Stabilizers vs Shoulder Rigs

A shoulder rig is considered a type of stabilizer, as is a tripod, as is a steadycam. What are you asking about? Lighting a scene is rarely done on-camera. Shoulder rigs with lights or mics are usually for ENG, not for film... film lights the set independent of the camera. You don't get great footage, but you don't have any setup time and can follow the action quickly which makes it great for news. It's also good for tense moving action scenes, and I saw it used to amazing effect in Homeland, when they hired a war photographer to do the camera work (but they still did sound and light seperately).

A good tripod head will give you really smooth movement, and this is the easiest for anyone, and is also really universal. An experienced operator on a jib will give really smooth movement, but takes some practice. An experienced op on a shoulder rig can give nice smooth footage, but it varies on the operator. On a steadycam, a good op can move around and give really good footage, but this is the most difficult and often requires a 1AC to focus if you don't have a full harness. I've used all of these, and the steadycam is by far the hardest to get right, followed closely by the shoulder mount if there's much movement. Once you start walking with a shoulder mount, you will get some bouncing (and that's why the steadcam was invented).

If you don't have to move the camera much, the smoothest action you'll get is from a slider or dolly, a tripod, or a jib. If you need to move or follow the action longer distances, you can get really good movement from a shoulder rig or a steadycam, but it really does take a lot of practice.

I use a home made rig. made out of PVC based off the frugal filmmaker. works pretty damn well and I am able to get some pretty good shots.

A lot of this is stylistic choice, but I'd get a quality tripod (probably $300 to $400 minimum for something usable) before I got anything else. However, this is coming from a person who in probably 300 minutes of running film time (for all my shorts) has 20 minutes where the camera isn't on a tripod.