Honestly I have been buying a lot of gear lately, I find it best to simply buy quality gear first instead of spending twice in cheap stuff then buying the real deal, but when it came down to buy a Cage for my GH2 I could simply not find one except for the Rewo Cage which is beautiful but way to expensive for my pocket, so I decided to do something simple and inexpensive to solve mounting options and access points for my GH2 and this is what I came up with.
Very Nice Hessler Lots of 1/4 20 mounting options. It will give your camera some good weight that you will find a bonus. I put a rubber gasket on the bottom plate of my cages, plus added a small block to the right back side of the bottom plate to help secure the camera in the cage without having to torque the camera base screw down to much or over tightening it too keep it from moving when using a follow focus.
Very cool! - Cost? Care to share a bit more about the production process? - I think the design is just dandy - only thing I'd change is some 1/4 20's above the hotshot so you could mount the camera via hot shoe to the cage as well.
1. @griplimited the HDMI pincher should be simple, I just don't know if I could keep it cheap to mill it
2. @alcomposer yes I might take some orders, although it might be a good idea to wait and see what everyone wants to see on it to get all those nice features I did not think of.
3. @lumen I did not think of this so I would have to get this done on the next one.
4. @twitherb at this time the holes are not flush, I did think about that, but did not get it done, but that is an easy fix, I'm not sure about the weight, but I can tell you that is aluminum, it adds a bit of weight but its a good thing considering the cam is so light. If I see more interest I may order a batch of 10 with all the fixes you guys want. I'm not in it to make money here, I just wanted a cage that was gonna work for my gh2 cause no one has a cage that fits well.
So the maybes are:
-HDMI pincher -fix spacing for universal rail blocks (can you guys point me to a universal rail block) -flush holes for bolts -and have a page to take orders lol
Is there somekind of ISO standard for DSLR cages? I mean like dimensions. Width, length and depth. If the dimensions would be standard, then it would be enough to change only some parts of the cage with different cameras. E.g. if battery location is different in GH3 but GH2 would be physically almost same, then it would be enough change just the bottom part of cage to support GH3.
@feha I'm trying to see how I can produce it for less than $165 but it's hard since I only need to order a few, I'm gonna keep you posted feha, thanks for checking back
@brandonmrsh I will check if my t3i works, I don't have a t2i
@FGGU I would have to modify the top to make that work, although i can assure you that it works better secured from the bottom. Now to secure it at the top and bottom I'm not sure, the cage is not designed for that, you might wanna look into the REWO cage and be ready to pay big bucks.
Just got the Rewo cage. Pretty impressed. It integrates so well that it almost feels like you should get one for each body and never remove it. Except for the price. Extremely light.
This looks cool. I did however spring for the ReWo and have to say it works like a charm. Low profile, built for the camera. But with a few tweaks, this one looks like it could be good too.
Thanks for all the feedback guys, I have considered all your ideas and all are valid and easy to fix, now I just have to get me 2k and produce a batch for those interested lol but I'm not seeing that coming soon, 2k is not easy to come by.
@Jspatz can you share to total of your cage plus shipping, taxes, etc....
For those interested in a Gini cage, I'm selling one: