It seems that wall the cool new products for New Media producers is coming from Kickstarter these days. Witness the Picosteady, which I came across in this post on the Red Ferret blog.

The Picosteady is a custom designed rig which us usable with both large and small video cameras, including smartphones, and yields nice smooth movie videos like much more expensive rigs.

While I could see this working with lighter cameras, I wonder how well it would work with the larger Digital SLRs. The company page indicates that it does, but it seems it would be harder to balance and use with the larger cameras. That would require some hands-on use to truly know though.

It is neat to see a small company like this able to bankroll themselves via Kickstarter and provide short-run, high-quality products that producers need. The initial priced is $139, with “after Kickstarter” models going up to $179. At $139 I could envision purchasing a Picosteady, but the $179 price point seems a little high for me. I would need to know that I would get a lot of use out of the unit before purchasing. It makes it less of a casual purchase in my mind.

This could be a lower price option for you, if you are looking for a camera stabilizer to improve your videos. Others in the market are priced much higher. 

You can find a demonstration video on the Picosteady Kickstarter page.