Request for Feedback from Gini Rig Users

M

MonsterTheory

New member
Hi,

I was thinking about taking the dive on a Gini Rig.

Specifically this one

http://cgi.ebay.com/DSLR-RIG-EXTREME-17-PLUS-/250818598279?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a65f41587

I heard there were concerns regarding the front-heaviness of his rigs and given the size of this rig in question, I wanted to know how have you guys been coping. Have you guys noticed? Found solutions?

I've seen user "stefanos" post that he bought the exact same rig but there is no way to message him to see how he likes it.

Any other thoughts? other than the brick of a shoulder pad and the potential for poor customer service?

Thanks
 
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I bought a similar one previously. The build quality is excellent, especially for the price. Mine is pretty front heavy and the shoulder pad is not the greatest. However, I bought mine before he came out with his counter weight. I imagine that would balance the rig out a bit.

The rods are great, the clamps are great, the handles are great, although, mine are different:
View attachment 34037.

I just need to get mine balanced and maybe figure out a better shoulder pad situation. The price is what makes the whole thing very worthwhile. Any competitive rig with that huge amount of parts and quality would costs thousands and they would probably have their own issues. On another note: I wish I had more 90* clamps to make the rig even more modular. That's probably the best part of the gini rigs, the fact that you can pretty much customize them in any way you see fit.

EDIT: I totally forgot, the baseplate that comes with your rig (and mine) doesn't work great when you've got a battery grip on the bottom of your camera and the top handle on the rig. The cage piece just barely clears the top of the camera. I had a mini bubble level in my hotshoe and it wont fit underneath the cage arm when I'm using the battery grip.

Gini does have a much more interesting baseplate that occasionally shows up on his rigs--the hummer baseplate. It's low profile and I believe you can mount it with a rod at 90* somewhat similar to the Zacuto Gorilla baseplate. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.
 
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I have received the attached gini rig recently that includes a counterweight.
The quality is top notch. It is quite heavy on the shoulder however and a softer shoulder pad would have been welcome. But it is no longer front heavy with the counterweight.
I suspect it will be heavy to use on a long shooting day.

Another thing to notice if you order from them is that they ship with UPS. This implies quite expensive shipping costs and 100% certainty to pay customs taxes in your country. I have ended up paying 2x the price of the rig because of shipping+customs.
The seller could have used a signed for postal service and this would have surely been much less expensive for me (first time that I get charged for customs clearance for an item shipped from overseas, and I have bought a lot of items lately).
 

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Thanks for the input guys.

Based on your advice, I requested to purchase additional 90 degree clamps and the hummer baseplate. I hope he understands what I'm trying to do before he ships it.

Any of you guys found a suitable shoulder pad replacement? I was thinking about this one from cinecity which I saw somebody using but I'm not sure how I will attach the counter weights if I do get it. I also heard that you have to contact them directly in order to get the should pad only and not not the front handles which I won't need.

http://www.thecinecity.com/eshop/product.php?productid=362&cat=3&page=1

I also requested that he attempt to reduce value declared on the package so I don't get ding'd that harshly on customs.

Anyways, if anybody else wants to say a few lines about their experience it'd be appreciated!

Thanks.
 
I think that gini has a nice silicone shoulder pad too on older versions that has holes for rods. You could ask him to ship that to you.
As for customs forms, the declared value on mine was $50. However, because of the weight and the fact that it was a camera accessory (they have opened the package at the customs and made questions) they made me pay taxes on a higher value, because they didn't believe the invoice from gini...
 
Hi, I got the gini extreme plus and as I've posted elsewhere, I am a happy bunny. Don't hesitate. I PM'd you more details. But in summary, amazing price, amazing product. He replaced 2 more expensive handles i asked for at no charge even though he didn't reply to message when i opened box they were there. I payed 20$ tax as he declared lower value at my request. not bad. I'm impressed and I'm thinking on buying one of the cheaper rigs to use just for parts:) I got the extreme plus for 515$ with a buy it now of 2000$. If you feel like a laugh go over to zacuto's site, look at what 500$ buy you, compare it the extreme plus rig :)

*random to kostas: ellinara! gurnaw ellada athina avrio gia kalokairi, an meneis athina kai exeis oreksi gia geek talk kai eksoplismous steile mou pm :)
 
Hi guys, also Greek, living in NY. Fortunately I didn't have to pay any taxes, also bought the extreme plus - with the new handles and counterweight -. Ended up selling some of the stuff, so total cost 350$. I'll post
some photos tomorrow if anyone's interested. I have used it a lot the last 2 months, and it's been a blast. Everyone that has the chance to try it loves it.

The reason I'm posting is a possible solution for the shoulder pad issue (I was actually thinking of using the silicone one as xtra counterweight :) haha )

So, i went to NAB2011 where I saw it and I finally bought it here : http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/752114-REG/Porta_Brace_SP_3G_Universal_Shoulder_Pad.html

It's great, I've been using all kind of equipment (zacuto, redrock,cinevate,etc) but this pad actually does the trick. Super functional, cool color, really soft, and professional quality. It also helps a lot when balancing the rig.

It's a product I wouldn't have minded if I had paid almost double the price, like gini ;)

Elpizo na voithisa.. ;)
 
A little Feedback

A little Feedback

Hi Guys,

I thought I would drop a line and let you know of my experience through ordering with Gini Rigs and my thoughts on working with the rig so far.

