LEMAC - Polecam

POLECAM DEMO VIDEO (10.09 Mb) - QT 7 for Mac or PC Required

POLECAM HD is a unique and highly versatile production tool for the growing global HDTV production market. POLECAM HD is a six meter camera crane, capable of being rigged in just 10 minutes, and weighing just over 20 kilos. Supported on a standard lightweight tripod, this new HD camera crane can work in locations previously unreachable and unworkable by conventional cranes. Suspended from the body harness, vehicle or boat tracking shots can now be obtained with safety and ease. Ever wanted to put a crane on the end of a Technocrane?... now anything is possible. POLECAM HD is fitted with Ikegami's new HDL-20 lightweight ultra compact HDTV camera ( 1125, 1080i ). The HDL-20 delivers exceptionally high picture quality with its 2/3 inch 2.2 million pixel CCDs, 12-bit A-D conversion and up to 38-bit internal digital processing. HD-SDI output is provided from the CCU, and direct connection is possible to digital equipment such as HD VTRs.

POLECAM is a lightweight, portable jib-arm and broadcast camera system with a 1.5 to 6 metre (five to 20 foot) reach, weighing a maximum of 20 kg (44 pounds), which packs away into two bags with a carrying weight of just 35 kg (77 pounds). It can be rigged and de-rigged quickly - average rig time is just 10 minutes and de-rig 5 minutes - and is unique in that it requires no setup tools. Smooth, floating crane shots can be made quickly and efficiently with fast relocation. The boom is rigged from lightweight carbon fibre tubes, which slot easily together. It can be rigged using from one to five tubes, with or without an elbow section which can be used to get up and over obstacles.

POLECAM came into being in 1955 when extreme sports cameraman/director Steffan Hewitt was directing a series of windsurfing kit commercials in Hawaai and found it impossible using conventional equipment to get a shot of the windsurfer, at speed, shot from the front with a wide angle lens. He experimented with a minicam fitted to the end of a soundman's boom pole. This was not a new idea, but it worked extremely well, and Steffan got the shots he needed. He realised there was a need for a Polecam product, but it would have to be a lightweight, go-anywhere rig with a remote, joystick-controlled pan & tilt head. He returned to the UK, locked himself away and designed and built the prototype. POLECAM now sells successfully around the world, a UK product, hand-built at their base near Bedford.

POLECAM provides innovative and unique shots where often other cranes could not go, it brings shots which would be impossible to achieve hand-held. Polecam enhances production values for virtually any type of programme.