Dirtcheap steadycam: first impression

If you can offer a metal camera stabilizer including shipping for 50,- you deserve the label 'dirtcheap'. The Turkish company Lensse does exactly that. Today I received my 'steadycam' and I was very curious to see what I would get. Shipping: not in a box but in a bubble envelope. And inside the bubble envelope were two additional bubble envelopes: a big one holding the stabilizer and a small one holding the weights. There is a single piece of printed paper with very basic instructions how to set the unit up.
FEEL & FINISH
The stabilizer itself feels far from dirtcheap. It's a simple yet solid design with a nice, comfortable handgrip, an all-metal gimbal and nice little details like anti-slip strips where the camera sits on the stabilizer, a comfortable plastic knob professionally lined with metal threading for attaching (and removing) the weights and a black finish all over. The only part that slipped through quality control is where there is some 'play' between the plastic cap and the screw that holds the weight. But that doesn't affect functionality and is purely cosmetic.
BALANCING
I tried balancing my Canon 550D/T2i with batterygrip and Helios 58mm on it but that didn't work out. Without the batterygrip I'm sure it would have worked. Then I mounted my Panasonic GH2 with Lumix 20mm and that felt right. I was able to balance it fairly quickly.

dirtcheap steadycam

Some sort of steadicam-device is part of many filmers' toolbox but somehow rarely used. (And then there's a few that completely overdo it and use the 'fly-cam' all the time.) I guess that's because we are always under pressure to get the shots and the steady-shot is -usually- not essential for the edit. And most of us have never really mastered the technique.
I once bought a Steadicam Merlin and used it maybe 5 times in my paid productions. That's almost 200 bucks per shot! And they never lasted longer than 4-5 seconds because that would be the point where the rig started to bop and sway... I never really got the hang of it and I'm sure that's because I didn't practice enough. I finally sold it because I couldn't balance my EX1 on it. Two months or so later I bought my DSLR and they would have worked together perfectly... It figures.
A week or so ago I saw some nice results that someone achieved with a 100,- Hague steadicam device much like the Merlin design, but in a budget version. He wrote he was able to stabilize it fairly quickly. I paid 9 times that much for my Merlin and the results looked the same. So I became interested and noticed these stabilizers are sold under different names. The (Turkish?) company Lensse seems to be the source manufacturer and sells them even cheaper. I decided that if I could win an eBay auction for around 50 euro's I would buy one. And I did! So if I only use it 5 times for my productions, that would amount to 10,- a shot. I can live with that.