Joby Gorillapod

Joby Gorillapod - Inside the box

Written by Ken Saturday, 05 July 2008 14:45

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Article Index
Joby Gorillapod
Inside the box
In the field
Conclusions
Video review
All Pages
Page 2 of 5

 

 

Inside the box

 

The fancy packaging, complete with cardboard log and fake camera
The fancy packaging, complete with cardboard log and fake camera
The Joby GorillaPod comes in rather fancy packaging, with the tripod posed, legs gripping a cardboard log, and with a cardboard camera sitting on top. For me, this sort of flashy packaging is a bit of a turnoff – it makes me think I’m paying too much for the product! It does do a good job of demonstrating what the GorillaPod is about though. Thankfully the plastic box isn’t blisterpack, and opens up easily.

Aside from the cardboard props, the tripod is the only other thing in the box. There’s no manual, although there are a few diagrams on how to attach your camera. Slightly confusingly, the box has a warning message on the back telling you to read the enclosed instruction manual for safety information!

GorillaPod comes in a range of colours - mine is yellow
GorillaPod comes in a range of colours - mine is yellow
The tripod is very lightweight, and will fit in your luggage without throwing you over your weight allowance. The legs are surprisingly stiff – not too hard to bend, but they stay where they are put, and only flex the tiniest bit when you put force on them. Each joint of the legs is surrounded by a small coloured ring (yellow in my case, but other colours are available) which is made of a grippy rubbery plastic – the feet of each leg are tipped with the same rubber. This gives the GorillaPod plenty of holding power even on smooth surfaces.

The camera mounting plate can be unscrewed using a coin
The camera mounting plate can be unscrewed using a coin
The camera attachment isn’t quite what I was expecting. It uses the normal quarter-inch screw fitting, but this is embedded in a small plate which clicks into the head of the tripod. Joby suggests you should leave this plate permanently attached to your camera ready for quick set-up, but even though it’s fairly slim it still looks a bit out of place on a compact. A nice touch with this mounting plate is that the screw can be turned using a coin – no need to carry a screwdriver.

The mounting catch and twistable locking ring - both fiddly and stiff!
The mounting catch and twistable locking ring - both fiddly and stiff!
The attachment plate was rather hard to remove from the tripod first time around. There’s a small catch that you push in, and the attachment should slide out, but in the end I had to partially screw a camera on before I could slide the attachment out. Given how hard it is to get the mounting plate out, a locking mechanism seems superfluous, but Joby have included one. The rubber ring on the joint below the tripod head can be rotated (with a little difficulty) to stop the catch being pressed, thus locking your camera onto the tripod.