WonderRig Elite by Fotodiox - Premium Grade Professional Video Rig Shoulder Support Stabilizer

This is a truly awesome piece of equipment for the price! I am highly impressed! I bought this rig last minute for a music video production at a gamble, after pouring over all the reviews of similar rigs I settled on this one. taking a real chance due to the fact it had no reviews. Now I take real pleasure in that fact cause I get to write the first one, that's how pleased i am with my purchase.pro's- This is quality! The rig is metal, and nicely finished. All fasteners including the lock down nuts are metal as well, no cheap plastic. The follow focus is smooth and really does a nice job of adding the perfect amount of resistance and there is a attachment point for a zoom mechanism too. The rig has attachment points for all accessories you can imagine and is very well engineered. The balance is nice and really adds to stabilizing my canon 60d.con's- The barn doors are plastic, how ever the attachment points are octagons and create friction to keep the doors in place. The handles due to the amount of leverage do move even with the lock down nuts tight, but not enough to be a issue for the weight of my camera and rig and I imagine a little fussing with it would be all it would take to make them tighter. The unit did not come with a single instruction! this should not be a problem though since I think any decent film maker/camera operator should be half engineer to be taken seriously! The dry erase follow focus ring wasn't attached, and I had to disassemble the indicator to install it but they are made to be replaceable in case they get to dirty or you wish to use more then one to save your markings.unknowns- Customer service, cause I haven't had a issue.I do have to say the rig arrived in 3 days after ordering, which was faster then I requested... all in all I would rate this as a top notch piece of equipment and I am a very happy costumer!Update; I am extremely impressed this is a awesome rig for the price! I bought it back in April and it's now September, it gets almost daily use and has not failed me yet. It is fully customizable, you can completely disassemble and reassemble it. I do believe any photographer or filmmaker worth their salt should be 1/2 mechanic and if you are you will find the ability to adapt this rig into any configuration for any situation a TOTAL plus! As for the mattbox the doors are no loser then the day I bought it. If they ever do give up the ghost I will be totally happy to replace them with a metal mattbox which will be a welcome upgrade but as of now it's not important to me, they continue to work fine. As a finally credit to this fine piece of equipment, I have not had to tell one perspective buyer that the rig could not be adapted, or not work for any of their specific situations. I answered yes you can to all!

I received my rig yesterday, and was excited to get my camera attached and practice with it. I figured I'd use this device at least once a year; I have an annual event that I've been filming just lugging my video camera around. Today is Thursday and the event is Saturday, so I had two days to become familiar with it.Everything was neatly and sturdily packed in the box. I was somewhat surprised, however, to note that the cardboard box itself had no tape on the bottom, but rather was just folded in. It certainly would have been easy for anyone to open the bottom of the box, or for that matter, for the materials to fall through. Oh well, thought I.I was somewhat surprised too to find that the item was in five or six pieces. One of the reasons I had purchased this was because a company video I had watched said the device came assembled. Ha! I removed all the materials item by item, and then looked for the instruction manual. I looked and looked; there was none to be found. I had never used a rig before; I was really clueless on how to put it together, how to use it properly for best results, etc. I had no documentation whatsoever. I was able to find a company video on YouTube, which showed a man putting the device together. Several problems with this: (1) the individual rushes through the assembly (ok, I thought, I can use the pause button), (2) there is no verbal communication at all in the video, just background music (how it would have helped if he could have talked you through it, as well as walking you through the assembly), 3. the video is grainy (you would think a company that specializes in camera equipment would have a good HD video to demonstrate assembly).This morning, I called up customer service to complain about a lack of instructions. The lady started to direct me to the YouTube video. I told her I was aware of it, and stated my problems with it. I expressed disbelief that instructions weren't included on how to assemble the device, and then how to use it (remember, I'm a novice). She really didn't seem to understand where I was coming from. While she apologized, she did tell me that she hadn't had such a complaint in eight years (yet i noticed on their website, there were zero reviews of the product...hmm...might others such as I just returned it without offering why?). She also told me that putting it together was intuitive (is it a company's job to really on the customer's intuition instead of providing a manual?). She told me she would address my complaint to the higher-ups. OK.Back to the video: with frequent pausing, I was able to put the device together (sort of). My problem here rose from things not quite fitting correctly...did I have each item in the right place sitting correctly? I don't know. Without an instruction manual to say things like, "Make sure that you...." or "If piece A bumps up against piece B, you know you've pushed it too far," and 'When correctly positioned, this will allow you to...", I didn't know if I had things right or not. Maybe I was a minor adjustment or two away from having everything right, but I don't know, since I didn't have any instructions. As a matter of fact, there wasn't even a list to say what should be in the box. I'm a retired English teacher, not a businessman, , but if I were, I'd certainly include something to show the consumer how to put a device together and how to best use it.A person who has used a rig before perhaps might have no problem in assembling this. I couldn't. If there was a zero star rating, that's what I'd give it. I'm returning this product.

edit: now that I have spent some time using this rig as well as much nicer ones I feel the need to update my post. The build quality is still holding true however the design of a rig like this is not good for more than a few minutes of filming. Not having it on your shoulder makes focus pulling/adjustments difficult. It also does not work well with the Z finder I added. I am looking at converting to mount on the shoulder as after 4-5 minutes you start to feel the weight, my friend who is a professional videographer experienced the same thing. After 10 minutes we started just going hand held. I'm going to see if I can modify it otherwise I will be looking to purchase a different unit. Long and short, get it if you film in 2-4 minute increments and want an inexpensive rig that still has good build quality - purchase a shoulder mount if you are remotely serious about what you are doing.original reviewAfter spending a bit of time looking at other rigs and watching various reviews I decided to take a chance on the WonderRig despite limited reviews on Amazon. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. This is a solid rig and outstanding choice for people getting into DSLR film making. Since this is the first rig I have purchased I dont have much to compare it to however after using it I'm having a hard time understanding why you would need to pay hundreds more for other offerings. If you are trying to decide between this and the ones for 200 save your self some time and spend the extra 100, it is worth it.