Zoom H4N is solid

[Bill Pryor]

I had what could have been a disaster on my shoot this week. The Zoom H4N is mounted to a markwatkins.com video bracket with a cold shoe on top, and the bracket is mounted to my Cavision rod support system. (See the article about that for a photo.)

There's a $20 Varizoom hotshoe to 1/4" adapter on the coldshoe. That devices little plastic knob you use to tighten it down to the shoe is not really big enough to grab well enough to tighten down solidly. I've learned to check it frequently until I can get a better one. I learned that the hard way: the thing loosened up and I picked up the tripod and the Zoom slid off and bounced off a concrete floor.

No damage at all. Not even a scratch, the case didn't crack, and everything works fine. Some earlier model Zoom recorders are apparently more flimsy, and you have people on various sites saying this model is flimsy. It is not. Anything I can drop on a concrete floor is solid enough for me.