You have a camera.  You want some accessories to make your shooting experience easier.  Most camera manufacturers want you to buy only their accessories – but the truth is there are a LOT of great 3rd party manufacturers that can save you money on your overall camera rig cost.  The dollars add up quickly to save you hundreds – if not thousands of dollars…  As a DP who primarily shoots on the RED Epic, buying the right 3rd party accessory can save me several hundred dollars just on one specific camera part so I try to choose carefully when buying new gear.

baseproductionpackRecently, I decided to try to shave as much weight as possible from my handheld rig configuration.  Up until then, I had a lot of parts from the RED One days including the original RED base production pack (base plate for bottom rail attachment, shoulder mount, etc) which were all primarily machined out of steel.  Sturdy but heavy.  Of all of the parts that I could replace on my rig, I decided that the base plate and top rods (currently aluminum rods) would be the most cost effective way to shave the most weight.  I have some other things I can replace but the cost vs weight savings greatly diminishes with them – so that will be down the line.

If you don’t want to read about this experience and just want to skip to the list of 3rd party manufacturers, scroll down to the end of this blog post…

 

The things I looked for:  Good Design, Rod Support, Light Weight, and Low Cost

Out of all the research I did, I narrowed it down to the following contenders:

 

For quick reference, the following links give a reference as to the potential cost savings…

 

The evaluation.z-cgb

I wrote-off the Zacuto baseplate pretty quickly.  The overall design just really didn’t do it for me.  I didn’t like the idea of having to use a hex tool to release one of the front rods and a lot of the design points that might be benefits for some simply didn’t fit my needs.  I also wasn’t crazy about the sliding part for tripod mounting.  The design seemed sturdy enough and will probably be great for a lot of people that are buying their camera accessories for the first time.  I, however, had a lot of accessories already existing in my kit that I needed the new base plate to work with and Zacuto’s baseplate really didn’t fit the bill.

CIMG0301Next up was the Berkey System baseplate.  I honestly loved this item and really wanted to make it work.  Again, I ran into some issues when it came to compatibility with my existing parts like handles, mattebox, and follow focus.  All of my parts (again from the RED One days) are 19mm rods with studio spacing.  The Berkey baseplate is designed for the now popular 15mm accessory size.  As I was not only trying to shave weight off the rig but also save as much money as possible during the process, it just wasn’t in the cards for me on this run but I love a lot of the products Berkey is making…

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I should note that I did find a solution that would make the Berkey Systems baseplate work with my accessories – which was a 15mm to 19mm block adapter that I found on ebay for $25 – but when crunching the final logistics, I found that my final solution was the most compatible and reduced the weight of my camera rig by the greatest amount.

ginirig baseplateA bit to my surprise, GiniRigs, was the best solution to fit my needs.  Their baseplate included a dovetail and clocked in at $299 before shipping costs.  Some of my reservations came from a general lack of product pictures, information on the website, and having not really heard anything positive over the years about their products.  Still, I did my due diligence and was pretty well researched on the various products available.  It is fully compatible with my 19mm camera accessories (follow focus, handles, mattebox) and looked solid.  The only thing that even remotely lacking is a quick release for the dovetail attachment – instead, the rear knobs loosen allowing the baseplate to quickly slide off.  It doesn’t really slow down my on-set work flow and the cost savings really makes it worthwhile.

Upon checkout, I found a few things that I didn’t catch with my initial research.  Despite the website name “GiniRigs-USA.com”, the items are not shipped from within the US.  This is actually clearly stated in the FAQ section of their website and I just missed it initially.  In general, I prefer to purchase from companies that are US based whenever buying a product that I think has a chance of being returned for a refund if it doesn’t work how I need it to.  This has developed from having some returned packages lost in the mail over the years when returning a product to a manufacturer overseas.  As a result of GiniRigs international shipping, the shipping cost was also higher than some domestic shipping costs would be ($40 roughly) but it still worked out to be the best solution logistically.  The pleasant surprise was how quickly I received the product.  I placed the order on Thursday night and received it Monday morning.  That’s faster than ground shipping from California to the East Coast and probably about the same cost as I would have paid to get 2nd day air from coast to coast shipping.  Two thumbs up for that!  Upon receiving it, I was quite happy with the quality of manufacturing and glad I took the chance on the GiniRigs purchase (*a product review will be posted in the near future with a more in-depth look at the baseplate and dovetail rig).

At the end of the day, I shaved about 3lbs off of my handheld rig for under $350.

 

If you are looking for 3rd Party Accessories, this list might help (listed in alphabetical order):

  • 16×9
  • Adorama (not a 3rd party manufacturer – but sells a ton of gear similar to B&H)
  • Berkey System (Rods, blocks, base plates, and more.  Incredible customer service)
  • B&H Photo (not a 3rd party manufacturer – great website for navigation and sorting results.  one of my favs)
  • Cavision
  • Cinema Gadgets (I don’t think they’re a 3rd party mfg – but they have some harder to find parts sometimes)
  • Cinema Oxide (primarily RED accessories but not exclusively.  I use several of their products)
  • Cineroid (mostly EVF and Loupe products – but has a handful of other accessories)
  • Cinevate (slider, jibs, dollies, camera rigs and more)
  • Dana Dolly  (versatile camera movement – not quite a dolly, not quite a slider)
  • Ebay (an unexpected choice at times but I’ve found some great and/or hard to find parts on there)
  • Element Technica  (high end 3rd party accessories)
  • FilmTools  (the place to go for a lot of grip gear but has a massive amount of other items, as well.)
  • GiniRigs  (manufacturing a lot of rig kits for various camera models)
  • Indie Film Tech  (carbon fiber rods)
  • Kessler  (manufacturing an array of camera solutions)
  • Long Valley Equipment  (not a large number of products – but good quality and good pricing.  I’ve been using their dolly for years)
  • Merlin Dolly
  • RED.com  (the manufacturer for the RED  camera and RED accessories)
  • RedRock Micro (well established – providing a good mix between quality and price point.  I own one of their matteboxes)
  • Zacuto – (very well established – especially with DSLR accessories.)

*Note – this isn’t every single 3rd party manufacturer out there.  I will continue to update this list as I remember them or come across them.  Feel free to post website links to manufacturers in the comments section below.

 

Also, I feel the need to point out that Berkey System provided some of the most outstanding customer service I have ever experienced.  I e-mailed a few questions about the products available around 1:30am before closing out my day and had a reply waiting for me when I woke up that was sent only a few hours later around 5am.  But that’s not the amazing part, in addition to the prompt response, the e-mail contained a link to a private youtube video that was quickly created to show me a few comparisons, how the item worked, the weight of it on a scale – all with verbal narration explaining what I was looking at.  I was blown away.  By taking that extra step, it eliminated a lot of follow up questions that I had and left me very impressed by the whole experience.