I’ve now used the Sevenoaks motorised head for a few times and thing its going to be very useful for time-lapse and real time video with the SJ4000, or for that matter, any other camera/action camera
On my drive to my holiday this passed summer I was in the Swiss mountains and wanted to get a smooth panorama of the aria I was in,all I had that would of made this possible was the Drifter time-lapse, only problem with that was it is made for time lapse (and I can’t fault it for what it is made for, and still use it for the intended purpose) but here all I wanted was a good panorama.
I tried to used the drifter but after only a few moments gave up and did it by hand but the Drifter still on my mini stand, as you will hear
now to do this with a time-lapse like the Drifter or and egg timer would take about 30 minutes, some would say why didn’t I take a good tripod with me and use that. when going on holiday in a small car and photography isn’t the main reason for the holiday a large tripod is using up precious space in the car. if taken with the Sevenoaks motorised head (or other motorised head) the above 180 degrees clip can be shot in around 2 minutes
here’s a couple of clips (joined) shot in my garden with the Sevenoaks head set at 5 minutes to cover 360 degrees, meaning it would cover 72 degrees per minute (shot with a compact camera)
with data from the net and the speed of the motorised head, I made and printed myself a diagram to give me some idea what setting I needed to cover a set degree in a set time
but then after a week I went to the app store and downloaded an app with a protractor and loaded it to my iPhone
I’ve made a short clip of the Sevenoaks motorised head. I started shooting the clip outdoors but my camera couldn’t capture the LED’s very good so went indoors.
you wouldn’t be going through all the sequence I’m showing, I’ve tried to show the function of the all the buttons. then showing the protractor app on my iPhone and iPad
My conclusion with only a few weeks use in good weather (so in rain, cold or snow it might not work as good or at all)
first off, I paid £45 + £4.99 P&P so at this price I am not complaining but if they do make a version 2, then these are the things I think would be a good/very good features to include
first off, a minor issue, the on off switch looks as if it’s not going to last long, its stiff and looks like its going to come off, would of preferred a push button for off/on
the more important features that are a bit of a restriction on its use is/are
at most it has a maximum time setting of only one hour (60 minutes) so if you were doing a time lapse of say 3 hours, you’d have to go back every hour to switch it on again
the slowest setting is to set it to cover 15 degrees in 60 minutes, if you wanted to cover 45 degrees at that slow setting you’re out of luck, it will stop once covered 15 degrees, you will have to return to the Sevenoaks a further two times to start it again
I’ve seen on the internet instructors turning the degree markings back to zero by hand, the manual says to set it on 360, and set theme to 5 minutes, a zero button that would fe wheel or zip it back to zero would be handy
I think what would of been a very good feature to have would of been a jack plug to accept an intervalometer,
like those used on DSLR’s, I think this one feature would make this motorised head unit worth double, and I’ve seen these intervalometer for as little as £10, but would open up this unit
the other thing that would of been useful was it if could of been charged by using USB, the manual says the battery will power it for about 8 hours and take about 4 hours to charge, the chances are you are going to be using this a long way from mains power, but might be able to have charged it from you car’s cigarette’s lighter socket, I’m using something like this for some years now, to charge 240v with the car’s cigarette lighter socket
