Review on Steadicam Electronic Handheld Stabilizer Including by Jim Dahl

Having tried one I'm not very happy with the Volt and it doesn't live up to the overly enthusiastic hype I've read about it. Short version: The Volt is a massive improvement over basic cellphone video capture, but I always have a crooked horizon, even after a near-perfect calibration. And this calibration phase easily takes me 20-30 minutes, not just the minutes listed in the support videos. Longer Version: The Volt is not a true "3-axis" gimbal. There is no horizontal/vertical balance. It's a "hard link" from the grip to the camera, no springs, no floating head. Thus, the comparison with a heavy professional steadicam is misguided. From what I understand Volt does two things: - 2-axis gyroscope to keep the main body in the same horizontal position. I can manually tilt the phone forward, say 10 degrees, and it stays that way. To pan or change the view, I manually move the main body as I want, it rotates freely on the crank. After that, it simply "translates" itself and always stays on the same axis. However, I said that it is a 2-axis gyroscope. When I tilt the camera left or right it is always centered, for example the counterweight is always vertically centered. - moment of inertia. The device weighs about 1 pound or similar. And I feel like it uses haptic feedback so the device appears to 'resist' movement, which helps maintain a more stable position. What I liked and didn't like: - It did a good job of eliminating the slight hand vibration and phone level sticking issue (with the important caveat listed at the end). It will not remove walking or sudden hand movements (just soften it a little). Therefore, correct, smooth body movement is still important. Setup was cumbersome. With practice and careful evaluation, it can only take me 10-15 minutes to calibrate it for a mobile phone. It was a very, very delicate process. Of course, the weight calculation only needs to be done once, but the front-rear wheel and left/right position need to be carefully adjusted each time. I used a Nexus 5X, which isn't a very large phone. I never managed to properly calibrate the phone case lid, it kept leaning back. I had to remove the cover to get it working. It says so in the instructions, but I don't get it as I have a rather nondescript TPU case that's really light. There's also a reason I have a non-slip phone case and don't like the idea of taking it off. The device prevents any interaction with the mobile phone during the recording as it is very sensitive. Any attempt to interact with the screen, e.g. For example, zooming while recording directly affects the video. The Android app listed in the manual is just another camera capture app that's more or less trying to look like dlsr or dot-and-screen capture. There was nothing specific about him that would "connect" him to the Volt I see. For outdoor use where most of the shot is flat, that's the perfect combination, right? For stable footage, nothing beats a moving-head tripod (or monopod). And while it's not in the same price range, I'd say the results would probably be the same or better with a dedicated camcorder like a modern Panasonic or Sony with 5-axis IS, they have internal image stabilization and 20-25x optical zoom. and still allow scaling. Combine it with a shoulder strap for better handling. What spoiled me was the lateral stabilization, the "horizon". No matter how carefully I balanced the phone, the horizon tilted a few degrees over and over again with every attempt. It's almost as if the internal gyroscope hasn't been properly calibrated with no possibility of tweaking it. At first I thought it was a "rookie mistake" but upon double-checking I found multiple mentions of the same issue in the KS campaign comments.