Gadgetory

tiffen the creators of the original Steadicam plus the Kickstarter campaign to fund their Steadicam bolt a drastically different stabilizer for your smartphone or GoPro and it seems like a lot of people are interested because it got one thousand one hundred percent funded but is it any good we're about to find out don't forget to Like comment and subscribe and you can check out to my other videos here after you're done watching this video and stay tuned because I'm also gonna help you out with the setup process the Steadicam bolt currently retails for 199 and if you're interested in picking this product up I'll have a link at the description below the packaging on the Steadicam Volt is very nice first you slide off the outer sleeve and then you lift the lid you'll first see the instruction manual in a soft shell carrying case you'll then find seven magnetic counterweights and they are used to calibrate the Steadicam bolt you'll then find the two rechargeable batteries and you'll find their charging cradle a new microUSB cable you can use any wall word or USB sod on your computer to charge them the lights on the Creator will flash red while charging and then flash blue when their batteries are fully charged the vol comes pre-installed with a cradle that will hold most smartphones but you also get an adapter to attach a GoPro overall the packaging is great and if you don't spring for the hard shell carrying case you can always just use the box okay so we're gonna set up the Steadicam bolt so you're gonna get this and you're gonna unfold it you can just open that up okay you're gonna notice that the body has this brace I'm gonna tell you right now from experience get rid of it it's useless and all it does it gets in the way and it even was your shot sometimes so you can just slide that off and get rid of that goodbye okay alright now we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna open this up alright so you should have something like this now make sure that the switch is powered off alright now we're gonna go to the bottom I'm gonna slide that open and throw in your batteries make sure it's turned off or else this thing is gonna start spinning like crazy alright now we're gonna grab your phone now for reference this is an iPhone 6s completely naked no screen protector no wraps nothing I like to I like to you want to get it as centered as possible there's going to be a little indicator here telling you what their center is just Center it as best as you can and last before we go into the next step you're gonna notice there's a knob down here make sure it's all the way down at one all right so if you have every use of three being three being scale you should have some experience with what we're about to do now this is normal this is fine okay this is we're gonna calibrate this you are going to grab the Steadicam bolt hold it like this and you're gonna let go oh no that's completely normal if this happens you're going to go and look for your counter weights one of these counter weights that's going to have some threading on it you're going to go ahead and screw that in okay now that the counter balance is screwed in you're gonna do the same thing hold it like this and it's still gonna go up if that happens that's still perfectly fine you're gonna go and grab some counter balance here I have four no actually three four total of four counter balances just gonna slap that on and do the same thing so the goal is is to keep this flat okay so it's going down alright if we take one counter balance off and we do the same thing you're gonna notice it's gonna go up so that means we're gonna get this counter balance put it back on and now we're going to adjust the knob so we're just gonna slap here we go here we go again and perfect this is exactly what you want you want the the best estate balance if it turns from side to side that's normal and we can just tune that up okay just keep playing around with the knob until you've got something like this if that happens you're halfway there next up you're going to hold it like this now this if this happens you're going to go to this knob here if it goes back you want to bring your phone forward a little bit about me this is as good as you're going to get it now if you've balanced your phone correctly then you're then this is going to stay pretty steady but if your phone isn't perfectly centered let's say like this this is gonna start happening it's gonna start going off to the side if that happens just play around with your phone in until you can get it perfectly balanced I've been messing around with this thing for a little bit now so I'm actually pretty good at setting this up on the first try here we go this is as good as I'm gonna get now once you power on the device don't worry this is normal okay just grab onto it and you are set to go okay oh the Steadicam bullet is made mostly out of plastic in ways just one pound but after shooting with it for over an hour you get a killer shoulder workout like I said earlier the Steadicam bolt is only compatible with smartphones and some GoPros unfortunately you can't attach a point-and-shoot camera which is the letdown for the price point there are only two buttons on the device itself there's an on/off by an endo button to switch between sport mode and movie mode one of those in a second on a full charge the Steadicam bolt will last you eight hours in order to charge the device you