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.