JTZ DP30 JL-JS7 Electronic Camera Cage Video Stabilizer Rig + 15mm Rail Base Plate, Top Handle for SONY A9/A7III/A7RIII/A7SIII/A7RIV Mirrorless Camera Zoom, Focus, REC Start/Stop

I bought this cage for my A7 III after a great deal of research. I won't get into the positives about this cage, feel free to refer to Bo's review. By the way, the record button and zoom functions on the top handle do in fact work with A7 III.This cage, in theory, is a good deal, but it isn't perfect. Upon first building the DP30, I attempted to lock the baseplate. To my horror, the baseplate lock broke and popped right out. You can see in the attached photos that the screw in the lock broke in half. This effectively has made the entire cage useless for anything but handheld, as the baseplate cannot be locked. I had to jury rig the lens support to act as a makeshift lock/stopper.Furthermore, the Arri Rosette on the baseplate rod system juts out just enough where the camera battery (FZ-100) is blocked from being removed. This means you'd have to remove the cage from the plate every time you need to do a battery swap, which is just absurd. This is a dealbreaker for me as the product is advertised to have unobstructed battery access. I attempted to remove the silver teeth of Arri Rosette, but I quickly realized that even if I did, the battery still would not clear it. Regardless, the provided allen key is JUST a tad too small for the screws in the Rosette. I was only able to get one screw out, the rest are stuck. I tried several other allen key sets but the screws would not budge.Moreover, the top handle feel very cheap, in contrast with the rest of the cage. There is a wheel that allows you to loosen the top handle and change its direction (like if you for some reason wanted the top handle to be sideways rather than forward). You can do this with either your fingers, or an allen key. The tightest you can get this wheel with your fingers however, is not sufficient enough. I had to crank the wheel with an allen key because the handle felt loose.The most significant design flaw of this cage is that there is only one point of contact with the camera-- the quick-release plate. There is no easy way to create an additional point of contact to the top of the camera. Usually, this isn't an issue for smaller rigs/small lenses. But I found that while I had a bulky 70-200, I'd notice strain on the cage when lifting the rig from the top handle. In fact, I could see that the top of the cage was bending because the camera was so front heavy. This was especially evident when lifting the rig while attached to tripod from the top handle. I do, however, concede that that practice is frowned upon and shouldn't typically be done, but I wanted to test how that much weight on the top handle would feel. According to the manual, it's rated for 18kg or about 40lbs.3 stars.I've contacted FOTGA support about the broken baseplate lock as well as the battery obstruction issue. I have already started the refund process, but will reconsider if FOTGA can help me out. Will update this review.

Setting up a vlogging studio and this cage makes using the Sony A9 a breeze. Fits perfectly.

JTZ makes a universal camera cage for mirrorless cameras, but the reason why I bought this cage is due to its unique feature that no other camera cage on the market has. A camera specific quick release mounting plate is attached to the bottom of your camera and the entire camera slides into the cage. The reason why this is so unique is that if you use your camera for both video and photography work, you don’t have to unscrew the entire cage from the camera. All you have to do is unlock the quick release and slide the camera out which can be done in a few seconds. The entire cage is made of high quality aluminum with a ton of ¼” mounting holes. The whole thing feels like one solid piece of metal with zero flex and its built like a tank. There are also 2 cables included as well. One is a full size HDMI to micro HDMI so you won’t damage the camera’s ports from multiple plugging and unplugging if you use an external monitor or recorder. The second cable is a micro USB for JTZLink, which when connected to the handle, you can trigger the video recording function right on the handle which is rare in this price point. Another function the handle can perform is digital zoom which definitely comes in handle if you need more range when shooting. The handle attaches to the cage via a NATO rail so its super easy to detach the handle without having to unscrew anything. The cage also has a built in lens adapter support if you use a non native lens, this will take the stress off of your camera mount especially for those heavier lenses. On the right side of the cage, there is an arri rosette to attach additional accessories such as a handle, extension arm or others. The kit also comes with a pair of 15mm rods for optional attachments such as a v mount battery pack, follow focus or a matte box which JTZ also sells. I use the C5 ccUPS v mount and it works perfectly with this cage combination. The JTZ DP30 kit is both high quality and a great value which is a combination you don’t usually find. The nato handle is completely made of plastic and its quality is not on par with the rest of the pieces. It feels hollow and light and I’m not sure how much abuse it can take. But even with the plastic handle, I would still highly recommend this for anyone that wants to rig their cameras.