have to take out the batteries and place them into charging cradle I just find it odd that you can't charge the vote directly through all built-in micro USB port but unlike other stabilizers the Steadicam bolt doesn't require you to use an app to operate it but you can't download an image maker and it's a third party camera app that basically gives you more control settings over your camera shots taken with the Steadicam fold or noticeably smoother but keep in mind my iPhone 6s plus does help smooth out the video since this has optical image stabilization but you will notice the shots taken with the votes stay on the horizon better and there's much less wobbling but even with the Volt you will notice them undulating in the video there are no controls on the vault itself if you just hold on to the handle your phone or GoPro will stay true to the direction it's facing but if you want to move the camera you just have to hold on to the main body of the bolt and move your hand or you can just manually adjust it steady can't suggest you use two hands but you can get away with just using one hand but using the Steadicam bolt requires a very gentle touch the main selling point steadicam points out about the vote over more popular three access gimble's like the smooth queue is that the vote allows for fluid and much faster panning movements on the camera since you can manually adjust the camera you'll be able to keep up with the action better than with the slower joystick controls to move the queue but to be honest I did find myself missing a joystick for certain shots here and there the Steadicam vote makes it very easy to adjust the pitch of your camera you literally just set and go like I said earlier there are two modes to the book there's your default sport mode where basically there's more friction on the system and then there's movie mode where essentially there's less friction on the system if you tap the system it's going to send the camera gliding whereas if I were to do the same thing in sport mode you're gonna notice the camera comes to a stop much sooner in the hands of somebody with more experience movie mode can be used to capture some awesome shots but for me I just keep it a sport mode even though the Steadicam boat does a great job of keeping your camera steady you have to be mindful of your movements if you move too much either the gimbal system will snag your hand will hit the counterbalance or your hand will hit the main body of the unit and it's gonna ruin your shot if you move the system too fast the pitch is gonna start to change but the biggest issue I noticed with the Steadicam both is that this system does not do well in windy environments basically your phone becomes a sail and if it gets hit by a gust when the camera will start to move making it useless for video recording for the most part people who look into getting a stabilizer for their flown or GoPro are usually going to be daily vlogging so they're going to want to get shots of themselves and then quickly switch the subject matter in front of them the Steadicam boat makes it very hard to film yourself with the back facing camera due to the counterbalance on the front you have to get creative with how you hold the device unless you're fine with using the front-facing camera on your phone the Steadicam volt is better suited for capturing shots of subject matter in front of you then of yourself and paying $200 to get stabilized shots with your phone is a bit steep and if you're looking into getting this because you're trying to produce higher quality videos it's safe to assume you're either using a DSLR or mirrorless camera I mean don't get me wrong phones these days have great video quality it's how I got started with this channel but using a dedicated camera really has its perks I feel the Steadicam volt it's too expensive for the average Joe and I feel it's lacking in features and capabilities for someone with a bit more experience to be honest I'm not a fan of the Steadicam volt for starters that 8 hour battery life is too short compared to other gimbals out there offering 12 hours of battery life at a cheaper price and in my testing I haven't been able to get anywhere near an 8 hour battery life the lack of physical controls means one-handed operation requires a lot of dexterity or you have to use two hands instead and there's no built-in shutter button which means you have to press the phone screen and readjust the Volt again every single time you start recording and if you're not mindful of your movements you'd then risk messing up your shots for $200 I feel the Steadicam volts should have built-in physical buttons and give you the option to operate it with a joystick for minor movements or single-handed operation and let you manually move it for fast and fluid shots and I feel that should be compatible with certain pointing shoots and mirrorless cameras and I would have also liked if it had much larger batteries for a longer battery life and not to mention better quality materials but I feel the Steadicam Volt as is should have been priced at around $100 and marketed as a simpler and cheaper alternative to current more popular 3-axis gimbal systems on the market hey if you enjoyed the video please like and subscribe it helps out more than you realize for more product reviews and deal alerts check out Jim Carrey that net if you want us to port the channel pick up a shirt and I'll catch you next time