An update on our surgical filming gear

We're always looking for the best way to capture surgery, and so our standard video gear has changed since we started filming in the operating room (OR) in 2011. For a more in-depth discussion about our filming process in the OR, check out what we've documend in this blog.

With the expansion of our atlas into different surgical categories, new filming options needed to be explored. Advancement in camera technology now allows us to capture in higher resolution, and much-anticipated improvements in stabilization means we can further explore head-mounted cameras.

When filming HPB surgery, the surgical field is the abdomen, which is often big and wide, so our previous filming set up was optimized for that. Unfortunately this setup doesn't always work well with other surgical specialities due to smaller surgical fields, locatio of surgical field, multiple operative locaions, gear mobility, length of surgery, etc.

So here are some new gear and accessories we've been exploring for filming our head and neck, obstetrics, and gynecology cases.

C-STAND

The C-stand or “Century stand” is mainly used to hold lights and light modifiers in film production. We use it as an overhead camera set up by attaching a light weighted camera to the end of the arm. The long arm can also be adjusted during filming to avoid the camera being blocked by heads of surgeons.

Have you been playing around with any cool gear for filming surgeries? Let us know! Stay tuned to see some of the results coming from our new setup!

-The TVASurg team