Opteka X-Grip Professional Camera/Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle with Accessory Shoe for Flash, Mic, or Video Light (Black)

I love this thing! Use it with a canon vixia hf s10 and I rarely ever take the camera off. Gives great additional weight to a light weight camcorder, and adds extra stability control. There's another model without the sidebars, and it appears that the top may be angled down a little more than this model (based off pictures). I bought this model because I didn't want the top curved down, and thought the side bars might add for an extra hand grip or stationary stability. Some ppl complain about the bars digging into their palm while trying to hold the camcorder. I can see how this may be a problem, but if you move the camcorder as far right as possible in one of the sliding pegs, the issue should be resolved. I personally have never found having the bar against my palm to be an issue. It never hurt, and again, made for more stable control as I felt I was holding the camcorder and part of the X-Grip. I have a heavy duty L bracket as an additional attachment to it; fits nicely between the base and the side bars. (NOTE* If you unscrew and open up the base of the X-Grip, there's a thick threaded washer inside which you screw the clamp screw in and attach the camcorder on. I had an additional one of these washers made and placed inside, so I could slide the L bracket between the base and the side bars. ...It's a really sweet setup. Now, not only do I have the strap grip on the right for my camcorder, but the hand grip of the L bracket on the left which I use to attach my light. With a hand in both of those positions and the back of the X-Grip pressed against your shoulder, you get ultimate stability.) [Extra Note* If you add an additional washer and it's a plastic model with a threaded metal interior (like mine is) you may have to sand down the excess metal lip so that its even with that of the plastic washer and fits nicely in your X-Grip] BEST FEATURE! Even with the addition of the extra threaded washer and L bracket; I screw my tripod cap to the base (the tripod cap is perfect distance between the two side bars) and it still attaches to the tripod! I literally never have to take my camcorder off this thing! So whether you want the extra stability for hand held shots, or maybe your tripod isn't the best and you want some extra bars to grip and move; this is the best piece of equipment you can purchase. No Set up and tear down. Attach your camera and keep it on. Great price, and the most useful attachment piece yet. I'll attach pictures soon, once I figure out how.

I love this thing. It's much more than just a handle for low-angle skater shots. I use mine with a Canon Vixia HF-10, and I like that I can mount the camera forward, as you see in most of the product shots, or 90 degrees left so that the curved handle serves as more of a left-hand support for regular shooting... like a flash bracket that still photographers use. That's going to be my default setup. Since the camera mounting screw is in a little track that extends the length of the flat rubber area, the camera can be slid forward or backwards within the X-Grip before tightening. In my case, I slide it all the way forward, rotate it 90 degrees counter-clockwise, and the camera's video monitor has plenty of room to swing all the way out to the left without hitting the handle curve. The accessory bracket on top also rotates 360 degrees so the light/microphone can match the camera direction. My only complaint is related to the mounting knob below. I'm thrilled that it also has a female thread for mounting to a tripod or other standard-thread item. But the X-Grip's feet, the little skid things that it sits on, get in the way of my tripod head a little. I use a Manfrotto 501 pro tripod head with the large quick-release plate. If that plate is mounted directly underneath the X-Grip, then I can't slide the plate/X-Grip combo onto the tripod head without some serious force - too much to be practical. Fortunately, the solution was to disassemble the whole thing and add a single metal washer between the camera mount knob and the underside of the X-Grip, which caused the knob to hang just a fraction of an inch lower when the camera was fully tightened in place. This lowered the female tripod threads in relation to the skids just a bit, so that the "skids" were raised off of my tripod head just enough to be able to slide the release plate in place without much effort. Your mileage may vary with other tripods. If you try this, be careful not to use too thick a washer, since you're sacrificing the amount of threads that actually screw into your camera. This rig does not have the "two knob" type of camera mounting screw where you can set the screw depth with one knob and then tighten down with the other. On this, the depth you see is all you get. It's just right for my camera, but if your camera has an exceptionally shallow tripod-mounting hole, you may need to do the washer trick. Or if your rig is so heavy that you need more than 3/16"-1/4" or so of mounting thread to feel safe and secure, then the X-Grip may not be for you. The rubber platform that the camera sits on is great. It's actually about 1/4" thick, and good rubber - not just the cheesy little thin layer of neoprene left over from the mousepad factory. So if you need to crank down on the camera mounting knob, the camera settles into the rubber pretty securely. About the strength of the handle: more than enough. It's not totally rigid plastic. It's got a slight flex, so a heavy accessory on top might bounce up and down ever so slightly. I have a Rode NTG-2 mic up there on a shock mount, and I have no concerns about the flex. In fact, I prefer it. The plastic seems strong enough to support a pretty hefty camera rig, and I'll gladly take the "flexy" plastic over the harder, more brittle plastic that is more likely to shatter if dropped. That's it so far!

