L-plates, camera plates, and lens plates
When buying camera equipment, one of the most confusing areas I have found is in the area of lens plates and camera plates. Therefore, in this post I will attempt to give the best explanation of them possible. This information, with hope, will save you some money in the future, as you can quickly spend a lot of it when you start getting into brackets.
Lets get some basic definitions out of the way before we start.
Tripod – Those things, usually with three legs, that we use to hold our camera still. Note that when you talks about professional tripods, only the legs are considered. The head is sold separately.
Tripod Head – There are many types of heads you can buy for tripods – ball heads (the most common), panoramic heads, gimbal heads, panning heads, etc. However, the important thing to remember is the tripod isn’t very useful without a head. The head is what you put the camera on.
Plate – There are a number of different types of plates, which I will explain in more detail later in the post. The short definition, though, is a plate is what allows you to place your SLR on the tripod head.
Bracket – This is a general term, but when I write about brackets here I generally mean something that holds something for the camera. Usually, brackets hold lights – and flash brackets are among the most common types of brackets. Note that macro rails and panoramic heads are not brackets.
OK, now that we have some basic definitions, lets look at what types of plates there are.
One of the original and most popular ball heads to be released is called the Arca-Swiss ball head. These ball heads are still made, though they are no longer the most popular ones out there. Still, they revolutionized a technology where metal plates are attached to the camera that allow one to attach the camera to the tripod head very quickly. As other tripod heads were released, many of them followed the standard introduced by Arca-Swiss by making their heads compatible with the metal plates used for Arca-Swiss. Therefore you’ll see a lot of tripod heads and plates advertised as Arca-Swiss compatible. Most of the main manufacturers are compatible, but that doesn’t mean they are interchangeable.
There are two main types of plates.
a) Those that attach to the camera itself.
b) Those that attach to telephoto lenses with lens collars.
Typically, you will need both types of plates. You will need one camera plate for each camera you own and one lens plate for each lens you own that has a tripod collar. If the lens does not have a tripod collar, no lens plate is necessary – but you will still need a plate for the camera. All plates are manufactured for specific cameras and lenses, so you will need to look on the plate manufacturer’s web site to see which ones you need.
There are two types of camera plates available.
a) Standard camera plates. These fit on the bottom of the camera.
b) L-plates. These also screw onto the bottom of the camera, but also take up the left side of your camera. Each side has a groove, which allows you to place the camera on the tripod both vertically and horizontally.
Which type of camera plate should you buy? The main disadvantages with the L-plates are the higher price and more bulkiness. However the better L-plates are barely noticeable on the camera. Personally I use an L-plate and never remove it from the camera. From researching online I decided to buy the RRS L-plate and am very happy with it. Better L-plates will allow you access to all controls on the camera and will allow the camera to sit in your hands almost unchanged from when the L-plate is not attached.
Before I get more into lens plates, I thought I would discuss the main companies that build these plates. There are essentially three main companies out there that build top end brackets and plates. All of them are very similar in terms of quality.
Kirk Photo – I currently use their lens plate for my MP-E 65 (though I will have to replace it as you’ll see below), and their macro rail. I like the macro rail a lot and find it much less bulk than the RRS rail.
Wimberley – Probably most known for their gimbal head and car bracket, I do not currently own anything from them. However I do plan to purchase their macro flash bracket and I plan to use their lens plates.
Really Right Stuff – I currently use their L-bracket. Their stuff tends to have the sleekest designs, though I find some of them a bit less practical than Wimberley’s and Kirk Photo’s (for instance their macro flash bracket and macro rail – though don’t get me wrong – they are still top notch).
When you get into lens plates, things can become trickier. The reason is many brackets are attached to lens plates. In the absence of a lens plate, many attach to the camera plates, but there are fewer compatibility issues here.
Therefore, if you solidly believe that you will never purchase a bracket for your camera, then you’re probably safe assuming that it doesn’t matter what company’s lens plate you buy. However, if you do buy a bracket you may be in for a rude surprise.
The particular issue I ran into is I plan to buy a macro flash bracket for my MT-24EX. For those not familiar with the MT-24EX, it is a dual headed macro flash. Therefore, I need actually two flash brackets instead of one. I’ll go into detail some other time why I want to do this, but it came down to deciding between the RRS flash bracket and the Wimberley Shape-Shifter macro flash bracket. The Wimberley makes use of two separate flash brackets – one for each head. The RRS flash bracket uses two separate arms – each of which attaches to a bracket that goes around the lens.
If this is confusing, here is the RRS flash bracket – note that for the MT-24EX you need to add another head and two extension arms. You can see the Wimberley solution here.
After some research, the Wimberley came out the clear winner as it is more versatile and about $200 cheaper. However, because I am using the MT-24EX, I need two flash-brackets. To accomplish this, Wimberley lens plates are designed with double dovetails. Basically this allows you to attach something both to the top and the bottom of the lens plate – which allows me to attach both flash brackets. The RRS lens plates are also double dovetailed, but the Kirk plates only have a single dovetail. The RRS flash bracket needs only a single dovetail – because both arms attach to the single ring, but I had to be difficult. Therefore I will have to sell my Kirk plate (which luckily also fits the 100mm 2.8 macro) and buy a Wimberley one. I could also buy a RRS lens plate but I prefer to put one order in.
I should also note that some people, rather than using lens plates, replace the entire collar or just the foot of the lens. RRS and other companies offer a number of replacement collars and feet, and this is a bit more compact as you do not have the extra plate on the foot (the replacement collar/foot have the dovetails built in). Personally I find this to be an overly expensive solution. Most lens plates cost around $50. A replacement collar with foot costs around $200. For $150 I have no issues carrying a few extra grams of weight.
In general, it seems that RRS lens plates support Wimberley brackets and vice versa. This does not seem to be the case with Kirk plates. However, if you buy a Kirk bracket, then you will need to have Kirk plates – RRS and Wimberley plates will not work. As Kirk does have very interesting macro flash brackets and flash brackets in general, it is worth considering what type of plate you want. As I like the Wimberley brackets a bit better, for me the decision isn’t very hard.
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Tags: bracket, camera plate, L-bracket, lens plate, photography, plate, tripod