A Smallrig cage for the Lumix S5 IIX

This time I bought a Smallrig Cage for the Lumix S5 II x and did without an L-bracket and read here the reason for it.

Introduction

For the Lumix S5 II x, like the Lumix S5, I obviously needed an L-bracket so that I could attach additional accessories and swivel the camera into portrait format quite easily. With the Lumix S5 II x, however, the improvements in the video area predominate, including Opengate and recording to an SSD.

However, due to my experience with L-brackets, I decided not to get an L-bracket for the camera this time.

The Smallrig Cage 4022

After doing some research, I decided to go for the Smallrig Cage 4022.This is a cage with a built-in Arca-Swiss plate on the bottom. It also offers a variety of mounting options for other accessories.

The cage is of course designed in such a way that the access to the microphone, HDMI and USB connection remains free on one side and on the other hand the use of the swivel display and access to the SD cards is restricted as little as possible. And of course you can access the battery compartment from below.

I have now got a handle for this because it is simply more comfortable when filming.

Why not an L-bracket?

Almost all L-brackets now have a cutout so that you have no or as few problems as possible with the display that can be swiveled in all directions.

You can see this very clearly in the adjacent illustration that the display is then swiveled into this cutout so that it is aligned straight with the camera.

This is a great advantage when using the camera compared to a universal angle, such as the one available from Mengs.

The big but comes when you look again at the tripod head or the size of the interchangeable plate, especially with compact tripods.

With the Feisol tripod, the camera still has some stability when using the L-bracket in portrait format, but with the small base of the Rollei tripod, for example, there is no stability.

I now make do by attaching the relatively small Arca Swiss flap of the roll tripod to the side for portrait shots. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the solution with the L-bracket.

Conclusion

The Smallrig cage fits like a glove, of course, but at around €80 it’s not exactly cheap. But it offers many attachment options for e.g. a microphone or an SSD when I record directly to SSD with the Lumix S5 IIx.

ciao tuxoche