Anyone use the E-Image MOTUS22?

Tim Nitsch

Tim Nitsch

Well-known member
I'm in the market for a new set of sticks and I stumbled across E-Image's MOTUS22 which seems to take a lot of cues from the O'Conner 1030 series, but I can't find any reviews on it anywhere.

Anyone have any experience with it, I'm really curious to know if it's any good.

I always considered the E-Image brand as a bit on the cheaper side, but I've only really been hearing good things about them lately.
 
Don't know anything about that brand, but when it comes to tripods and heads, I stick with the "big boys". I replaced my first set of sticks(Carbon Fiber Vintens) after about 10 years in with a set of Sachtler CF Speedlocks and they are still rocking strong after almost 14 years. And they haven't given me any reason to think that they won't last another 14 or more. And for the last few years, I've recommended Sachtler/Vinten/Oconnor Flowtechs to anyone that asks (or will listen). The Flowtechs are the best sticks I've ever owned.
 
E-Image has lousy inspectors and quality control issues, at least on their more budget product range. Last year I bought an E-Image EG05A2 set of sticks with a GH05 head, the sticks were fine, but I went through two lemon sets in which the head made a metal on metal scraping sound when panning, and they both had a "passed inspection" card. See this thread for more details.

I haven't used the high-end expensive tripods, so I can't comment on how well or poorly E-Image compares to them. E-Image might be an okay option if you don't need it right away, and can spend months on end shipping back lemons until you get a good copy.
 
There's an old saying, that can be applied to many things, "Buy once, cry once". Meaning instead of trying to save a little money and take a chance with less expensive and quite possibly lesser(inferior) gear and all that may come with that(breakage, poor performance, warranty replacements, fixes, buying something to replace it, etc.), you buy the good stuff that may cost more, the first time, and be done with it. But playing devils advocate, the 2nd tier and knock-off stuff is better than it used to be, with advances in manufacturing and the "knock-off" companies having plenty of time to study and reverse engineer things, too.

Maybe tripods aren't as important as they once were with lighter and cheaper cameras, but I still use cameras than can easily exceed 30lbs and some still pushing over $75K(with glass), so I still lean towards the likes of Sachtler and Vinten to safely support them.

And following up on what Imamacuser brought up with exchanging bad/defective gear... Lord help you if you get into an exchange situation that involves B&H, now. You're looking at a month, if they have the replacement in-stock.
 
I agree with the sentiment, but it doesn't apply in all cases. I could say everyone should spend $20K on a set of sticks and a head, buy once cry once. The problem is that people don't necessarily have a spare $20K burning a hole in their pocket, and that kind of investment might not be worth it for someone who doesn't end up making video production their lifetime career.

I would equate buying cheap gear to the concept of a mortgage, in which you pay more overtime to purchase something that you can't currently afford to buy outright. With cheap gear you might buy a few iterations of cheap stuff that has to be replaced every 10 years, or one cheap thing that gets you by until you can buy the expensive stuff, in each case paying less up front and more over time.

If a kid starts out in video production with a little mirrorless camera, he/she doesn't need a huge tripod that can counter balance 30 lbs. Cheap gear of decent quality helps people incrementally advance. To be clear, I'm not advocating the cheapest garbage on Amazon, but rather mid-range products & diamond-in-the-rough products that have good genuine reviews, not the fake YouTube reviews with self interest affiliate links.

Well that turned into a bit of a rant, I wasn't directing it at Run&Gun specifically, as I think we're on the same page, and I was mainly trying to point out that the maxim needs to be considered in light of a person's situation.
 
I'm not accusing anyone here of doing this, but I remember first starting out in video and occasionally coming across some grizzled veteran on various forums saying things like you needed to spend at least $5K on a serious pair of sticks, otherwise you were just wasting your time, and how their $10K Miller/Cartoni/Whatever sticks had been with them since the first Bush administration and if you bought cheap sticks you were a fool.

I know we joke about it but that kind of sentiment is extraordinarily good at making people who are just starting out—or who come from a place of being unable to lay out the cost of a decent used car on camera support—feel unwelcome.

Coincidentally, I have a friend who took some of that advice quite literally and bought a set of $10K or $12K sticks. He owned a Nikon DSLR as his sole camera at the time. In all his years of owning the sticks I don't think he's used them once.

Anyway—I think it's fair to say buy the best sticks you can afford for your needs (which aren't always the most expensive sticks).

As for the E-image, I have the GH05 head and it's been totally fine so far. I don't use it for anything challenging but I'm very happy with it for the price.
 
Elite tripods only matter if you're panning a lot and/or need precise precision for your movements, especially extreme or critical ones.

Otherwise many of us like myself just use a $50 one from Best Buy.
 