I don't use this product very often as I opt for my shoulder harness to shoot most of my motion video, but when a low perspective is required the Opteka X-GRIP Professional Camera / Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle works very well. As I am an over-enthusiastic photo/video enthusiast, this review will be written from the perspective of a man who loves toys, but knows there are limitations to my expertise. So professional video guys may not find what I say very useful. Observations: There is not much to a grip handle product so I really didn't expect much. The Opteka X-GRIP Professional Camera / Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle's adjustable screw plate attaches to my Canon EOS 7D Digital SLR Camera . The shoe attachment accommodates my NEEWER® 160 LED CN-160 Dimmable Digital Camera / Camcorder Video Light or my Rode VideoMic Condenser Microphone . So it functions as it is supposed to. Pros: The construction feels sturdy, but it is also lightweight The adjustable wedge plate works with compact video cams & DSLRs as well as larger cameras like the Canon GL2 MiniDV Digital Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom The cushion handle is nice in longer shooting situations where the hand might sweat a lot or get fatigued the rails on the bottom are rubber coated to ensure stability when placing unit on a surface Very reasonable price Easy to bring along on a shoot for just in case moments Cons: Would have preferred metal construction on the mounts since you are sometimes placing expensive equipment on it With larger camcorders the unit feels a bit off balance No matter what the cons might be, they simply cannot convince me to rate the Opteka X-GRIP Professional Camera / Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle with anything but five stars. The unit functions unpretentiously, but for the price, the unit works great and it can easily and inexpensively be added to anyone's camera equipment stash. I would highly recommend the Opteka X-GRIP Professional Camera / Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle for anyone who can spare the $20 to get it.

I will make this quick and easy to digest. 1) This product is great and the only reason it has four starts is because does not come with extra mounting equipment which is needed if you are outfitting this rig. 2) The soft U-shaped portions of this product does a good job and obsorbing vibrations, *but will not fix this issue buy mounts with shocks if you are using microphones and what not. 3) the unit by itself is light so that's a plus but as you will see in my photos you might want to have a harvest or smoothing to support the wight once you have your rig setup. With all the parts you will find that this can become a bit heavy over time and thus causing you to make shakie photos or videos. 4) Due to the unique bend of the device you will find multiple ways to hold it and that your shots will be steady not not shakie, This is providing that you are a person that is not shakie and can hold your arm out for a bit without an earthquake like response from you hand. If this is the case I would get a tripod and mount it to wheels and build my rig from that platform or get a shoulder mount. I hope this helps! All in all I would buy again. PS BUY EXTRA PARTS LIKE QUICK SHOES OR 1/4'' SCREWS THAT WILL ALLOW YOU TO MOUNT TO THE BASE.

Bought this off Amazon, but have to say, you can get it slightly cheaper here than other store fronts...and lemme tell, it's the best, most inexpensive accessory a videographer can ever own. My set up is using a Canon Vixia G30, but I mount the camera sideways on the open side, to have a free hand available to adjust the zoom lever. This is on the right (open) side, facing out. Then I hold the handlebar curve with the left hand, and VOILA!!! I have a very inexpensive grip bar for my camcorder. Then I can either mount a boom/shotgun mic or LED light on the hotshoe mount above, depending on the setting I need it for. It not makes long form videoing very easy and comfortable, and a lot more steady for professional-grade video work. I can even swing or pivot with the camera with a high degree of steadiness now. Best of all, if you use the flip screen on a camcorder, the design of the grip bar sort of protects that flip screen a bit. It's light, feels fairly sturdy, and best of all it's relatively compact and easy to move around in small or crowded spaces...and since it's not strapped to your body, you don't have to worry about being a klutz and banging into walls or barriers. Only negatives are that: 1) If you DO use a touch capable flip screen, having that bar in the way can impede your hand touching said screen. The Canon Vixia G30 has workarounds to that (you can use the toggle joystick instead), but when you're filming and you need to make quick adjustments, you have to factor that in since you'll have to take your left hand off of the bar when you do this. 2) The hotshoe mount can get very difficult to loosen if you tighten it down too much...which for accessories you mount there, you definitely have to tighten them down, as they will get loose if you move around as much as I have to. But aside from those 2 minor complaints, this is still and excellent tool every videography should have in their arsenal.

