so less change of unwanted lifting force the spring will apply to the sled.  I wonder if it could be modified to look something more like one of these:

http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/EP0660946B1/imgf0003.png

http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/EP0660946B1/imgf0007.png

http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/EP0660946B1/imgf0004.png

I've got a small milling machine and lathe but I'm not a great machinist.  And it looks like I would have to put in a shorter spring which would have the side effect of having a force that would change more over a shorter distance, so that might negate the benefit of the cable and pulley unless I double or triple it up like a block and tackle arrangement.  I'm seriously thinking about getting one and experimenting since I just don't have the budget for a Steadicam.

For anyone still looking for a review of the Laing M-02 model, Eric Teotico over on the Homeuilt Stabilizer forum just got one and talks about it in a thread over there.  It's not at the top of the thread, you have to scroll down a bit.    http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/hbsboard/index.php?topic=5040.0      Based partially on that thread, I'm thinking about getting an M-02.