Hague MMC Mini Motion Cam Camera Stabilizer

Let me start off by saying that I am not a professional film maker by any means. I am just a regular person looking for ways to improve my home movies. :)This is my first stabilizer.The Good:It is constructed of metal for the most part with the exception of the handle (which is a comfortable, rubber grip), the nylon socket and the plastic fittings that you grasp to tighten/loosen the metal screws when making adjustments. There is a layer of cork on top where the camera sits.I don't find the stabilizer too heavy to use (if it matters to anybody, I am female) however, I do feel slightly awkward not holding my camera in the way that I have become accustomed to prior to getting this. I hope that with more practice, I'll adapt.My camera (Canon Vixia HF G10) fits on it just fine (no extra plate necessary in my case). It took approximately 20 minutes or so for me to find the balance and off I went to shoot some test video.I did manage to get some *ok* footage while using it while riding (as a passenger) in the car. The video was not absolutely perfect but it was better than going strictly hand-held.Delivery was prompt and the arrival was well before the estimated due dates even though it came from England.The Bad:At this time, all of the photos above show a person using this device with one hand. This is misleading. It requires that you keep both hands on the device.I am getting side to side sway / wobble with video recorded while simply walking. I have it as balanced as it can be. Hague recommends to try reducing bottom weight but when I do that, I can't get it to balance at all. My zoom is set to as wide as it can go. It doesn't seem to matter if I have the in-camera stabilization off or on.A slight breeze will make this thing sway or bob.Another area that I am finding slightly awkward is pushing the record / pause button and selecting options from my camera's touch screen menu while the camera is mounted on the stabilizer (the touch screen on my Canon requires pressure to activate it's options). Perhaps more practice or making use of my camera's remote control will help to smooth things out for me in this area.Edit: I have taken away 2 stars because of the side to side sway / wobble. IF I can get that to go away, I'll try to remember to come back and edit my review again however, there is nothing that I can do to stop a breeze from blowing it around. Also, I think it would be easier (and perhaps may even help to reduce the swaying)if the camera could point in whatever direction my hand is rather than control the direction by attempting to guide the gimble. I sincerely hope that with more practice, this won't be an issue.I was so excited to have finally gotten the opportunity to get a stabilizer - this is some what disappointing so far. I hope that with more practice, I'll get better results.Edit (Feb. 2015):Sadly, my personal experience with this stabilizer wasn't favorable at all.While I did find that making use of the camera's remote control rather than using the touch screen worked better for me, I never could get rid of the side to side sway / wobble while walking no matter how much I tried to adjust the speed of my steps, the length of my stride or the bending of my knees. Combing all of those things with the way that this stabilizer must be held proved to be much too awkward for me.Also, the handle tends to fall off when laying the stabilizer down as gently as possible. It pops back on pretty easily but this has caused some trust issues on my part.There is absolutely nothing I could do to stop breezes from causing unwanted motion when using this outdoors.As I have stated above, this was my first "stabilizer" so I do not know if all of them are like this or not but another issue I had with it is when I needed to remove the camera from it and later put it back on, the balance had to be found all over again. Perhaps this particular issue is to be expected with a stabilizer in this price range (?) and this would not have necessarily been a *really* bad, terrible thing. I could deal with that if I could've gotten stable footage while walking.I tried. Believe me, I really tried.I am very disappointed with this product :(

Out of the box I mounted a Sony CX110 camcorder which would NOT balance no matter what. Thought I was going crazy! The thing would balance best with NO weights and even then it still wobbled a bit. Just for kicks I mounted an old Canon S1 camera and got it balanced in just a few minutes. So after Googling around a bit and checking out their site, I ran across their weight correction adaptor that specifically mentions "If your camera weighs less than 300g. we would recommend you use a Weight Correction Adaptor."Although the item description mentions "Ideal camera weight 0.7lb (0.3kg) to 1.8lb (0.8kg)" do you really know how much your camcorder weighs and are you really checking? I'm pretty sure every modern Flash-based camcorder (including those GoPro cameras) is going to fall into this lightweight category and potential customers should be warned beforehand. It simply will NOT balance properly without the adapter!Anyway, I went ahead and ordered the $20 adapter and finally got the CX110 balanced. The adapter just raises the camera a couple inches and I suppose you could MacGuyver something to do the same if you had the items available.Takes a bit of time and tweaking getting the balance just right. And even then, you can never seem satisfied that it's ever 'right'. It will not make you a hotshot videographer overnight but with a little practice you can get some nice steady video. If you pack the stabilizer in a luggage be warned the ball joint is pretty much guaranteed to pop out and be in two pieces when you get to your destination and unpack. It's not hard to pop it back in but just be aware! Don't let it just ride on the balljoint, it will pop back on with a little force.

I wanted to eliminate the nasty sway in my videos when filming, found this product from viewing YouTube videos. Out of the 5 I looked at on amazon I settled on this one due to likening the video results. I also liked that I could use this with other point n shoots and my gopro .The package: came on time, but not to my address .. I have a prime account, and ups didn't deliver it themselves.. They sent it off to usps, who delivered it to a different address.. Thankfully the person swiftly brought it to my door.. Thank you good neighbor..The stadicam: great product .. It's stable and not plastic.. The gimble is ok but works great for light camera use...So I use this mainly with a gopro hero 3+ and now the LCD pack on the back.. I've managed to get it balanced by adding a big weight under the tripod mount then screwing on the go pro to the tripod, screw.. I use the go pro, LCD back, LCD back case, single extension that came with the LCD backpack.Now once this is on .. I have the top on then put a small weight on the bottom, and give it a small tilt to the side of the gopro screws ..With this set up it's decently balanced to where I get minimum to no swaying .If you get swaying you have to much weight on the bottom, so look into it.Other cameras I used : I also used it with a 60D way to imbalanced , with a 35mm prime it was a little better .. But the camera still toppled over with all the weights .. Need to make a balance plate.I also used it with a canon elph 110s , it worked good with it, but would need to add weight to the top to get it better balanced, then reconfigure the whole thing.If you want to see some sample videos I have up so far check out my YouTube page dbest1a .. I have an unboxing and a few sample videos .. Just search on my homepage for Hague