Buliding and flying a camera in an operating room for Johnston and Johnston

We received a call from our good friend John at Global Photo Associates asking us if we could place a camera above an operating table. “sure” we can John, I’ll have he client give you a ring with all the details. Shortly after we received a call from the client and we got the all the details. The client requested that the camera needed to be above the table during the surgery (hip replacement) and the camera needed to pan, tilt, rotate, zoom and focus. In addition the client wanted to preview the images before we took the shot so we needed to have some kind of video feed back to the laptop. Thank goodness for the Canon D5 mark II and it’s live preview.

I knew of equipment that would work in the film industry but not for a still camera. After sometime and some research I found a Jib system that would work and with some creative welding and crafting of a zoom system we had our rig. John called and said you have to take some classed too. He sent me the list and some days later we had all of our operating room credentials in hand (AORN, Blood born pathogens and HIPPA). One of the requirements was what we had to be completely battery powered, we used some Jackrabbit 400 dynalight strobe heads for fill light match to 4300 Kelvin from the OR table light.

That day we photographed two different surgeries and the client was very pleased with the outcome. The preview system worked well and both the surgeon and the client could view the signal from the laptop to the OR HD monitor. Camera, jib, hot head and all the toys worked well and just like we had planned.

Thanks John !!!!