After going to all the trouble of dragging my new jib back to Hong Kong, it took me quite a while before I actually took it out for a spin! In the end I took it to one of my favourite places for filming: Peng Chau Island.

As the promotion material promised, it was really easy to set up as there are only really two parts to worry about: the tripod legs and the jib itself (quite a few of the other portable jibs only have the jib arm as they assume you’ll have your own tripod to attach it to. Personally, I like that everything is there in one easy package).

It did take me a while to work out the best weight to balance the jib but as I essentially used a couple of water bottles to put in the provided weight bags, it didn’t take long to adjust it so that it was balanced nicely. However, I did find that the weight bags did tend to swing a little when moving the jib so I had to make sure that the jib movements were as smooth and light as possible to avoid this happening as it really spoilt the shot if there was too much sway.

I did find that the camera head had to be monitored carefully though as it sometimes moved out of alignment and even twisted a little to the side, which again spoilt the shot. I was a bit disappointed that the jib range wasn’t as big as I’d hoped but when I later viewed the footage, I found that you didn’t really need a very long jib movement to have a pleasing jib effect.

Having the jib certainly added quite a few new shot movements to the scenes so I’m hoping to get out a bit more with it so I can get used to using it a little more. Obviously jibs aren’t very common here in Hong Kong as it generated a lot of stares from passers by who wondered what it was!

Here’s a video of my first effort, with hopefully more to come in the future!