Jobu Design Junior 3 Deluxe Swing Arm

Reliable and light gimbal

My interest in the Jobu Junior 3 gimbal is for solid support when I'm dealing with real weight restrictions when travelling. I use the Wimberley II most of the time and also own the large Enduro gimbal. The Jobu Junior is a fraction of the weight, but isn't as smooth as my Wimberley. Also, having the controls on both sides of the arm makes it tougher to really control on the fly, as I usually keep one hand on the camera and one on the lens - and use it to adjust/control the gimbal. The Jobu makes that impossible since there are knobs on both sides.This arm is slightly lighter than the stock arm and allows the lens to be mounted just a bit lower, which is more weight centered.I got this to be NOT my main gimbal, but when weight restrictions mean I can't use my main setup. I am using it with a 400VR and a 600VR2 and I have found it to be more workable than using a ballhead, though using a RRS BH-40 can work, too, but this is better.I recently used this on a lighter tripod for hiking in the hills in Yellowstone N.P. to capture bighorn sheep action and found it to be plenty solid for getting the sharpness I'm used to with my main setup, shooting with a D4. So, clearly, much more weight than it was intended to handle, but for occasional use, using good long lens technique, I could get good results using this setup.I had talked to the manufacturer BEFORE I made this purchase to see if it was reasonable for occasional use and they knew of others doing so.