At NAB 2017, budget gear maker iFootage showed off their latest Shark Mini slider, which loses the belt, but adds a new motorized fluid head. Camera sliders come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and price brackets, but when it comes to something that is smooth, made of high quality materials, easy to pack for transport, and actually priced affordably few companies come to mind. One of them is iFootage. I did check out their current model – the iFootage Shark S1 slider at BVE 2017 and was really impressed with the build quality and how smooth and portable it was. I know a few of my peers, who have this slider and they seem to be pretty happy with it.
Priced currently at $675 in the US, and in the £500 range around UK shores, the Shark S1 appears to be quite a good value for money for those shooting with mirrorless cameras or DSLRs.
iFootage Shark S1 slider
And yes, iFootage does offer a wireless motion control bundle with the S1, but their new iFootage Shark Mini slider combines the benefits of portability and a new motorized fluid head.
iFootage Shark Mini Highlights
- Lightweight and Belt-less Track design
- 2 sizes – 460mm/840mm
- Payload up to 11 lbs / 5.5 kgs
- X2 Mini – Plug & Play motion control module
- Manual control – via joypad in Dedicated app
- Variable Speed Control
- Seamless Track Connection Mechanism
iFootage bill their latest slider as a “precision engineered, supremely agile, lightweight, manual or automated motion camera system”, and by the looks of it from the promo video they don’t seem to be far from it.
The Shark Mini comes in a Standard or Bundle options, weighing at just 1.5 kgs with the pulley, or 3.3 lbs in other words, in the 460mm (8.7 inches camera travel distance); and conversely – 1.9 kgs/4.2 lbs for the longer “Bundle” length coming at 840mm length with a 23.2 inches camera travel distance.
The payload for the shorter version is 11 lbs or 5.5kg; and 8.8 lbs/4 kgs for the longer version. What’s interesting with the Shark Mini is that it uses a seamless track extension mechanism to eliminate the groove where the two parts of the track meet as per the photo below.
iFootage also have an iOS app for your smartphone that allows you to set A and B points for your camera slide and have the slide execute repeatable movies at either constant or variable speeds. Manual control is also possible via the app in an intuitive joystick control over all three axis.
The app also offers some more high end functions as Grid Photo Stitching Mode for creating high resolution images from combines multiple photos. Thanks to Bluetooth ALE4.0, the Shark Mini comes with an instant connection to your mobile device without the need for an external controller. At the moment their app is only available for iOS devices, however the company has said they are working on an Android version as well.
And speaking of manual or automatic control, the Shark Mini features a tiny removable flywheel for manual moves, and an adjustable manual camera base plate for vertical, off-axis sliders.
Pricing for the manual version is around $1,100 and $1,400 for the motorized 3-axis version. To learn more head over to iFootage’s website here.
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