I've had a DS1 for a couple of months now and it's been very solid. Any problems I've had have been from me trying to cut corners on pre-balancing it. As long as I properly balance it, everything is fine. The only other issues I've had are from not knowing what is happening with it due to the manual not being clear. So, here's some tips on the DS1:
* It starts up in follow mode.
* One button press and you will hear a tone. Now it's in lock mode. (The manual is clear on these two modes).
* Another quick press, gets you a tone and you're back in follow mode.
* To go into half-follow mode requires a two second press. Confusingly, it doesn't give you a tone when you do this.
* To add to the confusion, a five second button press completely disables the joystick. Also no tone. The manual doesn't mention this at all. I imagine that after improper balancing, this undocumented feature causes the most customer confusion.
* Invert mode is easily accessed, just hold the DS1 upside down. You don't even have to turn it off!
* They don't advertise the DS1 as water proof or resistant, but I've read some people think it is because the wiring is concealed under foam. WRONG! If you carefully look at the DS1 under sunlight you can see the copper wire windings in the motor housings through the gap between pieces. So don't believe the people tag think t may be water resistant.
* I built a double handle rig for it with a couple 15mm rods, two handles and a mounting plate in the middle. That's about another $60 of hardware. It's great for holding the DS1 for longer periods.
I'm happy with my DS1. I got it to work with my NX1, 16-50 S lens combo which is heavy. It does fine. The only problem is that the 16-50 S lens is so heavy that the NX1 has to sit back on the plate very far. This means your tilt range is very limited and that you won't be using any focal lengths longer than 16mm. That's obviously no fault of the DS1.
Here's a couple sample shots where I attached the DS1 to a monopod and used it as a jib (not with the 16-50 S lens):
In this post you said: "To add to the confusion, a five second button press completely disables the joystick. Also no tone. The manual doesn't mention this at all. I imagine that after improper balancing, this undocumented feature causes the most customer confusion."
Does anyone have an idea how to enable the joystick again?
I'm going a little bit nuts right now because I can't get it to work anymore. And there is nothing to be found on the web on this topic. Only a video of a chinese guy messing with the settings in simpleBGC. I tried that already, but still not working.
Beholder DS1 Thoughts
In: Cameras
Posted
In this post you said: "To add to the confusion, a five second button press completely disables the joystick. Also no tone. The manual doesn't mention this at all. I imagine that after improper balancing, this undocumented feature causes the most customer confusion."
Does anyone have an idea how to enable the joystick again?
I'm going a little bit nuts right now because I can't get it to work anymore. And there is nothing to be found on the web on this topic. Only a video of a chinese guy messing with the settings in simpleBGC. I tried that already, but still not working.