If You Own a GoPro, Then You Need a Karma Grip Hand-Held Stabilizer

The GoPro Karma Grip is the same gimble stabilization that is used on many drones and professional camera rigs, but in a handheld version that for $299 will make all your GoPro videos 299% more amazing.

Mount your HERO 5 natively, or get the adapter to mount your HERO 4 or HERO Session, and start capturing the smoothest videos you’ve ever filmed. The Karma Grip can be used hand-held, but in typical GoPro fashion, it comes with a mount that can be used to attach the stabilizer to your existing body, bike, and board mounts.

Your GoPro works seamlessly with the Karma Grip, charging simultaneously and with the ability to offload footage without removing the camera.

Watch my field test with it below.

This video, (part of a larger adventure edit coming soon), was my first real test run using the GoPro Karma Grip and I was simply blown away! I take my GoPro’s on nearly every adventure of mine, but for mountain biking and snowboarding, the shots are almost always unusable. But not anymore.

On the steep, narrow, winding Wright Ski Trail, in the New York Adirondack Mountain’s High Peaks area, the Karma Grip gave me beautifully smooth, watchable snowboarding footage!

Also seen prominently in this video is the Peak Design Capture Camera Clip on my left pack strap. This is another go-to camera accessory if you spend a lot of time shooting in the outdoors, and Peak Design’s Capture POV clip is compatible with your GoPro and your GoPro Karma Grip for chest mounting. If you opt to grab one of these clips, use coupon code “EXI-PEAKD” for 10% off.

At the moment, I seriously don’t have anything bad to say about the Karma Grip. This little stick has just taken all of my videos to the next level. Or even a few levels. It’s like I just got the raccoon tail in Super Mario and now I can fly over all the bad scary stuff, jump around in the clouds, and gobble up gold coins. That’s pretty much my feeling about how awesome this stabilizer works and how much it is improving my GoPro videos.

So final thoughts, if you have a GoPro, or are in the market for one, start putting your pennies aside and get yourself the Karma Grip! Everyone you subject to watching your POV footage from skiing or biking next Saturday will thank you.

BUY KARMA GRIP

Jonathan Ronzio
Jonathan Ronzio

Founder & Host

Founder, Explore Inspired | CMO, Trainual | Co-Host of The Stokecast Podcast | Mountain Athlete | Award-Winning Adventure Filmmaker | Keynote Speaker

2 Comments
  1. Thanks for the review. I’ve been torn between the Karma Grip and an EVO gimbal for my GoPro Hero 5. Your footage looks great. How was the battery life?

    1. No problem! The EVO does look sweet, and I like that it has a joystick for more control of the camera, but I see pros and cons to that. The big pro being better shot control with more complex manual movements. But the biggest con in my mind is that it’s one more thing to focus on. For just everyday stuff – walking, filming family life, vacation, hikes – that’s no big deal, and even a great added feature. But for riding, skiing, biking, etc, I don’t want one more thing taking my focus away from the fast changing trail ahead, or having my glove possibly bump the control and ruin the framing.

      The Karma Grip just takes a little bit of practice to get the feel for how the camera moves depending on how you position the handle and move your wrist (up/down, side to side), and it has a “lock” feature for when you want to turn the cam to look up, down or sideways without the gimble coming into play and keeping the shot forward-facing. Also, I’m a big fan of the GoPro mount compatibility so I can rig the Karma Grip onto my chest with the Peak Design POV Capture clip or use any other GoPro mount on the neck of the stabilizer.

      As far as battery goes, I was impressed. It wasn’t terribly cold when I first tested it, and GoPro’s are notorious for draining fast in the cold, but the Grip stayed on filming continuously for about 45 minutes on this descent of Wright Ski Trail, another 30 minutes later that night looking through footage, a few hours the next day running around a nearby field practicing crevasse and avalanche rescue techniques, and still had 2 of 4 lights left on the battery when I got back home. That was on a single charge, and it charges your GoPro while its on and in the mount too. Hope that helps! Cheers!

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