Your questions and comments on the last rig building video
gave me an idea to improve its versatility
and I'm happy to report that it turned out beautifully.
Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening everybody? I'm Gerald Undone
and precision is a decision.
So, when I built this V-Mount rig last month a couple of
the comments stood out to me. A few of you asked,
why bother building up a hybrid camera
to the size of a cine camera
when you could just buy a cinema camera in the first place?
And a few other of you mentioned how
there's a bit of a hassle to take this whole thing apart
if you wanted to put it on a gimbal, and one of you
specifically mentioned that it would be easier and better
if the camera itself was on a quick release system
to get it out of the cage rather than
just taking the cage off of the rails via quick release.
Well, I have a solution for all of that.
Now, I'm not going to go over everything that I mentioned
in the first video. So, if you want to know more
about some of the parts that I don't mention or about
the powering options, please go and watch the previous video.
I'll put links in the description
and at the end of this video.
So, most of this rig is the same except for a couple changes.
First of all, this is a different cage.
This is SmallRig's QR Half Cage 2098
and it has one excellent feature that the full cage doesn't.
And that is a quick release system for getting your camera
out of the cage without needing to unscrew any rig elements.
You just flick this lever over here, loosen that off,
and then you can hold this down and Slide the camera right out.
Now the plate on the bottom is Manfrotto style, which means
that it'll fit into some gimbals just the way that it is,
but other ones are a bit finicky
and it's a bit too tight. Like on the DJI Ronin-S,
I wasn't quite able to wedge it in there,
but it was so close, but it'll probably work for other ones.
But it does have 1/4"-20 and 3/8" holes on the bottom
so that you can easily attach the plate for your gimbal
to this, and again, you don't really have to remove anything.
You can just add a plate and take it off
whenever you need to. And it even acts like a bit of a riser
for those of you that like a little bit more clearance
when mounting it on your gimbal or if you like to use
taller lens supports. And this also goes to answer the question
of why bother building up your hybrid video rig system
to be the size of a cinema camera.
Well, because in less than 10 seconds,
you can go from an all-day video solution
to an excellent photo taking solution.
This kind of adds to the value of your camera, because as much
as I love cinema cameras, I also really like taking pictures
and obviously it's going to be a better value
in the long run to be able to do both with a single piece
of hardware than having to buy multiple dedicated systems
for each purpose. And you can also use this plate
with all of the Manfrotto tripods and monopods
that you may already have for your photography.
But if you prefer Arca, you can actually get this cage
and this plate system in Arca as well.
But I've also taken this whole quick release system
to another level by adding SmallRig's
Drop-In Base Plate 2006
to the top of the rails, and the V-Mount system
so that way if I want to just use the cage,
sort of a lighter solution,
I can just take it apart like this
and pop it in and out. And this bottom piece here,
which is SmallRig's Dovetail Manfrotto 1280
is an excellent little plate. It works not only really well
with the SmallRig drop-in thing,
but it also works with every Manfrotto head
that I have and this one does work on the DJI Ronin-S.
So, that way you can run a leaner cage design
on your gimbal if you prefer to do that
over using your camera naked.
But yeah, big fan of this Manfrotto-style plate
from SmallRig.
And you can also put the HDMI cable clamp
that I recommended in the previous video
on this half cage as well in the same spot, so you still
have the ability to tighten down your HDMI cable
and keep that small port on your camera safe.
And really the only real issue that I have with this cage
is just the fact that it is a half cage
and, you know, missing a bunch of mounting options,
but I kind of have a workaround for that as well.
So, usually the cage would end here and stop there
but as you can see we've extended it across
and all I had to do for that was get a cheese plate
which is what you can see on top here
and a single washer, and a single screw. And basically
all you do is you use the washer in-between the cheese plate
and the cage. That way there's a little bit more
of a rise, so that when you put the camera inside
it's not putting pressure down on the hot shoe.
And if you still want to be able to mount something
to a shoe, like a microphone or whatever.
Well, then you can just get this
shoe extension that SmallRig makes
and I have mine screwed underneath here
which actually provides more stability
and it puts the shoe out on the side like that
so you can put your microphone in here. And you can even
angle it a little bit so that the microphone
points a little bit more at the subject,
rather than straight off to the side,
and so then you pretty much have
all of the functions of the full cage,
you know, other than the fact that it's now, like,
a 3/4 cage, I guess, effectively.
But you still have the quick-release option
so that you can easily switch to photography mode
on your camera whenever you want to.
And I've also got this thing on the side of the cage
that I'm testing out. Some of you mentioned in the previous
video as well that you thought that the friction arms
weren't a great solution for a monitor
because they tend to twist a little bit. And you're right.
So, I'm trying this one out now.
It's a double ball head design.
The base is flat and it has grips on it
and you tighten it by screwing it
into the monitor rather than screwing the monitor
and when you get to the end, there's a little hole there.
You can stick an Allen wrench in and really crank it over.
So, I've used it a couple times
and it definitely does hold the monitor
more securely if you still want the ability
to articulate it. But yeah, good notes
on the previous video guys.
It was a lot of fun trying to solve those problems
and I'm pretty happy with the result.
I obviously like to get the most out of my cameras.
But I also like to use them for multiple purposes.
As I'm sure many of you do as well.
But that's gonna be it for me. I hope you found this video
helpful or at least entertaining and if you did,
make sure you leave it the old thumbs up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already.
But if you did not find this video helpful or entertaining,
feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright... I'm done.