Have you ever been holding your camera
by its top handle and thought,
"Why isn't this handle also a 70 watt-hour battery?"
Well, you're not alone, because somebody made one.
Let's get undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What's happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone,
and I just found this channel,
so I'm not familiar with this whole intro idea thing,
but it seems cool! So I've actually got two
of these things, because within days
of receiving this one from SOONWELL,
IndiPRO Tools sent me this one.
And because these products are virtually identical,
I decided to ask IndiPRO Tools
why they and SOONWELL have the same product,
and I was informed that they're actually made
by another company called Rolux,
and are just sold and rebranded by SOONWELL
and IndiPRO Tools. So I appreciate
that IndiPRO Tools is open and honest about that.
But this also lets us take a look
at the two different colour options
and examine if there's any differences
between the two. And the short answer is... no.
They're seemingly identical, save for the paint job.
For outputs, they both have
a 5V/2.1A USB Type-A port, two DC barrels,
one at 8V/3A for powering cameras,
and one at 12V/3A for powering monitors,
or in the case of the Blackmagic Pocket 4K,
connecting to the 2-pin power port on the side.
Oh, and speaking of that, back when I did
my 4K rig build out thing,
I mentioned that IndiPRO Tools was making me
a 12-volt DC 2-pin coiled cable for connecting
to the PortaPak, or even for something
like this power handle,
and they've actually designed a custom cable
based on my request, and it's for sale now
on their website. And they sent me the final copy,
and it's exactly what I was asking for,
so that's pretty great. So, for a cable like this,
you would connect this to the 12-volt port of the power handle
or the PortaPak or whatever else,
and then connect this to the 2-pin
on the Pocket 4K, and it should last you
at least three hours. Then there's also
two D-Tap ports which are both rated
at 14.4V/10A, and these can be used for both
input and output, so these are also how you would
recharge the power handle.
But this is also something I dislike about these.
It doesn't give you any indication that it's charging.
There's battery level lights on the side,
but they only turn on when you press "check".
Now, if you leave it charging for a while,
you can see that it worked because the percentage went up
from when you had it last, but it's a bit odd
that they don't illuminate automatically
while charging. Now, there is an indicator light
on this side for overload, though,
which is handy if you're experimenting
with some untested or janky power combinations.
Also, when you use that "check battery" button,
I find the lights aren't that accurate
or really that useful to begin with,
because it very quickly gets down
to the final red light and then stays there
for much longer than the previous marks,
making it a little bit hard to predict
your actual remaining runtime. Lastly, there's a power button,
which I'm not totally sure was necessary,
because I don't usually need to switch on
my batteries. I either plug something in or I don't.
Now, I suppose there's situations
where it could be useful, but I'm actually more
concerned about accidentally pressing it
and terminating my recording--
if I was powering my Ninja V, for example.
Now, a piece of tape could solve this, but again,
it seems a tad unnecessary.
Also, it would appear that the power button
only affects the DC and USB ports
and has no impact on the D-Tap ports.
You can still power your devices while off
through the D-Tap, but you have to turn it on
to use the other port options.
Now, there's a few different mounting options.
First, you've got this cold shoe bracket
that screws into the front top of the handle.
Now, on its own, I found that it worked reasonably
well in the hot shoe of a camera,
but it didn't seem to fit into the cold shoes
found on my camera cages.
It seems to require above-average clearance
on the shoe, so your mileage may vary with that.
But when it comes to mounting onto a cage,
they do provide this little mounting plate
that has a cold shoe slot on it
that does fit nicely, and then you can tighten it
down with this spring-loaded 1/4-20 wingnut,
which will give you a little extra security,
and then you'll have a large but very sturdy
top handle with a battery in it.
Alternatively, there's rosette brackets
that can be used to mount these to the flanks
of your cage so that you can use them
as side handles. So the mounting options are great,
and the included cables and accessories
are a nice add-on. In the kit,
you'll get the dummy battery of your choosing,
as well as two DC barrel to D-Tap cables
and one DC barrel diameter adapter.
And before you even ask, yes,
I did try seeing if one handle could power
the other one for some kind of unified two-handle
setup. I see the gears turning in your crazy heads!
Anyway, the short answer is yes,
but not with the provided cables.
You'd need a healthy D-Tap to D-Tap cable,
and then you can charge them in tandem
and also run down their battery evenly
while shooting. You can also pass through power
while charging. So let's say that you had
your camera and monitor connected
and your handle died. You can plug in
a D-Tap charger and not only charge the handle,
but get right back to work powering the gear,
but you do need a charger with enough output.
A standard 1-amp charger is not enough,
and the recording will just stop again
a few minutes after plugging it in.
My 2.5-amp charger was enough to keep
the recording going, but not enough
to also charge the handle,
so it took my 5-amp charger to both power
the gear and charge the handle at the same time.
And speaking of chargers, there's a deal
going on with IndiPRO Tools where you get
a charger bundled with your handle order,
because it's important to know
that the handles themselves don't actually come
with chargers. And the chargers IndiPRO Tools
gives out is only the 1-amp version,
so it will charge slowly,
and you're not going to be able to do
that active power and charging simultaneously
that we just talked about,
but it's still a nice little value add
if you don't already own one.
And that's a B&H exclusive, by the way.
The SOONWELL version is for sale on Amazon,
if you prefer to shop on Amazon versus B&H,
and it's the same price of $360, but there's no included charger.
And finally, speaking of that price,
is this handle worth the $360?
Well, I think that would depend a lot on
how you're gonna use it. If you're really gonna
take advantage of the fact that it's a handle
and perhaps mount it in a way
that makes your life easier and provides power,
then yeah, it's a nice, novel purchase.
But if you're just buying it as a battery,
it's not a good buy. Earlier this year, I talked about
the IndiPRO Tools PortaPak,
which is a 98 watt-hour battery for only $100.
That's 36% more juice than the handle for less
than a third of the price. Plus, when it comes
to being a handle, I find this one to be a bit bulky
and cumbersome while exhibiting those odd quirks
I mentioned earlier, and I just don't get enough
runtime to warrant the price premium
or the bulkiness. While my Pocket 4K is fully rigged
out with focus motor, monitor, and camera,
all running on the handle, I only get just over
two hours, where I got closer to 3.5 hours
on my other 98 watt-hour solutions, which, again,
cost less. I suppose its biggest draw would be
that you don't need to rig out as big of a build
as you would to support those large V-Mount batteries,
and it's a bit more conducive
to run-and-gun-style shooting.
But there's a lot of other options that support
that style of shooting as well,
including drawing power from a gimbal.
Which, if you don't own one, is probably
a better use of the $360.
So, it's an interesting idea and I appreciate
the novelty, but overall, I'd only recommend it
in specific circumstances, and I don't think
it offers a compelling value for the average shooter.
But that's gonna be it for me.
I hope you found this video entertaining,
or at least helpful. 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, then your current probably
isn't proportional to your voltage.
Alright... I'm done.