Just got my hands on what I think is going to be a permanent fixture in my camera bag.  It’s a smart phone tripod and monopod – all in one compact little device.  It’s called POP Scope.

POP Scope

Crafted very nicely from stainless steel and aluminum, this is a breeze to set up and put away. The padded grip grabs your phone very securely, I mean VERY securely, and lets you tilt it up to 90 degrees.

The center section then extends out as far as you need it, up to 21.5 inches.  With an extension like that, you can certainly get your phone above the crowd at concerts, sporting events, school plays, etc. Standing up, that means I can get the phone over eight feet in the air. Nice.

On my desktop, it’s ideal to set up as a tripod anywhere from 6.5 inches all the way up to 21.5 inches.  No more shots looking up the bottom of my nose.  I can now level the phone exactly with the level of my eyes.

The Kickstarter site says it will hold your phone in its case up to ¾” thick.  My unit (which is a pre-release sample) only opens to 17/32” (slightly over ½”) so it wouldn’t hold my iPhone in a Mophie Juice Pack Air case, but it did hold it in all the other cases I use.

That one little item aside, I think this is something that is a great deal for the price. There’s a Kickstarter campaign going on right now to fund the full scale production of POP Scope, so head on over to Kickstarter and check them out. First visitors get the best deals.