6 Accessories To Build A Versatile Video Rig Around Your Smartphone

Camera technology has come a long way since the era of flip phones, and many people are happy with the current state of smartphone photography. However, shooting video adds many new layers, and it’s not as simple as holding a phone and pressing the record button. You can choose a phone with a great camera, but you’ll want additional gear to improve the quality and your experience.

There are many ways to build a kit for video, but I want to focus on a highly versatile rig that fits many shooting scenarios. While you should choose parts based on the situation and your needs, this is the gear I recommend for shooting everything from run-and-gun documentaries to action sequences.

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6 Cages

Camera cages are metal frames that wrap around a camera (or smartphone) and provide mounting points for other components, usually in the form of several cold shoe and ¼-inch screw mounts. Cages have become common for video rigs, since they’re typically used to attach handles, microphones, batteries, monitors, storage, and other accessories that a camera operator might use.

Smartphone cages aren’t new. There have been several from companies like Moment, BeastGrip, SmallRig, RODE, and others. You may have seen versions of BeastGrip cages used in many of the “shot on” ads from Apple, Samsung, and others over the years.

Several manufacturers have stepped up their product offerings over the last year, aiming to solve challenges specific to smartphone shooters. Moment’s new SuperCage has an integrated hub that plugs into a phone and supports connecting up to six accessories, several USB devices, headphones, an SD reader, a microphone, and an HDMI out for a monitor.

SmallRig’s solution is different. It supports a piecemeal approach where people choose the components they need. One package, the All-in-One Mobile Video Kit: Co-design Edition, was assembled in collaboration with Brandon Li, and it brings together a great collection of features, including a mount for lens filters, a tiny USB hub, two quick-release handles, and one handle supports installing an M.2 NVMe drive for external recording.

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  SmallRig x Brandon Li All-in-One Mobile Video Kit Co-design Edition

  SmallRig worked with Brandon Li to design an all-in-one mobile video kit complete with a tiny USB hub, filter mount, SSD enclosure, and quick-release handles to give creators all the tools they might want for shooting video with a smartphone.

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  Moment SuperCage

  The Moment SuperCage is a pro-level camera cage for smartphones, featuring an integrated hub for up to six devices, including USB-C ports, audio ports for mics and headphones, an SD card reader, and an HDMI out for connecting a monitor. The cage is designed as a continuous NATO rail, and offers plenty of 1/4-20 and cold shoe mounting points.
   

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  SmallRig Universal Mobile Phone Cage

  The SmallRig 2791B Universal Mobile Phone Cage is a low-cost camera cage with two cold shoe and multiple 1/4-20 threaded screw mounts for building a video rig for smartphones. It has a thumb screw clamp for mounting smartphones, and offers several points for installing handles and other accessories.

5 Gimbals

Camera cages are great for handheld footage. However, if you want to keep your camera level and smooth out some of that handheld shakiness, gimbals are often the way to go. A gimbal rapidly adjusts several motors to control orientation. They’re used with cameras to limit shakes and smooth out fast turns, and can be used for automation and special camera moves.

Any good smartphone gimbal will do if you want a compact and lightweight option, but don’t need accessories. I had a good experience with the AI tracking supported by the Insta360 Flow, and the recently released Flow 2 Pro is a solid improvement over the original.

If portability can be sacrificed, the Zhiyun Smooth 5S AI offers similar AI tracking capabilities and has enough torque in the motors to support lightweight accessories, such as lens filters or a light SSD drive.

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There is also a solution for anybody who wants a rig with accessories. It requires choosing a stronger gimbal. There are many gimbals designed to carry heavy cameras, but the Zhiyun Crane-M 3S is perfect for this situation. It’s small, comfortable to hold, and supports the weight of some full-frame cameras with lenses, which is more than enough to sustain a smartphone, a cage, and a few accessories.

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  Zhiyun Crane-M 3S

  The Crane-M 3S is Zhiyun’s mid-size hybrid gimbal designed to carry anything from a smartphone to relatively lightweight mirrorless cameras. It offers controls on the handle, including a Bluetooth shutter button, and a rear LED light. Battery life should last about 7.5 hours, and it can be recharged to full in two hours with PD fast charging.

