The SmallRig GH5 cage and accessories make for a very fairly priced and very high quality rig. While a lot of details may not appear drastically different from other designs, that’s not a bad thing. Especially considering the price. Getting a solid, trustworthy and functional rig setup is what counts and SmallRig definitely delivers on that.

There are a lot of details which are more or less expected from any cage setup. For example, 1/4-20 and 3/8 screw mounts all over the place, full access to all of the battery, card and port doors and the ability to adjust all accessories to your particular needs. Let’s take a look at a few details more specific to the SmallRig setup.

The cage itself, as most designed for the GH5, doesn’t lock into the hot shoe mount since it’s required for accessories like Panasonic’s XLR adapter. Instead, for stability, it has some tabs on the bottom front which prevent the body from twisting loose in the cage. They work just fine and it feels very secure.

The rails on either side do have a bit of space between the cage and the body and some people say they don’t like this. I, personally, find it to be a total non-issue. My small hands can still grip the camera just fine but there are also attachment points for a hand strap if you want a little extra security in your grip. Of course there are also handles designed specifically to be attached to both the sides and top of the cage if you want to handhold a majority of the time.

The rails on the sides are also usable as aNATO railsto attach things like an EVF mount if you want to do so. I did get that accessory and it works just as you’d hope it would. There are separate adjustment points for where it attaches to the cage and to swivel the mount forwards or backwards. It has a 1/4-20 screw and rubber gripped surface so you can attach quite a lot of things here, not only an EVF. There are also additional screw mounts on the arm where you could attach additional accessories if you’d like. That’s a theme that will follow through with pretty much all the accessories I’ll talk about in this review.

On the left side rail, I’ve attached an HDMI lockmade by SmallRig. Of course, the GH5 comes with one that will screw into the camera itself and the cage allows for that to be used without any problems, but the SmallRig one is of much higher quality. It takes up nearly zero space and is just a much more streamlined solution when using this cage in my opinion.

To be continued, just keep an eye on the official blog.....