Transcript

As beautiful and elegant as the iPhone is there's one thing they left off, and that's a tripod screw. There's no way to screw the iPhone into a tripod without an external accessory. This is an area where I can recommend one product and that is the Glif from Studio Neat. 

This is just a damn fine tripod mount for any phone that fits in your pocket. Studio Neat made several of these over the years but this final design is perfect because it's got a ratchet inside here with a locking mechanism. You just pull this lever back and you can pull it open.

I've got mine attached to an iPhone 11 Max size with a case on it and you can see it fits around it just fine but if you had a much smaller phone, it would ratchet it down for that as well. So no matter whether you have your phone in a case or out of a case or you start with a little one and go to a big one.

This Glif mount will work, and it's rock solid. I like this so much that I have two of them. I keep one with my iPhone photography gear and I have another one just in my backpack because I always find I have uses for it.

Once you get this attached to your phone, you've got three separate mounting points for putting it on a tripod so of course you’re going to need a tripod too. I'm not going to cover the big size tripods in this video, but there are some small ones that I really like.

The one I use most by far is the JOBY Micro. This is the smallest tripod I've ever seen. It's about the length and width of a stick of gum, and only slightly heavier. Not only does this fit in your jeans’ pocket, this fits into coin pocket inside your jeans’ pocket. 

You just twist it to unfold it and then you can screw it into the bottom of the Glif, and you can have your iPhone on a tripod virtually anywhere. I've taken many beautiful tripod shots with this JOBY Micro and the Glif tripod mount setting my phone on a trash can or a towel at the beach or any kind of crazy place where I can set my phone down.

If you need something more robust, I'd recommend something like this Manfrotto. It will also almost fit in your jeans’ pocket. It's very portable. It can definitely fit in a purse or a bag, and it gives you a little more height than the JOBY Micro. Beyond that, the sky's the limit. Once you have a tripod mount in your phone with the Studio Neat Glif, you can attach it to anything with a tripod screw. 

Studio Neat also makes this cool handle that has a tripod mount on the end. Once you screw your phone onto that you can carry it with a nice handle, and it makes shooting video much easier. Given the iPhone’s built-in image stability, it actually does a very good job of shooting stable video as you're walking, holding your iPhone with this wooden handle.

But like I said at the beginning of this video the starting point is getting those reliable tripod mounting screws on your phone. And I think the Studio Neat Glif is the place to go for that.

If you're looking for just the bare minimum tripod mount for your phone, I would recommend the JOBY Micro plus the Studio Neat Glif. You can put those both in your pocket and have them with you, no matter where you go and be able to take really great tripod base pictures with your iPhone.