Joby iPhone GorillaPod

22 Apr Joby iPhone GorillaPod

Just in case you haven’t found anything useful to do with your iPhone and you’re looking to give it a new lease of life then you might find this little gizmo interesting. [UPDATE] Please read this review by all means but it has been superseded by a review of the latest Joby products! While this review covers how I use the tripods the newer review looks at the improved functionality of Joby Gorilla Grip Tight and Gorilla Video.

I’ve no idea how long this has been around (so this post may be very old hat!) but I do know that over the past few weeks several iPhone wielding friends have been suitably impressed that I thought it was worth sharing further afield…
The Joby GorillaPod is well known in photography circles and has been produced in various sizes to cope with the most sturdy of cameras for many years. I came close to getting one for my SLR many times… however, they can be pricey. However, this one I couldn’t resist. Firstly, it was less than a tenner (£10) on Amazon. Secondly, I use the iPhone ‘a lot’ in workshops and general day-to-day photography, film/animation so I knew I was going to get a lot of mileage out of it.
The things is, apart from all the creative stuff, the time-lapse and having somewhere safe to prop my phone for outdoor camera stuff, I’m using the GorillaPod as a stand for when I’m Skyping/Facetime, watching the iPlayer or listening to Podcasts… and the thing that I was most paranoid about… leaving the phone lying around in the kitchen while cooking or washing up! ‘Now’ it’s wrapped around a cupboard door handle out of harms way!
I even tried wrapping it around the handlebars of my bike this week – it was pretty secure but given the wind I didn’t trust the frame to hold (see below) – otherwise it’d be a great way of capturing time-lapse or video on the bike.
Te GorillaPod legs are very light-weight yet incredibly sturdy and I have no fear of losing or damaging my phone while wrapping it around the branch of a tree! The stand also comes with the necessary (screw fitting) attachment that would allow you to use the tripod with a (Phone sized/weighted) digital camera. The frame that fits around the phone is detachable from the legs so you can very quickly set up for shots with out having to walk around with a tripod in your pocket! It feels less substantial than the legs but appears to be made of very flexible plastic, fits very snug and I’ve no reason to doubt its durability as yet.

So, heartily recommended by me… but what about you?! Have you used a Joby or anything similar? What’s your gizmo of choice for doing the same job? Let me know below…