Looks really nice. Hope they keep the price down.

For people that use manfrotto heads could be the end of plates chaos..

I Like the look of it but as simple they want to keep it. Where the parts where we can attach a monitor or recorders?

Just got my new Sympla shoulder rig delivered today. Was originally only going to get the adjustable base and rods to start, but found a vendor who had the complete rig on sale and they took Paypal which let me use some extra dollars I had sitting in my account.

Just a (not so) quick initial review, hope to get out to shoot some video this weekend and will give a review in use plus some pics.

First, this thing is massive. Typical Manfrotto build. My little GH1 looks tiny, even with a largish lens attached.

Attached to my 504HD head the base almost dwarfs the head, actually they are pretty much equal in size. The camera base is adjustable from the rods, up/down and lateral adjustments are not large, a little more than a half inch each way, but should be enough to fine-tune a matte box or other attachments. When locked down, even at the limit of the adjustments, the camera plate is rock solid. And this base accepts the standard Manfrotto camera plates which is the main reason that I bought it. The base has 2 threaded attachment points to mount a monitor arm or other extras.

The rods are kind of cheap looking anodized aluminum, a bit rough finished, with red anodized threaded extension adapters. It came with 4, 12" rods.

The hand grips are very nice. The mounting bracket is quick attach so you can mount and dismount without needing to slide all the way from the end of the rods. From the mount there are 2 arms that can be angled either at about 30 degrees or 45 degrees out from the rods, and the whole bracket can be mounted forward or backward or upside down, giving a lot of options for how the hand grips extend from the arms. The grips themselves are mounted on small ball heads permitting them 180 degrees of movement, plus the ball joints can rotate through a full 360 degrees. This gives pretty much limitless options as to the angel of the grips. Probably not as much as a double articulated unit like the Lanparte, but pretty good. A single knob controls each ball joint and takes very little pressure to tighten them to where I could hold the whole rig plus camera horizontal with just one grip. Each handle came with an extra 2" extension if you want to get it further away from the rig.

The most curious part of the rig is the shoulder mount. It is just a (roughly) quarter circle piece of metal, covered in rubbery plastic. It attaches to the second set of rods with another quick release clamp. Also included is what they call an "H" bracket. This bracket can be attached to the 2 main rods, moving the axis of the shoulder pad about 6" left or right of the main rig, and about 2" above or below the main rods, to get your eye in front of the camera or an accessory monitor or viewfinder. You can also attach the shoulder mount directly behind the camera without the H bracket if you wish. As supplied, the H bracket is kind of a PITA, the only way to attach it is using the threaded rod connectors, which requires almost completely disassembling the main rig to do this. I am thinking that I am going to try and replace 2 allen-head screws with thumbscrews which will permit removing the H bracket from the threaded adapters easily. Or a stacked double rod clamp and 2 short rods could do the same thing.

One feature of the shoulder pad that may come in handy is that it can also be used as either a chest or belly support by mounting it directly to the main rods. The belly mount option might be good for getting steady, low angle shots.

The parts have been designed to balance very well. The shoulder pad is purposely heavy to counter balance the hand grips. With the whole rig assembled and the camera centered directly over the tripod head, setting the 504HD counter balance at 3 (out of 4) holds the camera at any angle when I let go the panning handle, without any creep and does not fight back when I pan.

Anyway, sorry I got long winded but looks like a well made if slightly unusually designed rig. I would love to hear if anyone has tried their rubber matte box, that is the next thing I need for my new rig and don't know if I am willing to pull the trigger on this really different design.

Rain finally quit so I could get outside and snap some quick pics of my new Sympla rig. Showing pretty much all the options except using the H bracket to offset the shoulder mount. Note the one shot of the limit left and limit up offset of the adjustable base. I show the grips mounted in the front-down position only, can be swapped around to whatever suits you best for the shot.

I would probably consider this a bit spendy other than you get superb Manfrotto quality and very heavy duty build.

Also showing my Fotga DP500 MK2 follow focus, works great so far.

Has anyone tried the Manfrotto Sympla matte box?

What one you mean? This big round thing on top?

It is lot of disadvantages and very few advantages. Get normal MB.