On Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:56:45 GMT, Kyle wrote:

>I received a postcard in the mail from Studio 1 Producitons earlier this
>week. They are promoting their new zoom controller line.
>
>I got to thinking, for the past 2 years, we've been doing weddings and
>such... and we always have had to have the right hand up on the rocker
>on the cam ready to zoom in/out depending on the situation. It seems to
>me that this little unit would make life much easier in regards to
>smoothness of zooming and keeping control of the panning of the tripod.
>
>Has anyone used one of these yet? And if so, would you mind commenting
>on it.
>
>Are there any other zoom controllers out there similar in price to the
>Studio 1 unit?

Hmmm.... I just wrote about these in a thread above on,
guess what? Lanc controllers...! ;-)
Pays t' read th' group, or at least check out the
search engine at www.dejanews.com ...
And, I was using the Canon Lanc controller just today,
shooting the Canadian Minister of Agriculture (essentially).
Nice smooth tripod with VX-2000 on it, tape shot in LP
with the title already on it (just hit "fader" on camera,
and start recording...), a TRV30 connected with FireWire
also recording in LP mode for backup - and for supplying a
nice, straight-on view of its screen. Just sat in a seat
within reach of the tripod handle (opperates smoothly with
one-finger touch - that's what the big-buck fluid-heads are
good for...;-), with the Canon Lanc remote on a long cord
in my other hand, speed "1" selected... Easy/smooth
pan/zooms...
But, here is a "reprint":

"The Sony RM-95 has a rocker, fixed-speed, a count of
"11" to go from wide to tele extremes with the VX2000
(my "count" is a tad slower than seconds - just checked
that, too, so use the count as relative...). The other
Sony controllers I have (pistol grip, and ones off
cheap Sony tripods) all have variable-speed rockers.
The Canon also has a rocker for variable-speed zooming,
and "mashed", it zooms in a count of "2+". At a fixed
speed of "1", the count is "16", for the others,
"2" = 13, "3" = "9", "4" = "6+", "5" = "5". BTW, the
Canon cannot restart the camera if it goes into standby
in camera-record mode (it can only start/stop recording);
the Sony remotes can power up/down the camera, and restart
it from standby, and the RM-95 can also switch between
AF/MF, and control manual focus. The RM-95 is small,
flat, and rectangular (like a small wireless remote, but
with a cord, and an LCD window showing timecode); the
pistol grip looks like just that; the tripod remotes
off the Sony tripod grip are compact, are "small-banana"
shaped, and show a light when the camera is active.
The Sony RM-95 is about $75; the Sony grip is no longer
available; the cheap Sony tripods with controllers are
about $75; the Canon Lanc controller is about $180..."

I would avoid the clumsy, more expensive versions...