It has come to our attention that some people think that the combination of Minimax together with the Cinema Flex vest is too expensive. In this post I will explain how we look at it and why the price for that combo is higher than just a standard Minimax.

We understand where you’re coming from. You enter a site and see that the price difference between the Standard Minimax and the Minimax with the Cinema Flex vest, thinking that we’re just trying to make female camera operators pay extra.

This is far from the truth, in fact, we at Easyrig have always striven for equality with all our products, as well as equality at our premises. We saw that this industry always released products that fit the body of men better than women, as well as gearing their products towards men. We even did that for a while! But after listening to our users we realized that we needed to do something, it was at this time we designed the Cinema Flex vest.

The Cinema Flex vest is equal to the Cinema vest in cost, even though it’s more expensive for us to assemble. The price between Cinema & Cinema Flex as well as Gimbal & Gimbal Flex will always remain equal, we would never want to play favor to either men or women.

But when it comes to Minimax, we only have one model. It’s built to be as cheap, lightweight and simple as possible. It’s greatly appreciated all over the world as the “go-to” Easyrig for lightweight camera setups.

Some users reached out to us, saying that the vest isn’t comfortable for their body type, which we understand. We then told them that our vest solution is universal! Meaning that you can combine any system with any vest.

A lot of women jumped on this train, combining the Cinema Flex vest with the Minimax arm. It got so popular that B&H started listing it as a product on their page. It was as this time we started getting e-mails about “playing favors” to the males in the industry.

The reason why the Cinema Flex together with the Minimax is more expensive is the simple reason that it’s not made for the Minimax system – it’s made for our larger systems such as the Easyrig 3 (Cinema 3) and the Easyrig 5 (Vario 5). This is the same as the Cinema vest (which also can be used together with Minimax).

Here’s a list of why the Cinema Flex together with the Minimax is more expensive than just a standard Minimax:

The materials is more expensive.
The Cinema Flex vest is adjustable in 9 places, the Minimax vest is adjustable in three places.
The Cinema Flex vest is built to carry weights up to 55 lbs (25 KG).
It’s the same as with the Cinema vest, that combination would be just as expensive (Cinema+Minimax).
If you purchase the Minimax+Cinema Flex combo, you can upgrade to our larger systems for a low cost, since you already have the correct vest. This is not possible with the Minimax since it’s too flimsy and lightweight and does at all provide the same support.
The Cinema Flex takes two times longer to sew compared to the Minimax.
It’s not produced in the same quantity, thus making the cost higher.

We hope that we cleared some things up – if you’d like to know more please send us an E-mail. We’re not perfect – but we try our best to continue to develop our products and listening to our customers demands. We really like getting feedback from you all – though we felt like this was just a big misunderstanding. If you feel like the Minimax is uncomfortable and you’d like us to redesign it to fit more body types, please tell us. Right now everyone talks about the price, it’s important to enlighten us with the actual problem, maybe the Minimax isn’t adjustable enough?
The Ambassador-page is now up and running as well, one of our Ambassadors Blaire Johnson (USA) uses the Cinema Flex+Minimax combo – reach out to her if you want to ask someone that actually uses that particular setup.

With Kind Regards
Pontus