20Apr Polly Systems Polly Dolly

The Polly Dolly is probably one of the most unique takes on a slider I came across at NAB. At first glance it looks a lot like other sliders on the market, but the minute you try to use the slider you notice the difference. Most sliders require a very steady hand to operate smoothly and it’s hard to keep the start and stop portions of a move smooth. The Polly Dolly solves this problem with a few gears and a simple flywheel.

The flywheel at the center of the unit provides friction when starting a move, this gives you very smooth starts. You can also use the flywheel to control the speed of a move as well as decelerate and stop. It’s hard to describe the feel of the slider in words, but the Polly Dolly definitely made it onto my want list.

The flywheel also seems to provide a lot of stabilization and makes the operation feel almost like a gyro camera stabilizer. The flywheel and gears don’t create any noise and surprisingly no vibration is introduced into the shot even with the arm fully extended. It’s also rated to handle cameras up to 45 pounds so you can really load this thing down.

If you buy the whole kit you get a nice padded flight case as well as 4 feet of track. The price is really the biggest downside at $3600 for the full kit, I don’t think i’ll be buying something like this anytime soon. Even just the base of the unit will set you back $1900. Hopefully this kit will be hitting the rental market soon, it would be perfeict for table top product shots.

The concept isn’t very complicated, but it is new to the slider market. I think a lower price version of this could easily be built for around $300 to $500. Just change out the machined aluminum frame for some plastic bits and reduce the weight capacity down to 10 pounds and you’d really be hitting a sweet spot. If this were priced at under $1000, I probably would have brought one home with me.

Right now it’s only avilable on the Polly Dolly site at Euro pricing. But the rep said we might be seeing it in the american markets in the next few months which means we could be seeing this sort of design implemented into smaller units by next NAB.

Tags: Camera slider, Polly Dolly, product shots