Hands-on review: the Benro Snoppa VMate Camera
Benro is known for its tripods and binaries, but this is the number one camera. It's a compact, smart, digital device on two axes small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. He smashed Indiegogo 'goal and is now available for purchase.
We'll go back: if you're not a filmmaker, you might not be familiar with the pivot. It's essentially a modern alternative to the Steadicam - a great tool that carefully balances a portable video camera with weights to smooth out movements on all axes.
Instead, the gimbal detects even small movements and uses motors to quickly create an opposing movement that cancels them out. The resulting shots are much smoother than just using the camera's built-in image stabilization.
Gimbals have gotten a lot better - and much smaller - in recent years, and some are now extremely small and affordable. So it's not just for budding filmmakers. If you want to shoot skiing or playing parkour, you will shoot with a stabilizer. In fact, they are taking advantage of powerful compact cameras like the GoPro as their favorite pocket tool for capturing action.
Gimbal mobile devices are affordable and are a bit like non-extended selfie sticks. They add a handle to your phone. But you have to balance the phone perfectly on top by adjusting its position in two or three axes. Then turning the phone on and off is a pain as it always needs to be calibrated again.
What we love about the Benro Snoppa VMate is that it's instantly ready to use. You don't need a phone at all, everything is built-in. However, the square touch screen is tiny at 3 cm (measured diagonally) so you can optionally install your phone instead: VMate connects to your phone wirelessly and Snoppa gives you touch screen controls to pivot. The pairing is done simply via a Wi-Fi direct connection and there is no hard physical setup since the phone does not need to be balanced: it sits securely but you simply use it for the bigger screen.
Benro is known for its tripods and binaries, but this is the number one camera. It's a compact, smart, and digital device on two axes small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. He smashed Indiegogo 'goal and is now available for purchase.
We'll go back: if you're not a filmmaker, you might not be familiar with the pivot. It's basically a modern alternative to the Steadicam - a great tool that carefully balances a portable video camera and weights to smooth out the motions on all axes.
Instead, the pivot detects even small motions and uses motors to create the opposite movement at speed that cancels it. The resulting shots are much smoother than just using the camera's built-in image stabilization.
Gimbals have gotten a lot better - and a lot smaller - in recent years, and some are now extremely small and affordable. So it's not just for budding filmmakers. If you want to shoot skiing or play parkour, you'll shoot with stabilizer. In fact, they are taking advantage of powerful compact cameras like the GoPro as their favorite pocket tool for capturing action.
Gimbal laptops are affordable and are a bit like non-extended selfie sticks. They add a handle to your phone. But you have to balance the phone completely on top by repositioning it in two or three axes. Then turning the phone on and off is a pain as it always needs to be calibrated again.
What we love about the Benro Snoppa VMate is that it's instantly ready to use. You don't need a phone at all, everything is built-in. However, the square touch screen is tiny at 3cm (measured diagonally) so you can optionally install your phone instead: VMate connects to your phone wirelessly and Snoppa gives you touch controls to spin. The pairing is done simply via Wi-Fi direct and there is no difficult physical setup because the phone does not need to be balanced: it sits securely but you are simply using it for the bigger screen.
0 Comments