Vivo X200 Ultra Custom Photography Kit – Powered By Telesin
Recently, I bought a used Vivo X200 Ultra. I upgraded from an X100 Ultra, which I was using with the official photography kit.
And before the X100 Ultra, I was using my OPPO X6 Pro with a crapy grip too, with just a “shoot” button.
If you get used to using these grips, you’ll find it hard to live without them later. So my hunt for a grip for my new and amazing X200 Ultra started. I tried to buy the official one, but no luck. Couldn’t find a seller with a logical price and good communication.
And because I live in Hell (Turkiye), I was out of options. We, Turkish citizens, are not allowed to buy anything online greater than $30. including shipping! So we need good communication with the seller before buying things. Anyway.
Later, I’ve read good things about a 3rd party grip in the Vivo subreddit, from a brand called Telesin, and wanted to give it a try, mostly because it has a working “zoom” slider that works over Bluetooth and a two-step shutter button etc.
How does it look? Awful!
Sticking out from the phone like a stick 🙂
But for my luck, the main Bluetooth unit of the grip is removable, clips in its place with magnets. So I decided to build my custom grip as a wooden keyboard builder 🙂
I started like this, found some waste wood which was lying around, Turkish walnut, and started carving with my Dremel, using a CNC bit. Well, I never have the proper tools, but my passion for making things.
After 2 days of carving, sanding, and testing, I finally came up with this.
Now that the handle is almost done, I need a magnet. Remember the crapy handle? A perfect donor 🙂
Carving the needed part for the magnet from wood wasn’t easy, thanks to my new sanding bits for Dremel helped a lot though. The goal was to make the hole kit as thin as possible. And because the MagSafe metal ring on the case was in an awful place, thanks to the giant camera island of the X200 Ultra, things weren’t looking good. Anyway.
I reinforced the middle of the magnet with a piece of wood. So I can use wood glue now to make it stronger and handle some weight.
The final design for the magnet handle. After gluing it to its place, the best part came, oiling the wood parts 🙂
I used two handsome screws to join the two parts; no glue was used this time. The reason is to be able to modify the kit for another phone later, if needed.
Looking good right? The color of the grip handle turned out to be so beautiful, look at the patterns!
It looks better in real life 🙂.
Now, a single-handed grip and photo shoot are available on my Vivo X200 Ultra. And as a bonus, you can use the camera control button too, thanks to the proper replacement of the grip.
The soft and organic touch of the wood, I wouldn’t change it to any other material. As you can see from my wooden keyboard on the back, there is no turning back 🙂