Anyone that follows me and follows my photography knows that I’m a fan of shooting tethered. Last week I had the good fortune of meeting with a TetherTools rep. She showed me some samples of their newer products for mounting iPads to various things such as tripods and tables. As you know I recently reviewed the clamps from TripodClamps.com. A product that I’m quite pleased with. However, I try not to put on blinders and I’m usually willing to look at other solutions. I’ve followed TetherTools for some time now as they relate to Digital Photography, but it was neat to check out their iPad products too. I left that meeting with a few samples: Wallee iPad Case for iPad 3 – Black, Wallee iPad Connect Bracket, Wallee Connect Lite Bracket Rock Solid Mini ProClamp Rock Solid Articulating Arm with Center Lock 7″ and the Handstrap. Now keep in mind that a couple of these pieces have overlapping functionality. For example you wouldn’t use the Handstrap and Articulating Arm at the same time. Nor would you use the Connect Bracket and the Connect Lite Bracket at the same time. I left with solutions for mounting an iPad in a variety of different situations.
Using Tether Tools in a way that they hadn’t thought of
On the flight home I decided to test a theory that RC, Brad, Pete and I had during the meeting. I decided to use the Tether Tools Wallee iPad Case, Wallee Connect Lite Bracket, Rock Solid Mini ProClamp and Rock Solid Articulating Arm to mount my iPad on my tray table. The idea was to get the iPad up and at a comfortable viewing angle and freeing up the table for the in flight meal. It worked great! As a matter of fact, had I had these for sale the flight attendant would have bought one from me on the spot. Actually that brings me to the problem with using it this way. If you’re buying this gear as a professional photographer and plan to mount your iPad as part of your digital photography workflow, then this makes a great solution. However, if you were buying this just to mount your iPad for inflight use then it would be a tad bit pricy and cumbersome to travel with. This solution could work very well for mounting your iPad as an inflight entertainment system, but it would need to be streamlined a bit. It would need to be sold at a lower price and as perhaps a single kit. There’s no doubt that you could use this solution in a variety of settings. Just last week I used it to record the video on the Pocket Socket generator that I reviewed. Yep, that was an iPad video with the iPad mounted to my desk. However, for the personal looking for a single solution for iPad travel then it would be overkill unless Tether Tools repackages it for that audience.
Be sure to check out Tether Tools’ other solutions for digital photography and iPad mounting here at tethertools.com.
Pretty sweet. I’m always looking at ways to re-purpose hardware for my iPhone/iPad and this fits well into that ongoing project. I’ve made my own “table” for use on my tripod to hold the projector and ipad next to each other since the iPad runs the keynote show. I’ll have to look at these a bit closer. Thanks for sharing!