As I said, it looks like something designed by a person who has never used a ladder or a "real" aerial lift. I stand by that assessment, regardless of who may have designed it.
I own scaffolding, and I can assure you that I can, working solo, assemble scaffolding to reach anything that this silly little lift can reach, in less than 30 minutes. Indeed I have assembled this size scaffold solo numerous times for other applications.
For situations like that, the place that has the access problem should generally be buying the correct specialty lift to have on site all the time. The lift needed probably isn't that expensive, but is just enough outside of what the average renter needs for the rental places to carry. Certainly I've seen Genie lifts that will fit through small doorways, have low minimum heights and will readily load on their side into a standard van for transport.
Very nice design and idea. At $2K, it looks reasonable enough to pay more for the extra safety. I still need a 28-foot ladder to reach the roof.
Having spent a number of years shooting sports videos and used a number of setups for aerial shots, by far the cheapest and easiest setup is standard panel frame scaffolding. The trick to having a stable shot is to use a couple of the basic 1" wide ratchet straps to pre-tension the scaffolding and eliminate the usual wiggle you get.
Scaffolding also has the advantage of being inexpensive which can allow you to setup scaffold platforms for an entire season of games if the facility allows it. We were able to do this for one baseball series where we were able to erect scaffolding behind the backstop fencing and in front of the facilities press box / concession building in such a way that it provided a huge 4'x17' platform at 18' high which gave a great shot angle and also did not interfere with the view from the press box.
The scissors lifts are nice, however they also have inherent wiggle in their joints, and unlike scaffolding, there isn't any viable way to pre-tension and eliminate the wiggle.
I've also used standard bucket trucks, which work well, but have the disadvantages of only being able to be used where you can get the truck parked, and not allowing the camera person to readily lock off a cover shot and come down for a break.
re: "I can, working solo, assemble scaffolding to reach anything that this silly little lift can reach, in less than 30 minutes"
The article (and related video) state 30 *seconds*, not 30 minutes, to assemble the lift once on site.
I don't know squat about scaffolding, so this is a serious question:
What would said scaffolding weigh and could a solo worker carry it to the work site in one trip?
This article gives a little more detail about the design theory and designer:
Pete C. wrote: ...
Church and $$ for this capital outlay don't correlate...
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I think 2-3 telephone poles with a tree house on top would likely be cheaper. Have to make the bottom 8 feet of ladder removable or enclose it in wire mesh when not in use, to eliminate the attractive nuisance factor. Some budding Eagle Scout would probably be happy to do it for his final project.
Don't know if they still do, seeing as how they now have all those miniature droid cameras that can be strung up on wires and controlled remotely. But for several years at Indy, they used to bring in a long-reach manlift, almost a crane, and trap a cameraman OVER the track on the main straightaway. Platform was guyed off in 4 directions to keep it from flapping around. Poor SOB up there probably had to stop drinking coffee 24 hours before the race, to make it 200 laps.
They did let him down during rain delays. Metal boom, and all that.
I don't know about that, they all appear to be high profit, low overhead, tax free businesses to me...
Good remote servo pan/tilt heads and remote lens controls on compact cameras have made a lot of that type of staging obsolete for productions that have real budgets. The equipment is expensive though, so the little local productions have to rely on the old techniques.
Not really, you don't know me.
Interesting, but not the same in terms of cost. It has a purpose between the cheaper manually moved lift and a full sized scissor lift.
"Pete C." wrote
We have what you describe. The price difference is huge though and the use depends on your needs. The smaller lift can be moved easily by one person into small spaces. The larger lifts have to be move by self power or by a fork lift to another elevation. They don't do steps very well. We have one location that can be accessed only by a typical 36" door at a walkway or a set of 6 stairs and the ceiling height is 16'. Getting a tall ladder in there is a real bitch of a time.
They all have places where they work well, other places not so well. Depends on your needs.
Well, I can assure you this one surely isn't any profit...
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But if you put the ladder in the lift you could go to 42 feet
I don't think 'budget' is a problem at Indy, even with all the drama queen theatrics in open-wheel racing the last decade or two...
But yeah, a local high school, unless they got a big grant somewhere, is probably using whatever cast-off equipment they can scrounge, that the local TV station took a tax write-off on. (although I have seen writeups on some of the fancy radio-tv studios some of the high schools in rich zip codes have, that look nicer than what a lot of college stations have.)
A used utility truck and bucket would be cheaper.
Did you notice the "working height" disclaimer (normal height individual)? The platform lifts only lifts to 7'7".
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