Sliding plates mount to the wings of the base. To those attach the handgrips. Once a comfortable configuration is found, the hex screws on the sliding plates can be torqued tight. Built-in rubber gaskets prevent plate shifting. The handgrips can be tilted for wrist comfort and then locked into place with a twist of a ring at the base of the grip. For my Canon HV30 (hence the “C” model), I staggered the handgrips: the left positioned slightly toward the front and pitched forward with the right positioned toward the rear. If I wanted to switch to sticks, all I had to do was mount the tripod’s base plate to the Ugrip and leave it.

Ugrip’s greatest benefit is that it provides a wider camera footprint, allowing you to effectively pull your elbows away from the body. This helps your arms to isolate the camera from a lot of up-and-down motion from walking, running and breathing
. It’s not a substitute for gyrostabilized support, but with some practice, handheld shooting can be smoothed out.

Extra plates, Bebob zoom/focus controls, bridge adapters and fastening boxes are available. The fastening boxes hold mike preamps, hard drives and other devices with spring-loaded clamps. At $1,129, the Diamond “C” kit cost more than my HV30, which I have a hard time justifying, but I can’t argue with the steadier footage it helped produce.

Ugrip kits are available at B&H, Abel Cine Tech and directly from Ugrip.