How To Handle A Ninja

Recently a long time customer of Precision Camera stopped by looking for a solution to an issue with his camera system. The camera, a Canon C100, has an internal recording format of H.264. Most all DSLR’s that also record motion imaging record to this standard. If your wanting to record to a more robust capture format (one less compressed) and you are wanting to take advantage of the wider color space that’s available with a higher codec , then you will need to have an external recorder. A few different companies make these recorders. This customer had selected one made by Atomos. The model is called the Ninja 2. There are a lot of great reasons to choose this recorder, and it works perfectly with any camera that has an HDMI output port that can be setup within the menus to be a “clean” signal. This refers to the ability to turn all of the operator menu overlays off and have just the uncompressed video and audio carried over the HDMI port.

The issue he was dealing with was the secure placement of the Ninja 2 recorder on his camera. You want the recorder to be mounted as close to the camera body as possible while also allowing the operator to freely move around without the worry of the device swinging loose.

The solution was the introduction of a product made by UltraLight Control Systems . UCS manufactures one of the best and most versatile mounting systems for camera accessories. The system is modular, with a wide variety of clamps, extension rods and brackets. In essence you custom build the exact mounting rig needed for your application. Need to mount a small LED light off of the camera? Or place a 6 inch monitor on top of the camera? This product can handle it. The system is also very handy when needing to mount GoPro cameras or wireless triggered camera flashes around a room.

For this application the customer needed a mount that attached to his camera hot shoe, then, allowed him to articulate the Ninja 2 recorder and lock it down securely.

Here are some pictures of the all of the components working well together.