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  Zhiyun Smooth 5S AI

  Zhiyun’s Smooth 5S AI smartphone gimbal minimizes shaky video by easing the movements of your smartphone camera, resulting in more stabile video. The new AI module enables vloggers and videographers to have live tracking on a subject with any camera app they choose. With Zhiyun’s camera apps, the gimbal can also capture timelapse and hyperlapse video, add filters, and allows handheld operators fine control over focus and zoom.

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  Insta360 Flow 2 Pro

  The Insta360 Flow 2 Pro is a 3-Axis smartphone gimbal designed for content creation, video calls, and streaming thanks to powerful AI tracking features that keep the camera following its subject.

4 Microphone

Good audio is more important than it may seem. Many studies have found that mediocre audio quality is more likely to drive away viewers than relatively poor video quality. Furthermore, modern editing software makes it easy to enhance or clean up imperfect video. However, the tools for working with audio are less intuitive and may require learning very different skills. It’s worth capturing the best audio you can get before trying to “fix it in post.”

Shure recently launched the MoveMic 88+, a new microphone that blends many useful features while maintaining a small size profile that aligns with a smartphone-oriented kit. The mic can be connected to a smartphone using USB-C, wirelessly via Bluetooth, or through an optional receiver. It can be set to any one of four pickup patterns, depending on recording needs. This makes the MoveMic 88+ something of a jack-of-all-trades, as it works well mounted with the camera, or taken wirelessly to a position where it can capture a speaker up close.

If you need your microphone mounted alongside the smartphone, and capturing audio at range or shutting out some of the ambient noise is important, the RODE VideoMic NTG may be a better option. It’s not designed for as many scenarios, but it can be better for noisy or uncontrolled environments where sounds may come from everywhere. The longer tube naturally limits off-angle sound, and a safety channel can be enabled to capture audio on a stereo track at a lower gain, reducing the likelihood of clipping audio.

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  Shure MoveMic 88+

  The Shure MoveMic 88+ is a compact microphone designed to be versatile enough for creators with many different needs. It supports four unique polar patterns and both wired and wireless connectivity. A smartphone app enables control over several settings, and the mic is natively compatible with third-party apps. It can also be configured and connected to cameras wirelessly with an optional receiver module.

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  RØDE VideoMic NTG

  The RODE VideoMic NTG is a highly directional mid-length supercardioid microphone designed for on-camera use and field recording. It has both 3.5mm and USB-C output for use with a camera, smartphone, or computer, and it offers a built-in high-pass filter and safety channel to minimize the risk of clipping.

3 External storage

While the internal storage on phones has always been somewhat limiting, it’s a constraint for even the largest sizes when recording ProRes on an iPhone or using an Android phone to capture high-bitrate formats. While it’s not unreasonable to record footage and offload it between shots, it’s usually more efficient to record to an external drive. You can also build your own option with an SSD enclosure, or pick up a tiny external SSD.

The Samsung T7 Shield made a name for itself in this space as the go-to option because it’s small, delivers great performance, and is drop-resistant and IP65 water-resistant.

I’ve also had good experiences with a Synology BeeDrive, which offers the same performance stats, but in a lighter package. The BeeDrive weighs 43.1g, versus the 98g of the T7 Shield, making it ideal for mounting on weaker gimbals. It doesn’t offer the weather resistance, but that only matters in rain or other wet conditions.

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  Samsung T7 Shield

  The Samsung T7 Shield is the ideal external storage drive for those constantly on the move, offering reliable data protection regardless of weather conditions thanks to its IP65-certified body. While the $500 price tag for the 4TB model stings, a 40% discount makes the storage drive a lot more affordable.

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  Synology BeeDrive

  The Synology BeeDrive is a unique portable SSD that gets you a ton of smart features, such as wireless backup from your phone over Wi-Fi. There are also built-in tools that can keep your files and folders synced between the drive and your computer. But if you don’t want these extra features, the BeeDrive works excellently as a regular, non-smart external drive.

2 Power banks

Shooting a lot of video will tax the battery of your phone. Quick shoots will be fine, but you’ll need some extra juice to get through longer sessions.

There are countless good power banks, but consider other details, such as how much weight it adds, whether the USB-C port will be occupied by an external drive, or if the phone is mounted on a gimbal or cage.

