Grip Gear Directors Set – Includes motor + Sliders + Camera Dolly + 360 Panoramic Mount – Motorized/Manual Camera slider and Motion Control,…

UPDATE AT BOTTOM

I’m a videographer who shoots a lot of documentary and news material for TV. I’m always looking for ways to simplify my kit without sacrificing quality, and this product was a fantastic happy medium. I could put a small mirrorless camera and lens on it and get some fantastic tracking shots with relative ease. Everything was great until one of the smallest parts on the motor broke during travel.

The motor has these two little buttons on either side that will reverse the motion of the motor, sending it back along the track once it’s reached one of the keyframe clips at the end. This is a necessary function for interviews, live events, and other situations where you don’t know how long you’ll be shooting and need motion the entire time. Well, even when stored in a foam case, these little buttons are fragile enough to snap off with relative ease.

Big deal, right? The unit is so inexpensive compared to it’s competition that I could easily just buy another motor unit from GripGear. HOWEVER, after months of trying to reach them and purchase a replacement part or replacement motor, I still haven’t gotten a response from them. I’ve contacted them through various methods (contact form on website, Amazon seller’s profile, googled their email address, etc.) and have yet to find a resolution to a VERY simple problem. The broken part is a tiny plastic peg the size of a pencil tip and a $0.01 replacement could get me back to work, but I’m completely willing to just buy another motor (I’d rather not buy the entire kit, as that would just give me a bunch of extra stuff I don’t need). Either way, I would really like to see a resolution to this and hope to be able to update this review with a happy ending, but I’m not holding out much hope at this point.

Unless you need an extremely small form factor, I would make the jump to a Neewer motorized slider, or maybe something a little more robust from a company like Andoer in the same size. If you do buy this product, be extremely careful with the trigger pegs on the motor… like bubblewrap and a pelican case careful. Otherwise, be willing to buy another unit regardless of whether you’re within the warranty or return window, as it’s not likely you’ll hear from GripGear with a solution.

UPDATE:
Ok, so GripGear got in touch and sent me a few more motors and lengths of track free of charge, which is absolutely fantastic. They’ve been very helpful, but it did take a long time to get the situation rectified. They overcompensated, which was very nice, but I still do think the product needs improvement. Overall I really like this product for the form factor and power!

 I bought this set primarily for the slider rail, to experiment with adding some motion to my timelapses. I’ve attached a video with three example clips. I’m still learning so I claim no real artistic merit to any of them, but they at least give an idea of how it looks in practice. I’m looking forward to using it more in the future,along with the panorama and dolly modes which I haven’t tried yet.

Overall, I found the construction of decently high quality. Each piece is quite light, and I’d have no problem bringing the entire set along in a backpack or similar if needed. There’s a lot of plastic, which feels a bit cheap, but it’s generally sturdy and looks like it could take some knocks. (One notable exception is the tabs holding the two different panorama gear assemblies to the motor unit; I’m worried that I’m going to break one putting them on or taking them off since it’s a pretty tight fit.)

I know a lot of other reviews mention issues with missing teeth for the rails. I can’t speak as to how often it happens, but mine arrived fine, with no missing teeth. (The teeth are plastic while the rest of the rail is aluminum, so I can potentially see how some might get chipped off.) When the two rails are connected to make a longer rail there’s a little more friction noticeable when sliding the motor unit manually across the join, but I couldn’t really see evidence of it changing the speed at which the unit moves across the join when self-propelled. (I suspect that the speeds are generally slow enough and the motor has enough torque to adjust to any minor changes in friction.) I appreciate that there’s a chart printed on the piece which connects two rails listing how long the motor takes to traverse two of them at each given speed; that’s been quite helpful for planning around the expected length of a timelapse.

Ultimately, if you’re a novice video maker looking to add a bit more pop to your timelapses (or regular videos!), this is probably about the cheapest kit you can find with its included options, while still offering quality that feels above its price point. (And on a subjective level, I quite enjoy how various parts snap on and pop off and fold out to set up the motor unit for the various modes. Very satisfying for my inner kid.)

Overall I found this slider, which is at the low end of cost, good value for money and easy to use. There are limitations, for example, no ability to pan while sliding but it works well for basic moves. The wheel attachments gives some interesting 360 circular tracks on a smooth surface. I found the engage/disengage spindle awkward to pull out when disengaging the motor to set up shots. On a tripod, the single 1/4″ thread attachment point is insufficient to keep the slider firmly mounted to the tripod head however hard you tighten the single screw. You can support it using two stands but this gets clumsy so I ended up making a simple locking device for the tripod mounting plate to prevent the slider moving. There are limitations with any piece of kit you buy but as long as it functions reasonably well, and this does, you can generally find workarounds.

Perfect for panning shots, slo mo, hyperlapse etc etc etc even with a Zhiyun Smooth 5 attached (horizontal) with an iPhone 13 max and a small grip cage plus small grip anamorphic lens. So well over the 750 vertical but didn’t struggle at horizontal

You can connect it to tripods which opens a lot of potential

But it’s loud, you’re gonna hear a buzz when you use the slider on your recordings. If I take off the cage so I can connect my wireless mic it works around it but then I lose my lens. So for the price, it has plenty of uses but it’s gonna be a backup or dedicated action cam/hyperlapse slider eventually

not too bad for minimal video projects / social media content. some of the features are better than others. and it would be nice if the fastest setting was faster on the dolly- still incredibly slow. overall it’s ok for limited use- slider bar could / should be longer…

The product works great but as I received it in Australia, the package was ripped from multiple places. Some flaps were coming off from the original box indicating it’s been used before. I would really appreciate it if they have a quick look before sending the package especially for international shipments.