Saturday, February 21, 2009

Product Review: Cavision Shoulder Support




Here is the Product I Am Reviewing

Cavision Shoulder Support (RS1580S)

Overall Product Rating: B

The Good: Nice stability, portable, fairly good price, adjustable, modular design,

The Bad: No riser plate, no quick release system, does not fold up completely compact, awkward to get camera on and off, does not have a stand, no 35mm adapter support, not balanced

I had seen this product originally by a member of hv20.com and it peaked my interest. I researched it a little bit and decided it would be a good fit for my canon hv20, especially because I do a lot of sports work, and it would give me the look and feel of a higher end ENG type camera. When I first opened it up, It took me about 20 minutes or so to finally understand how to put it together. It didn't come with any instructions but rather a bunch of parts and tools thrown in there. After I finally put it together I started playing around with the configurations and found it to be pretty nice. You can customize it to any size of body type and even adjust it quickly for shots. It is easy to mold into the shape you want, simple unscrew the clamp and move then screw back to the desired position.

It is pretty light weight, however that comes with its flaws. It has no balancing system whatsoever so it is somewhat top heavy since that's where the handle, rods, and camera rest. Its not a huge problem, but it does make it somewhat less unstable than it potentially could be. In filming three basketball games with it, it does give good stability and portability, however I wish it would fold up smaller. You can fold it so the handles go down and fold it somewhat into itself, however the shoulder module cannot be folded.

Now one issue about this that really bugs me is the exclusion of any type of quick release. Every time you want to put on and take off the camera, you have to screw it on (sometimes really tightly) and off. This can be critical in sports videography if you need to screw it off quickly (say for exchanging batteries or fixing something) and its quite unacceptable. It also bugs me that there is no way to rest it on the ground without it tipping over. Overall this is a decent product for the money ($174.99) however there may be better options out there.






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