Ideally, you might use a tiny USB hub to connect everything inside a cage, or perhaps your gimbal has built-in charging. If these aren’t options, these power banks feature MagSafe for Qi 2 charging and are small enough that they aren’t out of place when mounted on a gimbal or cage.

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  Ugreen 5,000mAh Magnetic Power Bank

  $20 $30 Save $10

  This power bank delivers with its 5,000mAh capacity and wireless charging capabilities. It also has a USB-C port for wired charging as well, with speeds up to 15W. Best of all, you can connect this to your device magnetically if your phone supports MagSafe.

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  Anker MagGo 6,600mAh Power Bank

  The Anker MagGo 6,600mAh Power Bank is a portable charger that supports Qi2 wireless charging at 15w. Not only does this allow for easy charging on the go without the need for cables, you can adjust the charger at angles to ensure your phone screen faces you while charging. So make sure to snag one now while it’s on sale at an all-time low.

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  OnePlus Slim Magnetic Power Bank

  With its latest accessory, OnePlus wants to make taking a little extra power with you wherever you go a no-brainer. The Slim Magnetic Power Bank holds a 5,000mAh cell and full magnetic support in its ultra-slim 9mm chassis.

1 Lenses and filters

The final accessories to consider change the look or improve the quality of your video. There are many options, and more than this article can cover quickly, but the two general groups to consider are lenses and filters.

Lenses augment the focal length or geometry of your camera. For example, mounting a telephoto lens on your phone takes your main camera from roughly 25mm to about 50mm, providing a zoomed-in perspective. Some lenses may provide distinct effects or functions, like anamorphics that squeeze the optics horizontally. When these are de-squeezed later in editing, you have an image in a widescreen format. Using a lens can change the look of your video so that it doesn’t resemble every other smartphone.

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Several companies produce accessory lenses for smartphones, but my experiences with Moment lenses have been positive. There are two things to keep in mind with lenses, which may limit their usefulness. First, they can be cumbersome to mount and often require specific phone cases or clips that must be aligned to a phone and obstruct part of the screen. The other challenge comes when using gimbals because the lens is front-heavy, which can throw off the balance.

Filters are designed to augment the image captured by your camera, but usually in different ways. Filters often exist to add effects to your image, like mist filters, or correct something about the image, like circular polarizers, which remove reflections on glass or water. One useful tool for video is a neutral density filter, which reduces the strength of the light hitting the sensor, usually so that the camera can draw out its shutter speed and produce a small amount of motion blur.

There are several ways to mount filters, usually based on the other accessories you use. A few camera cages have threaded filter mounts built in, or if you use an add-on lens, it likely has threads for installing filters. Alternatively, there are low-cost filter adapters that clip onto the phone, though it may be important to find one that fits within a cage.

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  NEEWER Upgraded 67mm Phone Filter Mount

  The NEEWER Upgraded 67mm Phone Filter Mount is a low-profile accessory for mounting camera filters onto a smartphone. It’s made of aluminum and fits 67mm threaded filters, and there’s a cold shoe mount on the edge. The mount is held to the phone by a thumb screw to maintain a secure fit, and rubber on both sides prevents scratching or slipping.

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  NEEWER 2-in-1 Variable ND and Polarizing (CPL) Filter

  NEEWER’s 2-in-1 Variable ND and Polarizing (CPL) filter is a single package combining the light reduction of a 1-5 stop variable ND filter with the reflection clearing capability of a circular polarizer. The combination removes the need to buy and carry separate filters, or deal with stacking. The rotation is de-clicked for smooth movement, and there are small pegs for easier control over the rotation.

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  Moment T-Series Tele 58mm Lens

  The Moment Tele 58mm doubles your focal length, getting you closer for tighter, crispier shots without digital zoom. Optimized for multi-lens devices, you can achieve ~2x optical zoom when mounted over the main camera.

Accessorize your smartphone and shoot video like a pro

Modern smartphones have excellent cameras and can be combined with a few accessories to have most of the capability and convenience of large video rigs, while weighing less than a traditional camera body. The accessories are still awkward, and there aren’t good answers to everything yet, but manufacturers are looking closer at the needs of content creators and working to produce new solutions.