Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens we're going to review a new
slider motion series by Syrp. Not syrup, but Syrp. Let's take a look, see what it
can do.
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This is a paid sponsorship, but I'm going to give you my true feelings about this
equipment and how it worked for me. I've used it several times now. I've got a
pretty good sense of how it works. So let's break this down and see what we've
got here. This is a slider called the Magic Carpet, you know, bloooo ooo, Magic
Carpet. Well it's just cool because it's a hard slider, double rail, it's got a
carriage that goes across it. You can slide the carriage on from the end. The
carriage has ropes, the ropes pull when you put a motor on it. But here's what's
nice about this system, is it comes with this plate on the slider. Now I simply
take what's called the Genie, the Genie drops onto this plate. As soon as I get it
to pop into place. I don't see any red, then it's in place. This now will drive
the slider back and forth. You've got a one axis move here. Or I can pop this off
and it comes with another plate, same plate as it is on this slider. This now
goes on my tripod. And when I snap this onto my tripod it now becomes a panning
device. So this is going to give us our motion back and forth, then we can just
simply put ball head on, we're ready to go. They do have a thing that's called the
Genie Mini. This does the very same that this does on a tripod, in that you can
just simply...it's got a three-eighths on the bottom of it, you can put it on the
tripod, and now you've got a one axis, panning, time lapse device. You bring this
up on your phone. You pair it to the app on your phone. You set how far you want it
to pan, like how far you want it to go. You set the interval, you set all those
things up. This is the whole thing. This does what this does, for one axis move, a
panning move. Does the same thing that the Genie does,
the Genie Mini, but you run it from your phone. This one all has menus on the back,
and you run it from the menus on the back. Now when you combine these two together,
you now have a two axis setup which is fabulous. You can just put your camera on
here. Its got a quarter-twenty, it's got the five-eighths inch sleeve on here right
now, but it has a quarter-twenty. Put your camera right on top of there and just let
the camera pan back and forth, or just let it dolly back and forth. Or we put this
on, ball head gives us a little more adjustment, so we can adjust the angle of
the camera. And the camera goes on top, ta da. The thing that's fabulous about this
is we've seen this kind of equipment for years, but it's always been very, very
expensive, this is not in that world. The Genie is just under $800. The Genie Mini
is under $300. So for under $1500 you've got a complete time lapse kit, you can
take out on location. But the nice thing about this, and we'll go into it when we
do a lesson on this, is you just have to play with the menus. On the Genie the
menus are fabulous. You get to go in and you get to set what kind of interval you
want. You set the length of time you want it to go. It tells you how long your time
lapse is going to end up being. It's just extremely easy to use. I've had other
sliders, and other slider kits, and its always been very difficult to make that
happen. You have to test it and figure it out. Probably my favorite feature, and I
used it over and over and over again when I was out shooting with this thing is they
have a play button, it shows me the entire move. So I just simply put my camera in
video mode, on the back I hit play, and it shows me that the camera is going to go
from here to here, and then the camera is going to pan up here, with the Genie Mini,
and I see exactly what the time lapse is going to cover. Then I hit back to start,
it moves back to start. I put my camera back on photography, I hit start and it
starts my time lapse. It may take three hours to go that
distance, but I can look at in real-time, really quickly, see exactly what it's
going to cover, gives me an idea of what I'm going to get. That feature I thought
was fabulous. As much as I love the Genie, I love the Genie Mini even more. That's
something you can throw in your camera bag and you've got this wonderful time lapse.
Get it on your phone, you can see exactly what you're going to do with it. Concerns
I had were the height of this and I thought, "Is this going to give me some
kind of motion?" But you know what? I've had no problem with that whatsoever. I've
shot 15 or 20 different time lapse sequences with it now, and I've had not
motion issues whatsoever. It's very tightly connected, it works without any
problem. It's not flopping around on me. Second one was I was worried about the
motor being a little loud, and you know what, it's a little loud on set. You kind
of have to back it away from your setup just a little bit and not get it right in
next to where your microphone's at. You know, quite frankly, it's no louder than
the light we're using on set right now. So those were the two things I was concerned
about and I feel like they're certainly situations you can work around without any
problem. I've had no trouble with weight limit with either of these devices. I've
used the Mark III with a 24-70 millimeter lens on the Mini and on the regular Genie.
Worked flawlessly. I know if you put it in a total vertical lift that this motor will
only be able to lift about three pounds. But that's why they have the green pulleys
on the end so you can counterweight the camera. So it's not trying to lift all
that weight and it allows you to lift the camera as well. So there's work arounds
for that situation. I'm not sure how heavy you can get on this. I just know I've used
the Mark III with a 24-70. Also, it's important to know that you can put the
Genie on any slider. I can put it on my old Kessle Semi Slider. It's got Velcro
straps that go on each end. Uses a cable to pull itself back and forth, riding on
the carriage of whatever slider that you own. So it's a great motor device to put
onto any slider that you already have. So the guys at Syrp did a great job putting
this together, at absolutely more than two thumbs up. I think it's an economic entry
point for people who want to do time lapse; that is not only inexpensive, but
it's also extremely easy to use. You don't have to have a ton of experience doing
time lapse to be able to make this work for you.
And I think that's really its greatest advantage. If I were you and you've never
done any time lapse and you just want to play with it, buy the Genie Mini. Just
throw it on your tripod, take it out and start doing some lapse using the app on
your phone, and you'll find it a simple way to get started and kind of play with
that world. Pretty quick you'll be buying the Genie because you're going to want
that two axis setup, but take a look at it and see what you think. So keep those
cameras rolling, keep on clicking.
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