No, you do need to weigh things out (no pun intended), because it doesn't make sense to put a 2lb DSLR/Mirrorless cam with a kit kens on a $5K-$10K head and tripod(unless you already own it)(but even then, it may be too much for the little lightweight cam). But in this instance, the tripod that the OP was asking about looks like it's intended for medium-to-larger camera set-ups, at which point I would defiantly put the higher-end brands in-play. And is he looking for head and legs or just legs?

I know we're starting to go down a rabbit hole and away from the OP's question, but eBay can be a gold mine of great, high-quality, high-end gear for a fraction of new prices. Especially "broadcast" support gear, because all of the "cine" kids thumb their noses at it and only want Sachtler and O'connor, so gems from Vinten go for next to nothing(I picked-up a $9K head/$6K ped combo for $3K. Pampered in a studio its whole life). There are lots of 100LF head/leg sets on eBay right now for around $2K (about half of what that E-Image set is selling for new)(Side note: Unless the images they are posting of the E Image are wrong, that's a two-stage tripod, not three).
 
NorBro said:
Elite tripods only matter if you're panning a lot and/or need precise precision for your movements, especially extreme or critical ones.

Otherwise many of us like myself just use a $50 one from Best Buy.
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It's not just movement, it's overall reliability, too. Who cares if I can buy 100 copies of some "cheap" set of sticks for one pair of "great" ones, if they break while I'm using them and they ruin the shoot and/or the gear gets trashed too, how much money did I really save?
 
Run&Gun said:
It's not just movement, it's overall reliability, too. Who cares if I can buy 100 copies of some "cheap" set of sticks for one pair of "great" ones, if they break while I'm using them and they ruin the shoot and/or the gear gets trashed too, how much money did I really save?
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It's all open to interpretation...I think the weight point is the most important.

Mostly used setups less than 5lbs my entire life and have never broken a cheap tripod or feared it breaking.

But when I had a 20lb+ URSA I had to buy once and cry a few times.
 
drboffa said:
I'm not accusing anyone here of doing this, but I remember first starting out in video and occasionally coming across some grizzled veteran on various forums saying things like you needed to spend at least $5K on a serious pair of sticks, otherwise you were just wasting your time, and how their $10K Miller/Cartoni/Whatever sticks had been with them since the first Bush administration and if you bought cheap sticks you were a fool.

I know we joke about it but that kind of sentiment is extraordinarily good at making people who are just starting out—or who come from a place of being unable to lay out the cost of a decent used car on camera support—feel unwelcome.

Coincidentally, I have a friend who took some of that advice quite literally and bought a set of $10K or $12K sticks. He owned a Nikon DSLR as his sole camera at the time. In all his years of owning the sticks I don't think he's used them once.

Anyway—I think it's fair to say buy the best sticks you can afford for your needs (which aren't always the most expensive sticks).

As for the E-image, I have the GH05 head and it's been totally fine so far. I don't use it for anything challenging but I'm very happy with it for the price.
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With all due respect, I disagree. I've always said, "If you don't want to hear the answer, don't ask the question". If someone asks a question, I feel I should give them my honest answer, that in-part, has been formed by years of working in this industry and things I have seen first hand and especially when it comes to gear, as someone who has bought almost every single piece of it themselves. Just because the advice given may not be what someone wants to hear, doesn't make it bad advice or mean it shouldn't be given and it's most certainly not intended to scare someone away or make them feel unwelcome. And I feel that I actually offered a very friendly piece of advice: an alternative that could save the OP money and more than likely net them a better quality piece of equipment.
 
NorBro said:
It's all open to interpretation...I think the weight point is the most important.

Mostly used setups less than 5lbs my entire life and have never broken a cheap tripod or feared it breaking.

But when I had a 20lb+ URSA I had to buy once and cry a few times.
Click to expand...

And there is knowing where the advise/point of view is coming from. I'm coming from the perspective of someone who is almost always putting a fairly heavy set-up on a tripod, even if it is locked-off. So, I'm not the best person to comment on a tripod whose intended use is only supporting a camera that is only a few pounds and/or locked-off. I'm usually going to err on the side of caution when it comes to cam support. None of us want to just spend oodles of money, especially now, but when it comes to things like that and the job I'm tasking it with, I like to go with a known quantity.
 
I started video with a Handycam on a Slik U-9000 tripod, what a piece of garbage, it was short, and the center column crank broke on the first use. I then upgraded to a Davis & Sanford FM18 head and an old Calumet tripod that my Dad used with his 4x5 view camera back in the day. The whole thing weighed 15 lb, but it could go over 6' and support and elephant.

The Davis & Sanford FM18 was fine for my purposes, aside from lacking counter balance and starting to leak grease after 10 years. It's been relegated to my video monopod now.
 
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