The Sony video camera that I use most frequently comes with two hot shoe mounts, one at the front of the camera, one at the rear, aligned on the top handle. Initially this was sufficient for mounting a light on the front and a wireless lav receiver on the rear. But as time passed, it became increasingly obvious that these two mounts were insufficient. I needed to add an external viewing monitor for some shoots, and then a second wireless lav receiver. In some cases I mount a POV camera on the front shoe so that I can get an interesting, wide angle view of everything I shoot with the Sony.
So I started to look around for a solution to this. One reason I shied away from committing to the DSLR HD video direction is all the scaffolding that is required to bolt on to the DSLR in an effort to make it easier to work with. I crave simplicity. I steer away from clutter. And so adding more clutter to my main camera had to be achieved in the neatest way.
One of the first solutions that I explored was this:
Basically this is a piece of metal with two hot shoe mounts, bolted to a hot shoe plate. It is horrendous. Not only does it leave you with an unsightly piece of metal sticking out at all angles above the camera, but when you add any accessories to the hot shoes, it becomes distinctly top-heavy and unstable. Even without mounting accessories, the single screw mount on to the hot shoe plate (the bit that slots in to the camera hot shoe) is fragile at best, and I quickly turned this contraption the wrong way only to have the hot shoe plate twist off. The metal it was mounted in to was soft aluminum and the mounting rivet penetrated less than 1/8 inch. Pathetic.
So I continued my search for neat alternatives, again, with a mind to simplicity and clean lines. I take my camera in to some pretty hairy situations, often when I need to move fast, and often in unfriendly crowds. I need to know that all the pieces on the camera can remain intact and working.
Scanning the pages of B&H Photo Video, I came across the J-Cube from J-Rod. This small piece of equipment appeared to be expensive for its size and purpose but, not finding anything better, I placed my order. Within a few days, this arrived:
The J-Cube feels substantial in your hand – this is a serious piece of equipment. It is very solidly built, uses high quality components, and adds just the right amount of additional shoes to my camera. The spacing of the added shoes on the J-Cube is just right to mount equipment without any encroachment. And because the J-Cube is very compact, it does not add much height to the camera. It also offers a far more secure mounting platform that does not wobble around and has a low center of gravity.
If you have accessories with rectangular hot shoe plates, you will be stuck with mounting them vertically on the side shoes. I had this problem. So I contacted Jeff at J-Rod and he made me a new J-Cube with the side mounts turned through 90 degrees. Now I can mount accessories with rectangular hot shoe plates so that they point forward or backward along the top of the camera, and not straight up. A lot of accessories come with square hot shoe plates which will slide in to the standard J-Cube. But just to let you know that if you need a J-Cube with the side mounts rotated 90 degrees, all you need to do is ask.
Before I contacted Jeff about the modified J-Cube, I tried to dismantle the one I had bought from B&H to see if I could rotate the mounts myself. I am not too bad with a screwdriver and a pair of mole grips but I have to admit that without some serious physical force (that I did not apply), those mounts are not going anywhere. They are so solidly embedded in the metal mount that there is little fear of them breaking free.
This is not my camera but this is what the standard J-Cube looks like with accessories attached:
As you can see, it attaches nice and close to the camera, keeping accessories close to the main body and reducing the risk of anything getting torn off.
At $80.00, this piece of equipment is not the least expensive option by any means. But once you buy it, you can be pretty sure that you will not need anything else for some time to come. You can also be far more confident that once mounted, and with equipment attached, the J-Cube is not going to let you down.
It might be an old saying but it is very true that you get what you pay for – and the customer service is terrific!
