For sale: tripod/ jib arm package

Mitch Gross · January 24, 2008

Sold my camera package last summer. Finally time to get rid of the rest of the stuff.

Tripod/jib arm package

I'd like to sell this all together as it makes for such a nice integrated kit, but I'm willing to split off the jib if someone wants to buy that first.

Losmandy Porta-Jib. Original standard jib. Fits inside a 5' tall Storm rifle case (wheels on one end), including 60ibs. of counter weights and the 11ibs. fine-tuning weight. 100mm ball cup but I take that off and the hole it leaves works fine for a Mitchell head. I have the original tilt-lock mechanism sitting in my closet that you're welcome to as well, but it doesn't fit in this case as I never found it particularly useful.

Crazy Soviet Frankenstein tripod system. This was my monster of a tripod for many years and it works great. The head is a semi-ripoff of a Sachtler Studio-2, to the point that when certain parts wore out I was actually able to use Sachtler replacement parts, even internally. But I couldn't find an ID plate that said CCCP on it once the ink rubbed off. The head is very beefy with 7x7 adjustment and five springs. The sliding top is this strange huge plate so I had a small Sachtler QR adapter mounted to the top (removeable, and a useful tidbit on it's own). The base is 150mm ball, but remove three screws and it becomes Mitchell base. For standard legs I replaced the Soviet sticks with Cartoni Mitchell-top?HD sticks with Cartoni ground spreader. I added a 150mm ball adapter to the top from Willy's Widgets (this works great on the jib, btw). The baby legs are the original Soviet Mitchell-top?legs, with Sachtler HD ground spreader, the Soviet 150mm ball adapter and an overhaul I performed a few years ago with lovely advice from the equally lovely Brian Heller. I also have an underslinging C-shaped plate that's big enough any 16mm or ENG-style video camera, custom-made by Willy's Widgets. And I have the Soviet rolling spreaders which are basically a copy of Sachtler HD rolly spreaders (I think they call it the HD Dolly). This is great for when the jib is rigged out on the standard legs. Lastly there is a 150mm Hihat I bought from Abel.

It's a very complete package that served me well for more than a decade. I won't lie -- it has a few nicks and scratches from the years. But it all functions. Some little handles are cracked and other bits are a bit homebrew and could use some love, but everything works well together as an integrated package. I'll even throw in a crazy-fun instruction manual that my friend Tosh Yamaguchi wrote for the system years ago Jon Fauer-Arri manual style, complete with illustrations. This system has worked with cameras as light as HVX200 and as beefy as a 535 with 1000' mag and Cooke 18-100. To assemble something roughly equivalent new would probably cost $15K-$18K.

The jib fits in one rolling Storm case. There is a Tuffpak for the standards and another for the babies, each with their spreaders and ball adapters on. There's a fiber case for the tripod head (lots of foam inside). Another fiber case holds the undersling plate, jib arm tilt-lock and hihat (minus the board, which will fit in the head case). There's even a (pretty beat up) strange Soviet fiberglass tube case for the rolling spreader, although I usually didn't bother with it.

I'm asking US$5000 for it all. I'm located in New York and would really prefer someone picked it up here, but if you want it shipped you'll have to cover the expense of FedEx coming to my house to haul all six cases away. I can leave the counterweights out of the jib case but it still is probably close to 80ibs.