FS7: New Smallrig EVF NATO bar option

[bengiles]

Ben, I have the WC system and I find that if I tighten the arm so that the VF NATO rail does not slip the arm is so tight that when I go to reposition the VF up or down it torques the entire cross bar and as a result my camera mic is titled upwards or titled downwards. Do you find the same with the system you are running? When you want to raise or lower the position of the VF, do you loosen the ratcheted wing nut or are you able to have the tension to where you can reposition the VF without having to loosen and retighten the ratcheted wing nut, AND have the VF remain solidly at whatever height you position it?

Are you able to position the VF parallel to the lens without having to loosen anything? That would be nice for storing the camera in its case. As it is now, with the WC system, the VF is always perpendicular to the lens and that makes the VF more likely to suffer damage when in my soft-sided camera bag.

Sorry, in haste:

Yes, the friction is set and forget and it's adjustable enough for constant smooth friction.

Storage - I remove the loupe and the screen folds nicely under the arm, to go in the bag.

 

[bengiles]

Having stated earlier that Small Rig is great I'll say that they are quite clueless when it comes to actual camera world needs. They are not a real camera gear company. You can tell by looking at their numerous FS7 baseplates for example - none of them follows any standard when it comes to optical axis to rods spacing, each one seems to have a completely different and random spacing. I guess that's what happens when a company is open to customers' designs, I just wish they filtered them better and made necessary tweaks to keep standards. But parts are quite well made and look ok aesthetically, overall I have to say that I like them.

The hidden but probably the most important quality factor is the quality of the alloy used. There's a huge difference between good and bad aluminum alloys...

I'm consistently delighted by the quality of what they produce and have yet to use anything of theirs to destruction. It all just works and its certainly cheap enough to try ideas out. All bought on Amazon, delivered next day, and they're happy to take returns. But I'm not an expert metallurgist