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In Defense of Veedion
  • rainlessrainless

    So there's been a lot of people bad-mouthing Veedion camera rigs: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1866/veedion-rig-mattebox-ff/p1

    ...particularly in THAT thread.

    For the price and delivery time there was nothing else that could meet the needs of the shoot that I was planning.P

    You'll see on the rig I've got the follwing:

    1. Camera
    2. TL-MR3040 Portable Battery-Powered router (Give ANY Canon DSLR wifi... muahahahaha!)
    3. Magic Arm
    4. My Samsung Galaxy S II (Portable 5" monitor? Doesn't get any more portable than my PHONE... with DSLRController of course.)
    5. Rode NTG2 (not pictured)
    6. Sony PCM-M10 (also not pictured... usually in my pocket)

    My kit features counter-weight, C-Cage, and quick-release plate. As well as a top handle.

    I seriously don't recommend getting any Veedion rig WITHOUT a quick-release plate. The way the normal mounting bracket works I had to take half the thing apart using an allen key to even get the quick-release installed. If you bought the kit in the link above, then you're looking at an eternal nightmare whenever you want to move your camera. The kit that I bought is the only one I saw, that they have, that comes with this quick-release. So keep that in mind.

    The quick-release itself is the cheapest I've ever seen (and, so-far, I've bought nothing BUT cheap camera equipment... besides my elinchroms...) and that's saying a lot. Even on my cheap little tripod you see the quick release is made out of metal. But the one that came with my Veedion is made out of plastic. Sturdy-enough plastic... to be sure... but I'll be looking to replace that plate with something metal the very first chance I get.

    Other than those two minor hiccups the rig is quite solid... once you've tuned it. The first two things you'll notice if you buy one are two little keychain-like devices on the ends of each handlebar. I simply unscrewed those and threw them back in the box because they rattled whenever I moved. The next thing is that the bar itself seemed a little unstable for my tastes so I had to tighten it. The Veedion came with a tool for adjusting the mounting bracket, but I needed a different size to adjust the bar for the handle bars. Fortunately I just happened to have a complete set of allen keys laying around.

    Once I got everything tightened up the rig was solid.

    Like I said the main reasons for me getting this rig were the Quick-release and the counter-weight. The counter-weight really turned out to be a non-issue because it isn't nearly heavy enough to be effective. That said it's better than having nothing there and I think people that buy a multi-rail system like this without any counterweight at all are going to be at a horrible disadvantage.

    Overall though I'm pleased with the rig. The purpose of getting the C-Box is to have the handle and extra rails which comes in REALLY handy. That handle at the top is SO much better than the two on the handlebar that I'd love to replace those two with two just like the one on top. But that will have to wait because my next purchase would probably be their excellent follow focus and so-so mattebox.

    It's definitely not top of the line... but I was determined to not have a blue DSLR rig... for the money I could find nothing that wouldn't be shipped from Korea. I live in Germany, my rig shipped from Camberly, and I got it overnight. Absolutely the fastest shipping I've ever had for something this big in my entire life, and the customer service was wonderful.

    Taking the shoddy quick-release into account, I would give this rig 3/5.

  • 2 Replies sorted by
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @rainless

    Topic you referenced is very old. Veedon is just rebrand as I know of cheap Indian rigs.

    And as I said, much better options exist, as saving on rig is good idea but it must still provide you all the options you need. For example, here I see crappy handles. L bracket also looks suspicious.

  • rainlessrainless

    I know the topic is old. But my rig is new, so I figured it was time for an update. Also I already mentioned the crappy handles. The top handle is actually quite good... my plan (think I mentioned this as well) is to replace the crappy handles with the one handle on top and another just like it (I've seen the exact one for maybe 15 euros.) I've used it for about a month now and it's sturdy enough (I'll update this thread if it falls apart on me any time sooner.) I paid 172 euros for this rig. What better options exist in that price range?

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