A little misleading, somewhat disappointing...
By Mike
Rated 3 out of 5
Date: 2021-11-22
Unfortunately, there weren't any reviews for this unit when I bought it, but Ikan had a very thorough walkthrough available on YouTube, and for well under less than half the price of similar setups, I thought I'd take the plunge.
Out of everything that's in the package, I really only use the cage itself on the camera. I almost never put it on the shoulder (I'm quite tall, and am always looking down at people), but I figured it would be nice to have that option if needed.
Overall, everything is built well and works well together. Great potential here. But there are a few irritating issues that I can't believe made it all the way to manufacturing.
1. The evf/monitor arm
It's too long for me. It really extends right to the side of, or even in front of the lens. I do a lot of handheld, run and gun shooting, and it's just too long for me. I don't use it, and instead have a small nato rail connected to the side of the top plate onto which I've directly attached the evf rosette and then my evf. The rosette evf mount I quite like. Good range of motion, good tension, secure.
2. The 3.5mm audio jack
It's blocked by the right hand side of the cage! This I just can't understand. Sure shaving literally a few mm off the cage would have been OK? I rechecked all the product shots here, and you can't clearly see from the images that it's blocked. I use the Rode Wireless Go II for a quick on-talent mic fix, and so I have to attach the 3.5mm cable, and then put the cage on. The cable cannot be attached or removed with the cage on. And this is a 90 degree cable head, so it's not like you can get anything smaller than you'd be able to sneak in under the cage.
3. The top handle
This is both a Canon and Ikan problem. I wish Canon didn't make their connection proprietary, and I wish Ikan would have met them in the middle somehow with mounting options. I'd love to use the Ikan top handle for its better mounting points, but also use the Canon t-bar system to mount the Canon monitor. If I use a 3rd-party monitor then I've got to provide both power and video, whereas with the Canon it's just one cable. And the flexibility of the Canon mounting arm is pretty great. The front of the Ikan handle is 3/8", while the Canon mount is 1/4". It also lacks the ridges that keep the Canon mount in place (my gosh, what a world it would be if companies settled on all using Arri locating pins, eh??)
4. The bottom 'Manfrotto 501' plate
This is my biggest gripe. The bottom plate of the main cage unit DOES NOT fit onto standard Manfrotto heads. I have a Sachtler head, a Manfrotto monopod head, and some generic plates and mounts that are all Manfrotto. They are all interchangeable and all work on the shoulder mount unit, but they do not accept the built-in plate on the bottom of the Ikan baseplate. The Z-height of the built-in plate is too shallow, and so cannot be inserted into anything except the Ikan shoulder unit itself.
Luckily, I have the Wooden Camera C500 baseplate unit, which I can make fit (it only takes one of the Ikan sideplate screws instead of 2), and so I can attach a working baseplate.
I contacted customer support and they said that it's a manufacturing problem and won't be fixed until the next batch of units comes in.
'I heard back from our vendor regarding this issue. They said this is a fault in their design. The Ikan base plate only works with select Manfrotto tripod heads. I will update our product listing to say that the product isn't compatible with certain tripods.' - this is their response on the matter
5. Customer Service
This took longer than it should. I emailed their support address directly twice, but never heard back. Then I contacted them via the built-in contact page on their site and did get a response, but again, this took multiple days. Also, I was put in contact with someone who then had to go and contact the team directly and get back to me. Why am I talking to a middleman?
So...I was told I could send it back for a refund and shouldn't have any problems, but since I live in South Korea and have already waited for it to get here from B&H, and paid the import fees, etc., it's really not worth the time and trouble to do that.
In the end I've got a cage that works for what I do (because I was able to find workarounds), but I'd wait until they resolve the baseplate issue and 3.5mm jack issue before really recommending this.
