For many years one of our most popular camera accessories was a car window camera mount. This was a simple gadget that had two rubberized legs that would clamp onto a car’s side window and then support a camera by means of a ball head located on the top of the legs. We sold hundreds of them over the years, and then the manufacturer went out of business. We went out looking for a replacement but what we found was much, much better.
The Promaster Clamper is an odd looking contraption. Made of metal, the Clamper has one longer leg of about 10 inches with a ball head at the top. Just below the ball head is a pivot joint with two clamping legs attached. Each leg is about six inches long. The short legs attach at the pivot joint with a tensioning thumb screw that allows the short legs to be positioned wide or closed as needed. One of the short legs also has a thumbscrew controlled tensioning joint that we’ll get to in a moment.
With the three legs of the Clamper opened it becomes a tabletop tripod. In this position the ball head is about eight inches off the surface that the tripod rests on. It is very stable and the ball head and leg locks will support up to eight pounds which is more than I would suggest mounting to a car’s window.
If the Clamper were just another tabletop tripod we would have taken a pass, but as the name implies this tripod alternative has quite a grip and it can be clamped onto any support that will fit between its jaws.
Tree limbs, sign posts, fences all become potential Clamper supports. The shorter legs act as the clamping jaws and that tensioning thumbscrew I mentioned earlier is used to put just the right amount of squeeze on to hold everything firmly in place. The Clamper can grab onto any object up to six inches in size and use it as a support.
The Clamper not only grips tree limbs, it turns out that it is ideal for car windows too. Again, using the clamp legs to pinch the car’s window it is possible to support your camera firmly and securely. The rubberized clamp feet won’t scratch the glass and their slightly sticky material all but eliminates any creep.
As with any device that clamps onto glass care needs to be taken not to over tighten the clamping jaws. Otherwise the Clamper not only replaced our defunct car window camera mount it also could replace a number of our tabletop tripods too. For smaller cameras Promaster offers the Clamper Jr. designed to hold compact cameras and other gear up to four pounds.
