Cinema Mount Mark II, a first look

The thing with iPhone photography and videography is it is different things to different people.  Filmmaker, Sean Baker did it because of budget constraint and yet you can do it for a myriad of reasons, like you got nothing better to do with your life.

I have to say the CMM2 is pretty well built.  My point of reference is Nikon, Canon and Hasselblad kind of cameras and also the mini ball head sold on eBay shipped directly from China.  The CMM2 is definitely not as well built as the aforementioned cameras but it's head and shoulder above the almost disposable mini ball head.

That being said is the CMM2 well designed?  Well it depends.  I like certain aspects of it and I think some are just inherent to what it is, a cage, a grip, an add-on.

Part of the appeals to shoot with an iPhone is it's supposed to be convenient.  Not so much when you add a cage even the CMM2 is not gigantic.

Is it easy to mount the phone into that thing?  Not really.  I definitely need to fiddle with the vertical mount as the thing is screw-on tight with springs for tension, not just spring grab mount the phone.  Plus the clamps or jaws are on the right side not so centered.  I am a bit bothered by it.  The fact that it's screw tight gives you more confident to how unmovable and secure the phone is when mounted.  But at the same time the moves aren't exactly buttery smooth when you need to adjust the mount vertically and horizontally.  The horizontal movement is mostly for aligning the phone camera to the hole of the mounting plate.

There is a cutout on the right side of the cage to let you pass the mic cable, but it's not like fully open access.  I have the iPhone SE and it's not too easy to attach the lightning cable should you want to sit the phone flushed to the right of the cage while attaching the phone to portable power,  I mean you don't really want to anyway.  The phone is just easier to operate if it doesn't sit flushed to the right of the cage.  Because I can't and I shouldn't flush-right mount the phone to the cage, then it's quite iffy and fiddly to mount the phone correctly so it's easy to access and the lens is dead on center to the opening of the lens opening of the mounting plate.

The cold shoe is not exactly easy to mount, A quarter would be a bit too big or even a nickel to turn the screw down.  Maybe a dime would be ideal (yes, just confirmed).

The cage comes with a wide angle/macro lens attachment.  It mounts on a 37mm mounting plate which can be adjusted horizontally and vertically freely to line up with the phone's lens.  And hence the curse of too much freedom.  If you are anal about a perfect alignment you may be a bit concerned as you can only eye ball the alignment.  For the most part it works and works well enough.  The mounting plate has some play to it but then again it is not bad enough to worry about.  I mean even a Nikon mount and a mounted Nikkor can have some play to it, at least some.  If the attachment is mounted off center the image suffers that I am pretty sure as I witnessed some myself: it's off center to be bad when you watch the video but not off center to render total blackout or visible vignette to notice right away.

Even I keep referring it as a cage but it's actually quite an enclosure.  Access to the phone is sufficient but not like an cage you almost have open access to the phone mounted inside.  You can't remove the lens side of the enclosure at all meaning you can't use the grip with your own lens attachments.

The filter holder works and the blue and gray graduated filters are nice additions to the setup.  If you shoot open sky landscape it helps to bring the sky closer to the exposure of the earth or the foreground.

The mic extension is not a TRS to TRRS cord.  It's really just an extension ... I think.  It looks and feels like a quality cord.

Maybe, just maybe, the Beastgrip Pro is actually a bit better if you absolutely don't consider the price.