Heron Mk 1	Heron Mk 3

The Vinten Heron Camera Crane was developed for the BBC in the mid-nineteen fifties. It was hydraulically operated, and had the ability to go fully sideways – to “crab”: this made the Heron an extraordinarily flexible television camera crane, and the hydraulic system made it virtually silent in operation.

The Heron was used on any and all productions, from “Captain Pugwash” to music programmes such as “Best of Both Worlds” to situation comedies and theatrical style, multi-camera, live or “as-live” serious drama productions. Many people will be familiar with the Heron Crane from its use on such programmes as live “Top of the Pops”.

The Vinten Heron was a two-man camera “dolly”. The cameraman sat at the front with the television camera mounted on a Vinten pan-and-tilt head (another beautifully balanced and accurate piece of kit from Vinten). The tracker or dolly operator at the rear placed the whole crane in the correct position, and then could track in or out, or crab left or right, on shot, with a nice smooth action with no jerk, judder or hesitation.

This card construction kit consist of seven (7) A4 sheets of artwork, printable on thin card (180 gsm or heavier) using a standard ink-jet printer, and a downloadable 61 page instruction booklet.

     Click either on the pictures below or on the descriptions below in turn to open a PDF
     viewer for the individual construction sheet.

     Save and/or print out the construction sheet onto postcard thickness inkjet printer
     paper or card. Check that the scale marks measure 1 inch (imperial) or 10 mm

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     Click either on the picture below or on the description below to open a PDF
     viewer for the Instruction Book.

     The Instruction book is 61 A4 pages long. It is recommended that you save the
     Instruction Book into a suitable directory (folder) and access this as you need.

     You can print out the Instruction Book, but be aware that it will take
     61 A4 pages.

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