The Hand Unit
-Physical-
The Hand Unit fit nicely in the hands and the adjustment dial on the focus knob was great for tension adjustment. Placement of the Iris slider and Zoom knob were fine as well.
The threaded mounting points surrounding the unit (back and top) seem useful for future add-ons like monitor brackets and other accessories.
I liked the push button zoom speed adjuster. I was able to smoothly ramp speed up and down while zooming in or out. Having it hide into the body when a desired speed was found was a nice touch to prevent accidental adjustment.
The focus rings seem standard however I think having them pre-marked by the manufacturer rather than having the user apply the sticker leaves less room for error in placement.
The neck strap was unimpressive and we assumed it’s because assistants use their own variations anyway.
Using Sony batteries is a great upgrade from the previous Carat 9V system.
The antennae seems a bit vulnerable. I dropped a Carat once and the antennae was a bust. Perhaps some sort of cage (I’ve seen them for the Cine RT Horns) to help protect it.
The hand unit weight is great. Nice and light in the hands. However, the material felt like it would take some damage if tossed around a bit. The difference between an owner op taking care of personal gear versus a rental house which sees a lot of abuse over time.
While I saw a USB port for data, I was surprised to see no Lemo connection for a hardwire option. Considering the amount of wireless being used these days and certain areas that have a harder time connecting wireless devices, a hard line option is extremely useful. Specialty cases include, action arms/russian arm vehicle work, areas with high radio interference (times square) and all underwater applications where it would tether to a housing.
-Did not see strap handle-
-Electronic-
The menus seemed easy enough to navigate and the readouts were clear. However the ability to only scroll down and never back up in a menu was pretty limiting and also seems like massive wear and tear on only one button.
The Lens mapping approach is a bit different than other systems but fairly easy to do. While it’s great that profiles can be stored, it seemed there was a max lens limit which seems like an oversight. As a rental house unit, a show may leave with 10 primes 3 zooms and day play a few specialty lenses. No one wants to be mapping on set constantly having to delete lenses to make space. Not a deal breaker but seems like an easy thing to fix.
One thing to request would be the option to select different rings vs lenses. So for example, if I were to map a 50mm lens to the i2 ring, if I knew I was going to pull a shot on the closer or farther end of the lens, I’d like to switch the rings in the hand unit menu to perhaps the i1 or i5 which would then change the throw of the focus wheel allow for more precise measurement pulling on the extreme ends.
The data from the Cine RT and from the lens mapping was great. Easy to setup and extremely useful. Something we did notice though was the smallest delay in the data from the Cine RT Horns. Not worse than other systems but still apparent. Not positive what it was due to.
Auto lens calibration was easy. Would like the ability to also manually calibrate from the hand unit, not just the VLC-3
-Did not test limits or macro functions-
-Did not get to test range or in high RF areas-
The VLC-3
-Physical-
The VLC -3 is a great size and the buttons are small and simple. One possible addition might be a lock button or perhaps an electronic ability to lock keys to prevent accidently motor direction changes or autocals.
On the body I’d like to see at least one ¼ 20 thread somewhere for 3rd party mounting options.
The plastic mount seems fragile. Love the idea to easily remove and mount if necessary but felt like it could break easily in a rental scenario. Also it should have an Arri locating pin option. It swiveled a bit on my camera.
Perfect size for gimbals.
-Electronic-
The manual calibration on this was great for still photo lenses and I like that it’s designed for lenses that are harder to auto cal. I think of beat up Super Speeds where the barrels are sticky and always cause auto cal issues.
Flipping motor direction was easy. We’d recommend a double tap though to change direction as a safety.
Was confused by the Y cable needing the RS port for the Cine RT horns. We thought one cable (two connectors) coming from the horns to provide power and data would come from the AUX port? Or is this because AUX does not provide power and or serial data? Also questions as to whether having an RS trigger could possible cause the Horns info to go haywire. These were more questions on understanding the plug and play distro and how to keep it as clean as possible.