This is a strange grip/mount. I bought it for a couple of cameras that have proprietary hot shoes and therefore wouldn't allow me to use a somewhat universal aftermarket light. I had/have no intention of using it as a skateboard or snowboard camera mount (which it's really designed for). My hope was that it could be used oriented either forward or sideways to make use of the hot shoe, but the vertical grip has such a curve that it's awkward to grip from the side. It's difficult to explain in a written review, but I'll just say that the top horizontal grip is straight, easy to hold, and actually has finger grooves, but the vertical C-shaped grip is not. My two other complaints are minor, but I'll mention them just so others can decide if this grip will work for them or not. First, the skeletonized cutout at the bottom for infinite camera mounting is a little unnecessary and actually results in mounting difficulty in mounting a camera with a irregular bottom (like my Sony NEX). The camera actually sinks a bit into the rubber and the large gap they carved into the mount. Second, the material being lightweight and somewhat flexible results in a lot of play with a heavy light on top and poor balance. With my light mounted on this, it really wants to tip over, and you can actually watch the top handle sag a little when you put it down on a table or on the ground. For twenty bucks, this is a great handle for low perspective video recording of skating, skateboard tricks, skiing, or snowboarding. Unfortunately, I think it's a one-trick pony. It does not work well being used as a more conventional grip for a front or side-mounted DSLR and a hot shoe light of any size or weight.

I purchase three of these and use them in conjunction with the Giottos MH621 Quick Release Adapter with Short Sliding Plate camera mount and the Opteka VB-30 Video Accessory Shoe Tripler Bracket. The Accessory Shoe for Flash, Mic, or Video Light is junk. It's plastic and will break if you look at it with your eyes crossed. When I went to the company website to purchase additional accessory shoes it was have the price i paid for the complete product and it really didn't provide me the ability to mount a mic, light and lapel mic. My solution was to purchase the Opteka VB-30 Video Accessory Shoe Tripler Bracket and go to a machine shop and have the retro fitted to mount on the top of the Opteka X-Grip. The Opteka VB-30 Video Accessory Shoe Tripler Bracket has some bad reviews and okay reviews. I found the reviews to be helpful and fairly accurate. The problem is if you loosen the adjustment the screws you will not get the screw to go back in tight and things will move around. The problem is that the screws are to long and forced in at the factory. I forgot the term use to describe this type of tightening. The fix I used was to take my Opteka X-GRIP Professional Camera / Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle and my Opteka VB-30 Video Accessory Shoe Tripler Bracket to a local machine shop where I paid a machinist to cut down the screws and cut off the bottom piece and mount this to the top of my Opteka X-GRIP Professional Camera / Camcorder Action Stabilizing Handle. I gave the machinist $10 a each of my three units a total of $30 for all three of my set ups. My mounts are solid as a rock and work perfectly. I know I could sell these outfitted versions here on amazon and be making money hand over fist. This works better than expected, but only because of the customization.

Bought this to steady my coffee hands for filming skateboarding and music festivals. It's steady my camera quite a bit and I gave it one extra star because the mount is solid and my expensive camera fits securely when mounted. There's no movement when the bottom is screwed tightly and I appreciate the fact my camera won't fly off this mount while filming. As for the looks, the green is brilliant and gives your camera some personality. I put stickers around the bottom arms and people ask if I work for a film company. It's slim enough it'll fit into a small backpack; the plastic is thick and won't break easily (legs on the mount). The XGrip is quality and spongy; it doesn't crumble when used like other cheap grips. The bottom of the unit has rubber on the legs for extra dampening along with the rubber under the camera mount. While your camera is mounted on this stabilizer, it can also be mounted to a regular tripod (although that might look funny, the option is available). Used this mount for over six months and it's held up remarkably well. Overall, I think it's a good purchase. Note: The items I'm mounting to this action grip are a panasonic tm90k, sony bloggie and canon powershot 1200. All very small in size and I recommend a bigger action mount for giant devices. :)