Brand New 7D Rig! This Is A Thing Of Beauty!

[Neil Rostance]

I have the exact same rig, albeit branded as another company, but it's the same parts. The parts are copied and re-worked for companies all over the world I believe, mine came from India.

The matte box and rails are great. A word of warning though, that follow focus is going to fail, not might, will, and sooner than you think. After 6 months of use the mechanism worn away and just became useless.

As somebody who was in your position 12 months ago, I would do two things,

a) Look after that follow focus, check you're not pulling it too fast/too hard unnessecerily

b) Start saving up for a replacement now, No joke. Start saving for a proper one. I am now using this one Welcome to shoot35 Ltd and I can't rate it high enough, it's just a completely different breed. Wil fit on your rails perfectly.

[Brian Drysdale]

Sometimes the more expensive ones work out cheaper in the long run.

I've still got an old Arri bellows matte box that came with my old Aaton LTR when I bought it from its first owner, which would make it manufactured in about 1979/80 and it still works as well as the day it was made. The downside is that modern cine and video lenses have increased in diameter and you can't use it with anything larger than approx 80mm dia.

[Bernard Lau]

That rig looks great!
Hopefully the parts will stay intact for a while.
My Manfrotto gear is starting to fall apart... though, I reckon I'm a pretty rough shooter, always running and gunning.

A good rig that allows you to shoot the way you want and which becomes a part of your "body" is the best thing ever! Happy filming and some happy footage.

[Dylan Couper]

A review of the Proaim shoulder rig by someone I know:

Pictures of all the damaged stuff here.
Proaim DSLR shoulder rig review FilmGearTorture

DSLR rig manufacturers are everywhere these days. Even the homeless guy in my alley makes 4 different types. Proaim, an Indian company with seemingly loose morals about copying other people’s designs, has wedged their way into being a major name in the budget world. Their rigs swamp Ebay and there are now dozens of US resellers. Their popularity comes from having numerous modular rigs in the $200-$500 range.

I’ve owned 5 of their units in the last year, covering 3 different models. With some of their models you may notice some STRIKING similarities to Redrock’s designs. I’d love to give a head to head vs. Redrock, but I haven’t handled one of their rigs in a few years, so my impressions are a little faded. From what I’ve been told (didn’t realize it when I bought it) it’s an almost exact Redrock rip off.



PHOTO1


THE GOOD

I really have nothing to say here.

THE BAD

I’ll just build this into the sub descriptions below, piece by piece.

PART BY PART BREAKDOWN

PHOTO2 - duct tape

15mm Aluminum Rails – Absolute garbage of the worst quality. First, who is stupid enough to build rails out of low grade aluminum? Sure they are light. However, rails need to be STRAIGHT to work. It doesn’t take much to mangle these to the point where nothing will slide over them. To make it worse, the screw together rails fail almost within the first use. Almost none of mine would screw all the way together after a few weeks. Some became permanently attached and won’t come apart. EPIC FAIL. Do not buy, under any circumstances!

15mm Stainless Steel Rails – Heavy but solid. These are one of the few pieces of Proaim kit that has survived the rental house torture. I now have a 15lb Lomo 20-120mm S35 lens mounted happily on them, no fear of them bending.

All locking/clamping/screwing mechanisms – Here’s a lesson for you… do not make any part that will be torqued out of cheap aluminum. Do not make anything that will have stuff screwed into it out of cheap aluminum. Do not make anything that needs to clamp onto something else out of cheap aluminum. After mere months of use, at least half of the joints/clamps/adapters would no longer screw tight enough to hold in place. The rail mounts would not clamp tight enough to stay on the rail. See below. Look at the gap. Yes that’s duct tape as an emergency repair. EPIC FAIL OF ALL FAIL.


Handles – Adjustable (as seen in 1st pic) – The angle on these is a little better, but because they are adjustable, fall victim to the usual Proaim quality. The plastic locking lever cracked off after the first month (got a replacement) followed closely by the locking washer disintegrated into 4 pieces. I did a repair job on it and sold it off dirt cheap. FAIL.

Handles – Straight (as seen in 2nd pic) – These are horribly uncomfortable to use and should be avoided at all costs. The fixed 90 degree straight up angle is very hard on the wrists after a short time. FAIL.

Camera/tripod plates – There are a few types of camera plate available. All fell victim to the stripping metal. After a dozen times being screwed onto a tripod, the soft metal begins to give and strip. Just bad.

PHOTO 3 - torn metal

Quick Release – One thing I like about Proaim is that they use the same size quick release plates as the Manfrotto 357, so if you get a rig with a QR, you’ll be able to swap it between other QR devices and tripods of the same size.

Standard shoulder pad – These are actually decent, similar to the style Zacuto now uses (iirc), soft and foamy, with rails coming out the back for counter balance weights. Nothing really bad to say about them.

Body brace style shoulder pad – This particular shoulder pad doesn’t come with many of the Proaim rigs, but it is one of my favorites on the market. Yes, I used “favorite” and “Proaim” together! Ok, the dork factor is high, but the body brace takes a lot of weight off your hands, as well as adds horizontal and vertical stability. It’s extremely useful. The downside is that, like everything Proaim, it breaks. I have 1 of 3 left in service. The locking point for the brace simply wore smooth and will no longer stay in place.


PHOTO 4 - body brace

Cage Rig – Nice soft foam top handle, but again, after a few uses, the screws holding the cage on would no longer tighten it enough to hold it steady. Garbage.

CONCLUSION

To be fair, I run a rental house and my gear gets used a lot more than yours ever will. It gets wailed on by people with no respect for the gear and tossed in the back of open pickup trucks. Having said that, I’ve never seen complete failure across the board like I have with Proaim gear. It’s incredibly poorly built. Even if you are a struggling student, you should not spend your money on this. The Gini gear is almost the same price and 10x the quality. Even a home made rig would be better than much of the stuff I’ve had from Proaim.

And yes, I’m sure there are some people out there whose Proaim stuff works just fine and hasn’t turned to scrap metal. To them I can only say… wait.

NOTE TO PROAIM: Some day you will read this. If you’ve improved the quality of the material you use to build your rigs, email me and I’ll happily review any new ones you put out. Also, stop stealing from other companies. Make your own designs.