I will write proper reviews of all of this once I have had some time to experiment and iron out all the kinks but all these toys arrived yesterday morning about 3 hours too late - as I was intending to use them to film a presentation earlier in the morning.
First: The 550d is a a very nice camera, and I am very happy with the 18-200mm IS lens. For how it will be used this lens is the perfect choice although the combination is heavier than I anticipated.
The manfroto modo steady is a really really versatile device. I think I want one for home. Having said that the steadycam function isn't usable with cameras heavier than 0.75kg and the 550d without a lens is more than this, and even if it weren't, the balance point for this camera is so far away from the tipod mount that you would need some form of adapter bracket for it to work. I did calibrate the steadycam with my old panasonic mini dv camera though and it took me a long time to get the settings correct and although there is a scale to enable you to recreate your settings the movement of the balance arm isn't precise enough for this to be practical, which means you need to spend a fair amount of time calibrating it before each use. Eventually I found that the best way to do this was to unlock the table top tipod and sit it on the edge of a desk so I freed up my hands to adjust the counterbalance. I really do like the shoulder stock function though. This and the table top tripod are enough for me to consider this as a useful piece of field kit. Especially since it is small enough to fit in the lens compartment of a relatively small camera bag.
The beachtek DXA-5D DSLR - XLR Audio adapter.....
For those of you who are knew to audio / video. This device lets you plug a standard microphone into any camera that has a 3.5mm jack and for those that support stereo it can to that as well. In adition to this it has some really nice features that make it more than an audio adapter. First it can provide phantom power to your mics - this really opens up the range of mics you can use. Second it can send an inaudible tone to the camera so that the cameras automatic gain doesn't behave eratically. Third and most importantly it has manual gain control so you can set volume levels appropriately (this is the audio equivalent of exposure) It also lets you plug in headphones and can handle 2 xlr inputs with either mic or line level input settings. I connected it to my senheiser k6 me66 boom mic (with an adapter I made to let me mount the mic on the hotshoe) and used my senheiser monitor headphones for this test and my only gripe was that my audio cables were too long. - a colleague has a hot shoe mounted mic that is designed to plug straight into the camera and I will have a play with this as time goes on, as the 550d needs to be able to capture quality audio if it is to succesfully replace the video cameras in my kit, although after only a few hours playing and less time reviewing the footage I think it probably will.
So here is the drool shot: