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Oct 23, 2024

Jebutu Camera Arm Desk Mount review: a lightweight table-mounting stand for content creators | Digital Camera World

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. I like that the ‘Jebutu OS-02 Desk Mount Stand with Overhead Arm’ (to give it its full title) is

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

I like that the ‘Jebutu OS-02 Desk Mount Stand with Overhead Arm’ (to give it its full title) is lightweight but feels pretty strong with a 2kg / 4.4lb load rating, and that it has telescopic center pole and mini ball head. I’m not so keen on the plastic adjustable joint for its auxiliary arm, which feels relatively flimsy and fiddly to use.

Fairly sturdy telescopic center pole

Includes an auxiliary arm

Ball head and phone mount included

Fiddly plastic clamp for auxiliary arm

No additional ball head for aux arm

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Proving that tripods of floor-standing or tabletop varieties aren’t the only gig in town, this is a support that attaches to a table or desk via a clamp. It’s ideal for content creators who need to present to camera, from across a desk, or for videoconferencing. To add versatility, it comes complete with an auxiliary arm, which you can screw in to the top of the center pole or attach via a separate clamp. The kit also includes a spring-loaded phone mount, so you can use the support for a phone as well as for a camera or light. It’s made by Jebutu which, to be honest, isn’t a company I’ve ever heard of, but this camera desk mount is one of the cheapest on the market so I thought I’d give it a go. The Jebutu aims to be one of the best camera desk mounts but if you’d rather go for something freestanding, you could also consider one of the best tabletop tripods or even one of the best budget tripods.

Camera desk mounts don’t tend to be very expensive to buy but this one is downright cheap, costing around $23/£29 from the likes of Amazon. For comparison, the SmallRig Camera Desk Mount which comes with two auxiliary arms costs around $30/£35, while the up-market 3 Legged Thing CDMS-2A looks and feels a more professional affair and also includes two auxiliary arms, costing around $60/£47.

Picking up this Jebutu desk mount, I was immediately struck that it’s relatively lightweight. The main center pole which has a table clamp at one end and a mini ball head at the other only weighs 350g / 12.3oz. Even so, the clamp can accommodate tables or desks with a thickness of up to 50mm / 2” and comes with rubber pads on the upper and lower sections, to avoid damage to furniture.

The center pole itself is telescopic, featuring two sections of 22mm and 19mm in diameter, with a twist-action locking mechanism. But that’s only half the story. While the center pole has a minimum/maximum operating height of 38-63cm / 15-24.8", the kit includes an auxiliary poles as well, which has a diameter of 19mm and length of 41cm / 16". If you just need more height, you can unscrew the ball head from the top of the center pole and add the auxiliary arm as an extra section.

Things get a bit more fiddly if you want to attach the auxiliary arm to the center pole via the supplied clamp, so that you can use it at any angle. The clamp is a relatively unconvincing plastic affair and you have to unscrew one side of it completely to attach it to the pole, before reassembling it. Alternatively, you can remove the ball head from the top of the pole and squeeze it on to the top section without pulling it apart. At least the other side of the clamp only has to be unscrewed enough to slide the auxiliary pole through the aperture. The joint at the center of the clamp has splines to help keep it at your selected angle without it sagging.

I’d have liked to see a secondary ball head supplied in the kit, so that I could use one on the center pole for a camera and, for example, the other for an LED lamp or other accessory mounted on the auxiliary arm. As it is, one or the other is fixed in place, attaching to a standard 1/4” thread. On the plus side, the kit does include a spring-loaded phone mount that attaches to the ball head or arm via a threaded brass socket.

I tested the Jebutu Camera Arm Desk Mount with a Sony A7 II and kit zoom lens, that have a combined weight of about 920g / 2lb. Attaching the clamp at the bottom of the center pole to a desk or table is quick and easy. A little time and effort is needed when attaching a camera to the ball head, as there’s no quick-release plate. That’s something that’s fairly common with desk mount systems.

The twist clamp for the telescopic center pole enables free and smooth movement when releasing it about half a turn. It also locks up nice and tight to avoid any unwanted sagging. As I’ve mentioned, the joint for attaching the auxiliary arm is a more long-winded process but, thanks in part to the splines at its center, the arm can also be locked firmly in place. However, the angular increments enabled by the splines are quite far apart, so there’s no scope for fine adjustments.

Rigidity is fairly good but the stand proved a little more wobbly than some that I’ve used, for example if you accidentally knock the desk or table to which it’s mounted. I found that to be the case when using the center pole on its own, especially with the inner section extended, and more so when using the auxiliary arm. Overall, performance is good rather than great.

The thing I like most about the Jebutu Camera Arm Desk Mount is that it’s so cheap to buy. If you’re only going to use this sort of mount occasionally, it makes sense to spend fairly little on one, and the Jebutu certainly scores highly for value. It’s mostly well made and I like that it comes with an additional auxiliary arm. I just wish the clamp for the arm wasn’t so fiddly to use and came with a second mini ball head, and that the overall stand was a bit more rigid.

Something of a Rolls Royce product, the 3 Legged Thing Computer Desk Mount system is lavishly engineered, luxuriously finished and works wonderfully well. Three kits are available, comprising just the center pole with table clamp and ball head for $35/£27, the CDMS-1A kit, which adds a single auxiliary arm for $50/£39 and the range-topping CDMS-2A kit with center pole and dual arms at $60/£47.

From the popular budget brand, the Neewer Camera Desk Mount with two auxiliary arms enables you to mount a camera plus an accessory like an LED panel, and is priced at around $40/£44. It has a load rating of 4kg / 8.8lb for the center pole and 0.9kg / 1lb for the auxiliary arms.

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Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and has tested more primes and zooms than most people have had hot dinners!

His expertise with equipment doesn’t end there, though. He is also an encyclopedia when it comes to all manner of cameras, camera holsters and bags, flashguns, tripods and heads, printers, papers and inks, and just about anything imaging-related.

In an earlier life he was a broadcast engineer at the BBC, as well as a former editor of PC Guide.