1) Customer Service + Shipping

As mentioned earlier, and if you have done any research already, the seller of Gini Rigs lives in South Korea. His english is broken but I was able to get my questions answered after a couple of email exchanges.

The auction was for an Extreme-17 plus. The buyout price was 2,000. The starting bid was $500 US. I won it for $500. I won and paid for the auction on May 12 which was a Thursday. The item was shipped on Monday May 15 after the weekend. and I received it on May 17th. Speedy shipping, although I did pay for it so, its not like Gini had any control over the speed of the shipment. All in all. I was very happy to be receiving my shipment so quickly. Also, I luckily did not get dinged on brokerage or customs. Probably just luck :)

2) Initial Impressions

After unwrapping everything, I had to slowly piece it together. It wasn't difficult but being that this is my first time having hands on experience with a rail system, I needed to consult the preview pics on the Ebay Auction in order to get a feel for how everything fits together. However I picked it up pretty quickly and was playing around with different set ups within 20min or so.

The quality was very impressive. After you screw everything down with the machined metal knobs, everything was rock solid. Not a single jingle, jangle, nothing. And everything stayed tight. I immediately went and did some run and gunning with just the base plate, shoulder pad, one handle and a bracket holding a top handle. Everything stayed where it was supposed to.

The shoulder pad is rock hard, BUT, I didn't feel any discomfort while having it on my shoulder during my little test session. My first impressions were very positive. and I was excited to test it out in the coming weeking, shooting a very short, short film I had written.

3) Impressions After a Full Day of Shooting.

We shot from Noon till 6. A variety of camera positions. Low shots where I was on my knees. tracking shots. Walking backwards, etc. I had pretty much the full rig set up minus a bracket and an articulating arm we didn't need. I must say, after about 3hrs of shooting, I did realize the important of shooting light weight. So boom, I stripped it down to the essentials and worked it back up. 2 handles, baseplate, rails, offset bracket and shoulder pad + counter weight, and 1 articulating arm. That's it. Imagine the Jag35 field runner set up. And I immediatley felt better. and I shot like that for the rest of the day for the off tripod shots. On tripod, I slid in a bracket in order to mount a shotgun mic, without issue.

So what are my overall impressions after essentially a half day of shooting?

Pros
1) The Gini Rig is a great value for all the different pieces you get. As others have suggested, the customization available is a huge plus, and allows me to try different set ups as needed - to an extent.
2) Rock Solid, I never felt any flex, any knobs getting getting loose from movement, etc.

Cons
1) It can be heavy, depending on what you are rolling with. I myself, had my 5D, TrustMT follow focus, a Canon 50mm f1.4 Lens, and a Marshall 5'' Monitor attached to an articulating arm initially, placed all around on the supplied brackets. But after streamlining it, I was able to fit all these pieces and and it was workable. But who knows how it would be after a much longer production day.

2) Difficulties in getting some pieces to slide off easily. Now this maybe an issue that most rail systems have, however, there were some times when I had trouble taking pieces off because of how tightly the pieces slid onto the rails. I thought I would have to get a rubber hammer at one point, but I eventually got it off without such measures.

3) Baseplate is a pain in the ass. if you put the camera on the baseplate before you slide it on the rails, you're good, BUT, trying to tighten the screw on the baseplate to your camera after its already on the rails is awkward endeavor. The screw's knob is large and relatively flat and hard to get it really good and tight. I even did a little reset, by taking out the base plate, screwing on the camera onto the baseplate extra tightly, and there still was some significant wiggle after some movement and operating the controls on the camera. Oh... and there is no flat head slot on the screw or is there a method to use it as the bottom of the base plate doesn't allow for enough room to fit a screwdriver in there anyway. You can only thumb tighten. I will be investigating replacement baseplates (if anybody has a suggestion, please let me know :D)

4) Conclusion:

I'm pretty happy with my purchase. If I had known what I know now when I purchased the Gini Rig, I'm fairly confident that I would have made the purchase again. Its just an outstanding value. I hope this gives potential users of Gini Rigs a decent idea.

Shoot me any questions you should have. I'll be glad to answer them.

Thanks,
-AL
 
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jpblack said:
The reason I'm posting is a possible solution for the shoulder pad issue (I was actually thinking of using the silicone one as xtra counterweight :) haha )

So, i went to NAB2011 where I saw it and I finally bought it here : http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/752114-REG/Porta_Brace_SP_3G_Universal_Shoulder_Pad.html
Click to expand...

This shoulder pad seems to be really great. Lucky you in the US that can buy form B&H without excessive shipping costs. If I ordered that part from them I'd have to pay $75 for shipping and then additional customs taxes. Definitely not worth it.

Xairetismata ;)
 
I got gini rig myself and I can confirm that the quality is excellent. A friend of mine bought the same rig right after checking mine.
Zacuto charges $250 for a shoulder handle itself. I bought the whole rig for $227. No regrets so far.
Highly recommended.
 
gini rigs are on par with Zacuto, redrock, or any other. They all use aluminum, cnc'd. Anodized. I love mine, I got two (cage, and another dslr pro) from them, and they rock. Goes to show the markup from some of the other co's.

Let me say, if you have the money, Edelkrone (handy dslr rig) are AMAZING!!!, I have used both in real world shooting situations, and the edelkrone is better, but it's five times the price. Reason I feel it's better is that it's more comfy to hold for long periods, and it's LIGHTER.
 
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