Overview:

This is a general overview of options to set up your SA2.6 with a dolly or slider.

Dana Dolly

Dana Dolly is great for those that want 3 to 20 feet of speed rail slides.  Great for larger cameras for automated interviews, or product shoots where long movement is necessary. This setup is great for Automotive shoots - think running down the side of the car, or across the front, looking up.

If you are rigging for short slides/dollies, then make sure your ends are close for the best support. You don't want to play in the middle of a 20 foot dolly length with 10 feet of timing belt on both sides for a macro shoot that only needs 1.5 feet of movement.

Mounting from the Dana Dolly to your Gimbal.

There are many ways to effectively mount your gimbal to the Dana Dolly.

Tripod Head to Dana Dolly Bowl Adapter 75mm or 100mm

The easiest for many who already have the dana Dolly is to just use a tripod head that you have already mounted to you dolly for regular camera support. Take a QR plate of your Tripod head and put it on the bottom of either the battery grip of the RS Gimbal, or a Power Base for the RS gimbal. 

75mm or 100mm bowl adapter to Dana Dolly Bowl

Buying a 100mm 500BallSH to fit into the 100mm bowl that Dana Dolly supplies, gets you to a leveling base and a 3/8-16 stud.  From there you can use one of our Riser/Clamp from eMotimo to make a basic clamp setup that fits Arca plates that you may already have.  If not, pick up a 100mm plate from us. 

Mitchell Mount

The eMotimo Mitchell Mount will screw into your carriage on the Dana Dolly.  This is non-leveling, but it's the lowest profile way to attach to your Dana Dolly for MOCO mounting.  Since most gimbals are self-leveling, you can be off by a degree or two on your dana dolly setup and it won't affect the shot.  

We recommend you pick up three things from eMotimo:

1) Mitchell Mount (attaches to your Dana Dolly with basic tools)

2) 50mm Clamp (screws into the Mitchell Mount) to give you a QR clamp base on your Dana Dolly

3) 100mm Plate - Arca compatible plate - screws to the bottom of your gimbal battery or power base and then interfaces with the clamp

Supporting your Dana Dolly

Stands - Use quality stands like Matthews Grip Slider Stands.  Don't use lights stands or C Stands - these don't have the support you need to resist lateral (sideways movement) during accelerations and decelerations of the dolly.

Apple Boxes - Great and easy to get some height -very stable when place on the Dana Dolly Flat sides

Floor Mounts -Great and good for automotive shoots from a low perspective.

Rigging with iFootage

iFootage Shark is our lightest weight slider for 2.5 to 4 feet of slide. Place on a table on the feet, or use two tripods at each ends? For a great run and gun set up, use a single tripod mounted in the middle.  Take care and don't use tripod legs and studs directly to the aluminum ends or center plates as you can strip them out.  We recommend using QR plates and clamps to help with the setup.

Rigging for a Tripod

You will need to effectively mount to a tripod. We recommend you use a metal camera plate securely attached.  eMotimo typically uses arca-compatible plates and clamps.  The eMotimo Riser/Clamp will give you parts to match to the 3/8-16 stud on most photographic tripod legs and take that to a QR Arca Style Clamp. 

Additionally, a 50mm or 100mm plate mounted to the bottom of the battery grip or power base completes the puzzle.

Accessories for your RS Gimbal that make things easier

Off the shelf kits for RS gimbals come with a lot of parts!  That being said, there are a couple of items that can help:

Power Base

Feeding power from a DTAP source means your gimbal mounts lower, and goes longer on run times in a production environmentBoth SmallRig and Tilta off power bases that are good.  We personally like the SmallRig version as it has more mounting holes on the bottom and has a power in/out.  Both are comparable  priced. 

1. SmallRig Power Base on Amazon
2. Tilta Powerbase on Amazon

Monitor Mounts / Magic Arms to place your Conductor SA2.6

The Conductor should be located close to your Gimbal and close to your linear Motors.  Magic Arms and Monitor Mounts are a good options for securely mounting your rig to the two sets of 1/4-20 and 3/8-16 holes on the bottom (shown)  and right side of the screen (not shown, but very useful)

Search for monitor mounts and magic arms on amazon/b&h or use what you already have.  We like these because they are short and strong and very well priced  - https://a.co/d/edCcPVm 

DTAP Power Distribution

If you are running the Dana Dolly you have a ton of real-estate to put accessories on the dolly.  That being said, having a single battery source  - a standard 14.4 Volt (peaks around 16.5 Volts) standard Vmount or Gold Mount battery pack distributing power from a single battery over DTAP/PTAP makes things easy.  The power goes to:

1. The Conductor which includes a DTAP to 2.1mm power cable
2. Your Gimbal on a power base (both options above have a DTAP to Lemo connector
3. Your Camera if you want to
4. Your Monitor if you want to

We use this one at shows as it has a mounting screw to secure to the dolly and also a reverse polarity protection so you can't accidentally provide bad power all you accessories at once.  DTAP connectors can easily be put in backwards with just little extra force and are an awful design for real-world users who are moving quickly   

Cold Shoe Adapter / Clamp 

We don't have favorites on this, but if you are running and RS Gimbal on a Tripod, its nice to have a place to mount your power solutions close by and on a tripod leg.