Feiyu (or FeiyuTech) is a China-based company that is well known for camera stabilisers such as the Feiyu Scorp 3. Unlike a gimbal with its motorised tilt, roll, and pan arms, the Feiyu Phone Rig Pro relies on the human operator to keep the phone level and smooth. The Feiyu Phone Rig Pro is marketed as an iPhone rig, but given that it has a universal clamp and a USB-C cable, it should also prove useful for those using Android phones.Modern smartphones use a physical sensor-shift OIS (optical image stabiliser) system to help keep a handheld iPhone’s footage looking smooth. This involves rapidly moving the sensor in the x, y, and z axes to counteract camera shake. They also use software solutions to crop into the footage and reposition it frame by frame to counteract shake (especially if you engage an iPhone’s Action mode when shooting video). So, why would you need to mount your modern iPhone in a rig like the Feiyu Phone Rig Pro? There are several compelling reasons…For starters, the sensor-shift technology designed to keep your iPhone’s footage looking gimbal smooth isn’t applied when shooting with a modern iPhone’s Ultra Wide camera, so that will look smoother when shooting with a cage-mounted iPhone. Another reason to mount your smartphone in a rig/cage is that the wider handles that bolt onto the sides of the rig’s smartphone grip move your hands further apart. This wider two-handed grip enables you to perform smoother moves such as pans, tracks, tilts, and cranes. If you held the phone in both hands, it would be more susceptible to micro movements and a tilted horizon due to your hands’ closer proximity.Another bonus of using a rig is that, unlike a more expensive gimbal, it won’t run out of power in mid-shoot or start shaking if your smartphone is not perfectly balanced. To date, I’ve tested six rigs/cages for Digital Camera World, and the Feiyu Phone Rig Pro boasts a couple of unique features, as I’ll explain in this review.