Also, what else would plug into the AUX port? We established there’s no hardline from the hand unit so that can’t be it. I made the assumption it might be for a future Microforce of some kind?
We noticed as well there was a pretty big lag with respect to the autofocus feature. I’m not sure if it’s just slow or perhaps more precise mapping of a lens would be required for more accurate adjustment. But from what we tested, movement in and out was always slightly behind but it would land the focus when the object stopped moving. I think this would require a bit more testing.
Finally, the data cable from the hand unit seems to be the only way to software update. Surprised there was also no SD or micro SD slot. Seems an easy way to trade lens files or any other software related info in a rental scenario. Just observations.
Motors
We tested the M26VE-LX and the LM30 Motors on an EF mount Sigma Art 18-35 lens.
I love both motors. The M26 has the power to drive bigger glass if necessary but was gentle enough on my ART lens that it didn’t worry me. The LM30 is perfect for gimbal work. Love the size. Both are low profile and I love that gears are easy to swap sides. Makes them very versatile. However the gear shafts are different sizes between the two motors so that’s not interchangeable.
The M26 mounting Bracket is pretty standard. The one for the LM30 is interesting as it can mount around the cylinder making it useable to drive the Horns on a pan axis. However the length of the clamping latch may be hard to lock where there are larger barreled lenses in use vs the traditional threaded locks.
Responsiveness to input from the hand unit was fantastic. Also knowing that the motors are compatible with Preston systems make them invaluable.
-did not mount horns to the LM30 motor-
Thoughts and Observations
The YMER -3 in my opinion is a fantastic FIZ kit for the price. It seems to have enough pro features that it can work on any professional set in confidence but still has room for some improvement to catch up to system like Preston and the Arri hand units.
The people I see best using this are owner operators who will care for the gear and assistants that are coming up and working somewhat regularly on professional sets. The pros about owning one as a mid level assistant is having a reliable tool that also has motors that work with longer established systems like Preston when moving into larger scale budgets or projects. This crossover ability is invaluable. Thankfully Hedén has a long standing reputation with their motors on all sets so seeing a hand unit show up on set shouldn’t deter anyones opininon on its quality. We all know brand recognition plays a huge part and Hedén is a proven name.
As for the owner op, I think its perfect. Perfect size and weight, fantastic motors and just enough pro software features to make using it part of the job and not a chore.
We discussed how it stacks against:
Preston
Arri WCU4
Teradek RT Motion
Tilta Nucleus
As mentioned, the motor sharing with Preston is a huge plus, but the challenge is that Preston is somewhat bombproof and the industry standard. Hard to compete with that. Arri’s strength is its integration with their own line of cameras but also the robust feature set. The RT Motion seems to be a solid kit as well and it integrates very well if you’re a RED owner/op and have the radio modules to stream line the build. However personally, I would take the motor compatability with Preston over a module with RED as it’s limited and seeing as the feature sets between RT and YMER appear similar. Also, I don’t like the RTs motors. Like Preston, they’re one sided and have to be mounted upside down or on extra brackets for alternative placement vs the Hedén motors where placement is as easy as flipping the gear similar to the Arri C Force Motors. Last is the Tilta Nucleus and this is really just because it’s insanely affordable. It’s an entry level for a lot of folks but riddled with problems and silly functions that shouldn’t exist. The only pro I feel the Nucleus has is the additional handgrips that control the motors. Otherwise it doesn’t compare.
Final Thoughts
While I feel the need to test it long term on a show or something of that nature to see if it can handle the days in and out of set abuse and range challenges, I feel confident it would perform well. Knowing they are moving into a place where an assistant can use the YMER 3 and a DIT can control Iris from an YMER 1 like we do with other systems on shows means they’re taking the hand unit more seriously than the previous Carat. Being able to pair with the Cine RT Focus bug system and knowing that use with Cine Tape is coming is also good news. Based on my simple tests thus far, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this system.