SteadePod Camera Stabiliser review
During the week I purchased the SteadePod Camera Stabiliser, advertised as a tripod in your pocket, from 7dayshop. The SteadePod has a retractable wire, which is adjustable, with a foot pad that you can either anchor under the shoe or loop around the belt. This wire fits into a pod that you attach to your camera or lens collar. It’s been designed to be compact, lightweight, and to fit easily into your pocket.
I decided to test it out at the weekend on a trip to Langford Lakes nature reserve. The SteadePod was fitted to the Sigma 50-500mm F4-6.3 APO DG lens tripod collar, and I found that the best position for the foot pad was to loop it around my belt as this proved easier to quickly create a stable camera support for shooting wildlife whilst walking around the nature reserve. The ability to adjust the wire to a length suitable to the height you want for panning the lens is a very good feature. You then lock the wire and place tension between the camera and belt (or foot) to provide a steady support whilst shooting. I did try anchoring under the foot as well before starting around the reserve and found this to be simple and easy as well.
The SteadePod does rely on you to create the tension, and so I found it to work best where I was shooting flat level or angled upwards. It was more difficult to retain the tension when angling downwards.
On initial try out it worked surprisingly well and does look to be a very good alternative as a tripod, especially for the price and when you may be looking to travel and want to keep the weight down.
The weather was dull and there was not a great deal of wildlife around, however did spot this possible Snow Goose (Anser caerulescens) amongst a flock of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) and managed to get a good shot using the SteadePod.
Another image and this one is cropped
