At CES 2015, the trend seemed to be Selfie Sticks. Many of us are thinking “Why?”. Like why do we need one of these? A Selfie Stick is exactly what you think it is, a way for you to take pictures of yourself – a.k.a. a Selfie – a bit further away than your arm would normally reach. Which means you’d get a bit more of you in the picture. I actually wasn’t using the XSories Me-Shot as a Selfie Stick, but instead to get higher up shots at events and such. Because I can stick my Sony RX100 M3, or the HTC RE Camera on top of it, and get some really good pictures. At events like CES 2015 and MWC 2015, that’s going to be a great tool to use.
Build Quality
This is a $60 stick basically. So you’d better hope the build quality is top notch and it is. It’s aluminum with a rubber grip at the bottom for you to hold on to. The version I have is in orange, but it also comes in black or pink. It extends to about 3 feet. Which isn’t bad, and for a selfie shot, you probably don’t need one that far. It feels really sturdy in the hand, yet it’s still pretty light.
Controls
There’s actually no controls on the Selfie Stick. But there is an app that you can use as a remote to take pictures. So obviously that doesn’t work out well when your phone is on the selfie stick. But with my Sony RX100 M3 it’s great because the Sony Play Memories app allows me to use my phone to take pictures through it. So it works, just not all that smoothly.
Final Thoughts
It’s really not a bad accessory for what it does. But I have a hard time justifying $60 for a stick that you can put your camera on. Think of it like a tripod, but one that you’re holding. For photographers it’ll probably be something they’d buy, but for those of us that aren’t into taking a 100,000 selfies a day, it’s hard to justify that price. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below. For those wondering, here’s what it looks like with an actual camera on it.
