A Little Smallrig DIY

I’ve been loving using the OSEE T7 monitor (and before that, their HCM-700). But, both had one tricky point I wanted to overcome.

I like mounting anti-twist NATO rails onto my monitors, so I can quickly pull them out of my bag, mount them in a tilt/twist mount and get off and running. But, it’s weirdly hard to find short NATO rails with anti-twist Arri locating pins that use a 1/4″ screw.

I noticed the Smallrig NATO rail for the Atomos Shogun 7 had that configuration though, and grabbed one to see what I could do.

First off, I ran into two (easily solvable) problems, and here’s what you’ve got to do to make it work.

The rail was too long, since the Atomos monitor is slightly larger… but that didn’t stop me from mounting it since it just hung off the edge a bit.

The anti-twist Arri pins were too long, so I couldn’t screw it in all the way. Nothing a little sandpaper and elbow grease couldn’t fix though. After that, I grabbed an angle grinder, cut it short and sanded it smooth. The safety pin popped out and rolled off somewhere, and it’s not pretty, but it works!

I did notice the metal mount on the Osee is not perfectly flush with the plastic casing, so there’s a tiny gap between the rail and the monitor, but it still works 100% like it should.

While I’m very happy to finally have a NATO rail that works for this setup, I JUST NOW noticed that Smallrig also makes a few mounting plates for the Atomos Ninja V, which also have 1/4″ screws and locating pins. I’m not sure if those would once again be too long and need to be sanded down, but it does seem like those plates would make for a prettier and easier solution than this. However, I can’t seem to find them sold separately and the 3 piece set for the Ninja V is double the price of this single rail for the Shogun 7.

I’ll talk to Smallrig about it and, who knows, maybe we’ll have another blog coming soon to show how that works in comparison.

For now, if you’re looking for a workaround to mount your monitor like this, give it a try!

https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-mounting-plate-for-atomos-shogun-7-cma2520.html