Is your rig starting to look like Howl's moving castle with gear and accessories sloppily mounted all over it? If it is, you're probably having a hard time making your rig functional and efficient, not to mention struggling to handle the unwieldy thing when it comes time to shoot. Of course, you could just shed some gear, right, but many times swapping stuff out eats up too much time. Luckily, Caleb Pike of DSLR Video Shooter has come up with a clever solution that allows you to customize your camera rig, as well as quickly remove any unnecessary equipment in a snap.


First things first, you're going to need a camera cage, and because there are so many options to choose from, I'll just say that some of my favorite rigs are tool-less, well-balanced, and have a small form factor. But, of course, you choose the right rig for you. Pike (and everyone and their mom) suggests SmallRig cages.

From there, Pike only uses a couple of pieces of gear to get started mounting gear to his camera rig, a quick-release clamp and plate from Arca-Swiss. The clamp is $11, while the plate ranges from $5 to $15 depending on the size you get.

Now, the cost of this setup depends on the number and type of accessories you have. If you've got a full audio setup complete with external mic, preamp, and recorder, as well as a run-and-gun setup with an external monitor, handle, camera-mounted LED light, then chances are you're going to want to dedicate a quick-release plate for these setups. The nifty thing about that, though, is that Arca-Swiss' design makes it super quick and easy to switch out gear without actually having to unmount any of the individual pieces of equipment.

If you're interested in giving this camera rig a shot, you can check out all of the gear mentioned in the video by clicking the links in the video's description.

What are some of your favorite camera rig tricks? Let us know down in the comments.

Source: DSLR Video Shooter