I really like the look of dolly shots when shooting HDSLR video and have invested in a Microdolly (www.microdolly.com). It's a portable, beautifully made dolly. It's 12 ft in length and for use on the floor with a tripod. It's also expensive. I wanted to also get a a table top dolly to complement the Microdolly and looked at a few that ran in the $1000. range but didn't have enough left in the budget. On a lark, I looked on ebay and found a seller named efilmeric. He sells dollies, jibs and other accessories for shooting video with HDSLR that I assume he makes in his shop. They're a fraction of the price of what you'd pay for the name brand stuff and from what I found with the table top dolly I ordered, the quality is very good. There's a bit of a diy feel to the dolly but it's a simple, durable design. How much? $125. A great deal. The photos of the dolly are not of the one I bought, they're from efilmeric. It's the new updated design and a little bit of an upgrade from the one I bought. He uses super smooth skateboard wheels on a metal plate on which you can mount either a small ball head or the camera directly. He supplies the the 2 different size mounting screws you need to mount either. Also, if you have a really smooth surface, you can use the dolly without the supplied 24 inch track. For anyone looking to get into HDSLR video on a really limited budget, visit efilmeric on ebay first.
