A Double P Review: Steadicam Smoothee

Running around attempting to capture footage of your 2 year old daughter with your iPhone is great until you play back that footage for family members to see. Do you remember that movie Cloverfield? If not, imagine if the film team was inebriated running around the most rocky terrain while recording. That's basically what I was getting every time we went to the park until the Steadicam Smoothee showed up into my life. 

The Steadicam Smoothee is a product by Tiffen that, well to simply put it, makes your homemade iPhone movies look professional and amazing. Steadicams have been used in the professional film industry for years and have been used to provide amazing shots in movies like Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas. Now Tiffen have given us the opportunity to bring that same ingenuity to our smartphones. 

The Smoothee has a variety of different mounts you can purchase to suit your handheld needs. According to the official site, the Smoothee is compatible with the Drift HD170 Stealth, Drift HD, Drift HD720, Drift HD Ghost and Drift Ghost-S, iPhones 3Gs 4/4S, 5/5S, Flip MinoHD, iPod Touch (Gen4), GoPro Hero 2 and GoPro Hero 3 and 3+.  I utilized the iPhone 5/5S mount for my reviews of this product. The kit also comes with a traveling bag for both the mount and the Smoothee itself. 

When I first opened the box, I was a little intimidated by what I was looking at. I'm not a professional so I had no idea what I was looking at exactly. Essentially the device is made up of a grip used to hold it and weights that are strategically arranged around that grip. There is also a guide ring right above the grip that assist in keeping the camera from moving while you are recording video. When you first hold the grip with your phone attached to it, it will sway left to right and back and forth. This is normal and you can adjust it so that it balances with the two dials on the right and back side. This is the point where I put it down and watched a bunch of tutorial videos on Tiffen's website. 

There are a few different techniques you can used to shoot video with the Smoothee but I opted for the one-handed, thumb on the back of the guide ring approach. This allowed me to have complete control of the camera while maintaining a steady shot no matter how fast or slow I was walking. It took me about 30 minutes to an hour to somewhat master handling the Smoothee but my practice paid. As I looked at the two hours of random footage I shot, I could see a progression in each clip. The started rough as if the camera had a mind of it's own to almost indie film level of steady shots. To simply put it, this thing made my random videos at the park look amazing. 

So does it work? With no question, this gave me a level of control over my iPhone I didn't think possible while shooting video. I can see people replacing their point and shoot cameras with iPod Touches in the future if it hasn't already happened already. They say the best camera to use is the one you have on you. Nowadays most people are carrying around a pretty powerful camera in their smartphones. With products like the Steadicam Smoothee, capturing those special moments on the go no longer have to look like videos shot on a camera phone. We now have the fidelity and tools to create/capture those special moments without compromises. If you're an amateur videographer or someone attempting to shoot a movie on a budget, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Steadicam Smoothee. While there is a bit of a learning curve, it does exactly what it was made to do.