Being a regular Digital Camera World kit reviewer since 2022 I’ve tested the products of well known brands such as Hollyland, SmallRig and Godox on multiple occasions. However the Neewer iPhone Cage is the first Neewer product that I’ve put to the test, though I have recently started to notice the Neewer logo appearing on devices in friend’s studios (and in adverts on my social media feeds).
Neewer produce a wide range of photography and video products, from lighting equipment such as LED panels, flashes and ring lights to video monitors and microphones.
The Neewer Cage for iPhone 15 Pro Max falls in the lower price range of their output but as someone who predominantly shoots professional video on my iPhone 15 Pro Max I was very interested in putting the cage through its paces, especially as I’d lined up the services of a stuntman (thanks Matt Igwe!) to film a parkour sequence.
There is also a version of the cage designed to fit the iPhone 15 Pro.
Neewer PA024K Cage: Specifications
NEEWER PA024K Cage: Price
You can pick up the Neewer Cage from Amazon in the UK or the States for $89 / £69 at the time of writing and can be found on Amazon. This is a good price that undercuts some of the more established competition, although there are cheaper options, but with far more questionable quality.
NEEWER PA024K Cage: Design & Handling
The Cage kit consists of a black aluminum frame that fits securely around your iPhone 15 Pro Max, plus two attachable metal handles. Unlike larger cages such as the SmallRig All-In-One Kit, the NEEWER cage is only a little larger than your iPhone so it doesn’t take up us much space in your kit bag. Once you’ve slid your iPhone into place (and clamped the cage shut with a locking lever) you need to attach two handles to the cage for a better grip on your iPhone.
The handles screw easily into place courtesy of textured screws and you can mount them on either side of the cage for shooting in landscape orientation, or place them in the threads on the top and bottom of the cage to shoot portrait-orientated clips for social media sites. The two handles are made of smooth metal but provide a very secure grip. By holding your iPhone mounted between the wider spread of the cage’s two handles you can iron out the smaller jerkier movements you’d get if you simply held the ‘naked’ iPhone in two hands. This enables you to perform smoother and more controlled camera moves such as pans, tilts and crane shots.
The Neewer cage also has a 67mm thread filter mount so you can attach filters such as the Neewer ND2-32 Filter (sold separately) to your iPhone when shooting in high-contrast locations. The kit also ships with a 17mm lens mount for attaching iPhone lenses (sold separately).
The Neewer iPhone cage is most similar in design to the SmallRig Brandon Li iPhone 15 Pro Max cage, though its handles lack the cold shoe mounts found on the SmallRig kit’s handles. The NEEWER kit does have cold shoe mounts on the cage itself, so we were able to attach a JOBY Beamo LED to our iPhone for shooting parkour in our location’s darker corridors. This cold shoe mounted LED was especially handy when shooting in the gloomier corridors of our test location as the iPhone Camera’s Action Mode needed plenty of light to stabilize the handheld footage of our fast-moving parkour practitioner.
One note of caution is the cage’s compatibility with certain wireless mic receivers. If you have a cable-free USB-C plug-in receiver such as that on the Hollyland Lark M2 then the handle of the cage obscures the receiver’s access to your iPhone’s USB-C socket. This is only an issue if you are shooting in a horizontal (landscape) orientation. If your wireless mic’s receiver is connected to your iPhone via a USB-C cable then you’ll be able to attach it to the iPhone without any obstruction from the cage.
NEEWER PA024K Cage: Performance
To test the NEEWER Cage I shot a parkour sequence with my iPhone 15 Pro Max mounted in the cage. I was able to follow my fast-moving subject’s every move without fear of dropping the iPhone (and I was also able to run after him while gripping the cage with both hands - see supporting video).
The combination of the cage’s wide-spread handles and the iPhone’s optical image stabilization (OIS) hardware meant that my handheld while running tracking shots was gimbal smooth (as you’ll see from this section’s supporting video footage). Thanks to the cage’s ‘easy to grip’ side handles I was able to smoothly rotate the iPhone through 360º to follow the subject as he performed a summersault.
In theory, I could have used a gimbal to perform a 360º rotation but getting the speed of the roll axis to match the subject’s rotation would be a challenge. By shooting our subject’s summersault using a handheld cage I was able to start rotating the iPhone at the correct time and match the speed of the subject’s rotation with precision. I do enjoy using gimbals for action sequences but by using a cage-mounted iPhone you can work more quickly as you don’t need to spend time changing the gimbal’s mode between PTF (Pan Tilt Follow), PF (Pan Follow), L (Lock) or Inception mode (where it rolls through 360º).
The Neewer cage enabled me to follow every move of my parkouring stuntman as it happened while producing gimbal-smooth results and a cage won’t run out of battery power! (Though I was a bit tired after two hours of running about!)
Another welcome feature on the Neewer Cage for iPhone 15 Pro Max was a 67mm thread filter mount on the front of the cage. This enabled me to attach a NEEWER ND2-32 Filter (sold separately) to the cage. By rotating the filter via two metal handles I was able to reduce the amount of light entering the iPhone’s lenses so I could capture detail in the bright sky as my subject somersaulted through the air. The cage also ships with a panel that you can use to place lenses (sold separately) over your iPhone’s wide-angle camera.
Neewer PA024K Cage: Verdict
As you’ll see from our test video the Neewer Cage for iPhone 15 Pro Max enables you to shoot complex yet gimbal-smooth camera moves without having to change gimbal shooting modes or worrying about gimbal battery life (and the cage kit is much cheaper than a gimbal too!). The cage’s cold shoe mounts enable you to add extra devices such as an LED or mini shotgun mic to your iPhone set-up. Combined with your iPhone the Neewer cage is an effective alternative to shooting with dedicated action cameras such as the GoPro Hero 12 or the DJI Action 4.
✅ Buy this if...
- You want to shoot gimbal-smooth iPhone footage (without a gimbal)
- You need to attach an LED or shotgun to your iPhone set-up.
- You need a comfortable way to shoot portrait and landscape printed footage
- You need the iPhone’s buttons to be accessible via the cage
🚫 Don't buy this if...
- You need cold shoe mounts on cage’s handles
- You need to plug in a wireless mic receiver
